This is such a great episode! Awesome to see more of Kato - bringing out the nunchucks too!! Also, Miss Case is always so remarkably beautiful. Thank you for uploading the series!
Wende Wagner was a very proficient swimmer who did some stunt work on the old Lloyd Bridges TV show Sea Hunt; Wende was also an expert Scuba diver as well. She did some modeling on the side, too! ☺️
Great show, perfect casting. Would be hard to duplicate this chemistry of action acting skills. Green Hornet was my single favorite half hour as a little kid, back in the 60'. Needed more than just 26 episodes. Nice to see this epic series again.
It's a real shame this show never lasted more than one season. I never thought much of it as a kid, but now it's one of my favorite shows from the 60s. I enjoyed the fact that they had a campy show like Batman and contrasted it with a program that took itself seriously. Would it have really hurt to pick it up for just one more year?
HarbingerOfBattle I loved how it was more realistic than Batman ever was. The equipment Hornet and Kato used was plausable, no campy BAM POW KACRAK crap. And none of the villians were costumed cornies crap, closest was John Caradine as the Scarf but he was a legit serial killer. And the Black Beauty was 10x better than the Batmobile.
+HarbingerOfBattle Arguably, the realism was good and gave it more of an edge than Batman, but in retrospect, the scenes shot day for night, with the bad filters, made anything outside, nearly invisible. Granted, they were probably on a tight schedule, but you'd think once they saw the early dailies, they'd fix that.
Batman starring Adam West was created to appeal to young children. And that it did. All the colorful costumes appealed to little kids. And those little kids were loyal to their favorite show. It is because of them that the show lasted three seasons. My friend's 6 year old son did not understand anything about Wing Chung and other martial arts. He just knew that Batman was colorful and fun to watch. And he also would get to wear a colorful Batman costume his mother made for him. I was like that little kid when I was 10. When I became and adult and a friend of mine who is a Wing Chun instructor began to give me an understanding about the art, I then began to see the show the Green Hornet in a new light. Now I could much more appreciate how Kato would beat up guys much more quickly than Batman and Robin ever could during their long battles with lots Pows, Bams, etc and cool Batman fighting music.
That's a good point. I recently watched two episodes in black and white, which is how most people would've watched it in 1966, and many of the day for night scenes were hard to see. I love the tone of the show also but it was out of sync with the times. Also the 30 minute adventure show was a 1950's formula. There was only one other half-hour adventure show in prime time in 1966; T.H.E. Cat. It was also dropped at the end of the season. Ratings and economics killed the show.
Nobody said that filming at night would have been better ( too expensive anyway). The fact that the day-for-night was inconsistent in that ,some shots were actually brighter than others may have actually helped. You could see what was happening.
"Ahhh, c'mon Hornet, all ya had ta do was knock". That has got to be the funniest line in the whole series, which is not especially known for being very humor filled.
True that. The 1966 Batman was deliberately campy and tongue in cheek. But the Green Hornet took itself quite seriously. And it's better for that. I can't imagine Bruce Lee being a comic sidekick, he's too good of a fighter to be turned into a joke.
@Hotshotter3000 Amen to that! Though, it was especially refreshing to see Kato cracking a smile, with an accompanied short laugh, near the tail end of the episode's climax. I find it even more impressive that they somehow managed to shoehorn in both the Green Hornet and Kato in one exceptionally memorable Batman episode back in the '60's, "A Piece of the Action ", executing things so masterfully between both the campy cape crusaders and the more straight laced Hornet and Kato, without making the latter pair come across oafish and ridiculous looking. IMO, that was definitely one of the absolute best comic book crossover attempts in the entire TV viewing history since I've been alive... reruns or otherwise!
Rand Brooks, who played the game hunter Conway, was Lucky Jenkins for several Hopalong Cassidy Westerns movies and shows. Thank you for uploading these shows.
The Green Hornet was a lot edgier than the campyness of Batman, still to this day think ABC pulled the plug on it too soon and should gave given it a second season to get the audience numbers up and if it didn't then pull it, loved both Batman and Hornet which was a nice contrast to Batman, forever a piece of my 60s childhood, atleast I can see a few episodes on RU-vid, Thanks..
William Dozier (who produced The Green Hornet and Batman) asked ABC/Greenwood Productions after the first season to expand the show to a full hour if a second season was to happen. ABC simply wouldn't do it (costs etc) so The Green Hornet was canceled. The late Van Williams said he was glad that it only lasted only one season as it was a very tiring show to do physically and as well as how hectic/rushed it was to put out a 26-episode season. Mr. Williams did say that he loved working with the cast and became lifelong friends with Bruce Lee and admitted that Mr. Lee was only one of the very few people who were truly his friend.
The Cato Show in Hong Kong. I watched it first run, we all watched for Bruce Lee in the US. Fact, the Green Hornet’s author also was the Lone Ranger; the Green Hornet is the descendant of the Lone Ranger.
This episode reminded me of an episode of the Avengers that aired early that year. "Small Game for Big Hunters" - 15 January 1966 UK - An English tropical jungle harbors a pompous professor, a mad colonel, a war-painted spy, and a bioweapon against an African nation.
did any notice that the henchman who Kato took down with a spear hand throat strike, body punch , and then a hip toss was judo Gene Le Belle who taught Bruce grappling and chocked out Seagal .
Considering Hornet is the "Hero" and Kato is just the sidekick, you'd think Hornet could take care of himself a little better. Of course, when Bruce Lee is playing the "Sidekick" no way to keep him from *not* stealing the scenes.
The late Van Williams became very good friends with Bruce Lee and he knew that most people watched The Green Hornet to see Mr. Lee in action. As such he tried to get the writers to incorporate Mr. Lee into more of the storylines instead of just being his "sidekick"
I love how it’s daylight as they get into the car, then suddenly night time ( dark lens filter ) once they’re in the car, then daylight again once they arrive at destination. Even by 1960’s standard this filmography was crap. It’s up there, or more accurately “ down there “ with Batman and Robin climbing the walls with the Batrope. It was really done on the cheap. And it shows.
did anyone else notice this little discrepancy? michael tabor. jockey of the year. 1948. i knew the show was set prior to the sixties, but didn’t realize it was that far back! or was that from the radio show and never changed? how neat that crane gets caught in his own trap! bud crocker talks tough, but is such a wimp when confronted by the hornet and kato!
Every remake America makes these days is trash, with mindless banter, bad language instead of good dialogue, and carbon copy actors. Leave the Green Hornet alone, I'd say. That 2011 movie was atrocious enough.
What a great show. Maybe the best to only last 1 season. The best part of every episode was anticipating when Kato was going to kick bad guy ass. Miss Case was a babe.
Both "Batman" and "The Green Hornet" were both broadcasted on ABC. There was a rumor saying DC Comics (owned "Batman") gave a choice to the network; either cancel the show or we're taking "Batman". DC Comics were afraid "The Green Hornet" might be more popular and beat "Batman". That is what I heard, don't know it's true. The Green Hornet comics was published by Dynamite Comics, which was not as big as DC Comics, so who do you think that ABC listen to?
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