The Space Ghost Halloween Collection, Chapter One

Others have said it, and I'll agree: Clay Croker was a weird comedic genius: one of the founding minds behind Adult Swim, and one of the primary voices in my beloved Space Ghost Coast to Coast. In his honor, we're watching three four episodes of the show, with some spooky guests. (None of the eps are embeddable, though they're all currently free-to-stream, so click on through. I'll wait.)

Episode the first is from Season Two, entitled "Girlie Show."

Spacey has arranged a tribute, of sorts, to Women in the Entertainment Industry. Moltar shows us a montage of womanly arts, thanks to the Turner/MGM film library, (Zorak, of course, wants a tribute to Jack Klugman instead, so he goes on strike.) Fran Drescher appears, and Space Ghost, naturally, falls in love with her.

And after Ghosty learns that Fran is married, and Zorak taunts him with the idea of her (speculative) marriage to The Professor from Gilligan's Island, Carol Channing attempts to bolster his spirits with her upbeat, sparkling joy. (It doesn't work, partly because she also turns down his advances.)

So, naturally, determined to charm his way into the third beautiful guest's heart, he calls for the lovely Alice Cooper. Yep, sometimes Thaddeus Ghostal doesn't know much about anything at all. Alice tells us that he was born wearing eye makeup, though he never killed or bit anything on stage, really. And then he's gone too, and Zorak takes over with a montage of Klugmania.

My favorite Zorak moment from this episode: I love that when Space Ghost warns Zorak to watch his mouth, he can't, since "it's too ... underneathy." (Also, like so many other episodes, there's a bit where Zorak and Moltar both laugh at Space Ghost, and the two laughs are very very distinct, even though they're both Mr. Croker.)

Sidebar: I should also point out that Don Kennedy also shows up as a voice in this, only his third appearance on SGC2C. He's best known these days as the voice of Tansut, though my father and Clay Croker both knew him best as a kiddie TV host in the 50s and 60s.  (My dad STILL quotes "The Ooey Gooey" at any occasion.)

As an episode of SGC2C, I rate this 6/10. It's a great early show, with plenty of banter between Space Ghost, Zorak, and Moltar.
As a Halloween show, I rate this 3/10. Alice doesn't get to do any scary stuff, but Zorak does mention The Twilight Zone. (The answer to his trivia question, by the way, is four!) The underscore to Zorak's Klugman montage is properly nightmarish, but short.