"The Green Hornet" (1966) TV series 1966-1967

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Creator:

George W. Trendle

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

9 September 1966 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime

Plot:

A newspaper publisher and his Asian valet/martial arts expert battle crime as the feared Green Hornet and Kato.

Plot Keywords:

Kato | Green Hornet | Secret Identity | Mask | Kung Fu

Cast

Van Williams	...	Britt Reid / ... (26 episodes, 1966-1967)
Bruce Lee	...	Kato (26 episodes, 1966-1967)
Wende Wagner	...	Lenore 'Casey' Case (26 episodes, 1966-1967)
Lloyd Gough	...	Mike Axford (26 episodes, 1966-1967)
Walter Brooke	...	District Attorney Frank P. Scanlon (26 episodes, 1966-1967)
William Dozier	...	Narrator (26 episodes, 1966-1967)

Also Known As:

The Kato Show (Hong Kong: English title) (informal title)

Runtime:

30 min (26 episodes) | 99 min (movie version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Australia:PG | USA:TV-PG | Argentina:Atp

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

The theme song for this show was the same as for the radio version: The Flight of the Bumble Bee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Quotes:

The Green Hornet: [taking routine inventory on his gadgetry before cruising into action] Hornet gun... check. Hornet sting... check. Let's roll, Kato!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Hollywood Screen Tests: Take 2 (1999) (TV)

Ahead of its time...

Being an avid comic book fan, watching the BATMAN tv series as a kid made me ill; it lent credibility, I thought, to the wonky "seduction of the innocent" scenario espoused by one gonzo nutso. Along came THE GREEN HORNET, and suddenly there was a good reason to watch superheroes on tv again. These guys were serious about stopping crime: they went after drug dealers (unheard of at that time on television- at least the television I watched) and murderers (something superheroes very, very rarely did in the comics of the day). To top it all off, The Hornet's sidekick, Kato, hit below the belt. For a kid who'd grown up on comics, this was a tv show with real grit. I was fascinated by Bruce Lee's Gung Fu. Kato stole the show, to be sure, but that's not to suggest that The Hornet was just another masked man: Van Williams was a solid performer in his own right, and was totally believable in the lead. I've since listened to the old radio plays (which I love; they rank right up there with the best of THE SHADOW), and have recently acquired the entire tv series on video tape. Guess what: the show still holds up, after all these years. The two features that were cobbled together from various episodes were watchable, but nothing beats the series in its original format. If anyone's listening (anyone with clout, with a good eye for a potential goldmine just waiting to be mined), I'd suggest putting four thirty minute episodes per tape in a six-tape boxed set and selling it for whatever the market will bear. Think of it this way: bootleggers have been selling washed-out third generation copies (for far more than they're worth) at comic conventions for decades. Let it slide, and those aforementioned bootleggers will continue to rip off people dying to see the series and the network that financed the series in the first place will continue to lose millions of dollars.