George Lowe, the actor who voiced the superhero-turned-talk-show-host Space Ghost on “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast” on the Cartoon Network for nearly two decades, died on Sunday in Lakeland, Fla. He was 67.
His agent, Christy Clark, confirmed the death. His family said in a statement that Mr. Lowe had a challenging recovery after undergoing elective heart surgery in November.
“Space Ghost: Coast to Coast” was the first fully original program for Cartoon Network and the spark that led to the creation of Adult Swim, the network’s late-night programming block. The show, which ran for 11 seasons from 1994 until 2012, reimagined Space Ghost, the title character from a 1960s Hanna-Barbera superhero cartoon, as a temperamental talk show host, in a new format that mixed animation and live action.
Thanks to an enviable lineup of guests — Weird Al Yankovic, Beck and Sarah Jessica Parker were among the celebrities who made appearances — and decidedly off-the-wall interview questions (“Are you getting enough oxygen?” Space Ghost once asked Hulk Hogan), the show became a cult favorite among teenagers and young adults, helping launch Adult Swim into the stratosphere.
At the heart of it all was Mr. Lowe. Dave Willis, a writer and producer on the show, said Mr. Lowe had a “big, booming movie-trailer voice” and approached the role like the morning drive-time D.J. he had been before he got into voice work. His relatable and highly entertaining kvetching, Mr. Willis said, helped shape Space Ghost’s new persona.
Produced on a minimal budget, the show featured interviews with celebrity guests, which were conducted over speaker phone. The guests would hear the questions through an earpiece as they were videotaped in whatever Turner-controlled television studio could be found — or, in one case, Willie Nelson’s tour bus.
Their images would then be superimposed on an animated television monitor beside Space Ghost’s desk.
Space Ghost’s dialogue was written and recorded after the interviews were conducted, meaning that — by design — the answers did not always exactly match the questions, to humorous effect. (“Any advice for us?” Space Ghost once asked his fellow talk-show host Joe Franklin. “It’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice,” Mr. Franklin said. “Give us something we can use,” Space Ghost replied.)
Some guests were confused by the unconventional questions, while others played along. (After Paul Westerberg, the former lead singer and guitarist for the Replacements, who had never seen the show, walked out, Mr. Willis told The New York Times in 2021, they began asking guests to sign a waiver before they were interviewed.)
George Lowe was born in Dunedin, Fla., on Nov. 10, 1957. He moved to Atlanta in the late 1980s and joined the “Breakfast Club” morning show on Power 99, a Top 40 station, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. He went on to do voice-over work for 99X, the alternative rock station that replaced Power 99, and also lent his voice to hundreds of radio commercials and television promos, The Journal-Constitution reported.
Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
Mr. Lowe loved creating abstract art, Mr. Willis said — several of his drawings are in the permanent collection of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta — and collecting prints by Pop artists including Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and James Rosenquist.
Over a career that lasted more than three decades, Mr. Lowe supplied the voices for a number of characters on other Adult Swim shows, including “Robot Chicken,” “The Brak Show,” “Squidbillies,” “Sealab 2021” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.”
But Mr. Lowe was most closely associated with Space Ghost, and was known to dress in full costume to promote the talk show. He voiced the character until the series finale in 2012, and he reprised the role last year in a “Space Con” episode of the Max animated series “Jellystone!”
Matt Hannigan, a producer on “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast” who also directed a short documentary on Mr. Lowe called “Lowe Country,” said that Mr. Lowe was the show’s secret sauce.
“Some people would say one of the hardest things about building a fictional character is imparting humanity,” he said. “Fortunately, we could just kind of steal that from George, because George was the human side of Space Ghost, warts and all.”
Source link
