While BATMAN Was Campy and Fun, THE GREEN HORNET Was Just Plain Cool
MORRISON MONDAYS Meets 1966 WEEK! — Welcome to 1966 WEEK — a 60th anniversary celebration of an extraordinary, landmark year in popular culture. For seven days, we’re bringing you a whole host of features on everything from Star Trek, to Batman, to the Beatles, to the Monkees, and much, much more. (Just check out Walt Grogan’s latest fab banner, above!) Click here for more of the far out fun! — Dan — By BILL MORRISON The Green Hornet was created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker for radio station WXYZ, a mere 13.2 miles from my childhood home in Lincoln Park, Michigan. The radio station, which also gave birth to the Lone Ranger, was located in the Maccabees building in midtown Detroit. This is a fact I was unaware of until adulthood, but had I known it when the Green Hornet TV series premiered on ABC television 60 years ago this coming Wednesday, my little 7-year old head might easily have exploded. I was an instant fan of the Batman show that had its debut eight months earlier on January 12, 1966, and by fall I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of another pair of masked heroes who drove around in a tricked-out black car, fighting crime. I tuned in for the premiere episode on September 9, 1966, and was not disappointed! The show turned out to be more adult in tone than I’d expected, and the heroes didn’t wear capes and tights, just normal clothes (except for the masks, of course.) Their car looked more like a regular sedan, with no hornet motifs, and I wondered why it wasn’t green instead of black. The villains didn’t wear garish costumes or makeup, just subdued suits and hats. And they didn’t cackle maniacally, or have weirdly-decorated hidden lairs either. But somehow, none of that mattered. It had a really exciting theme song that lodged itself in my brain, great gadgety weapons, exciting plots, and terrific fight scenes. And the narrator sounded like the same guy who set up each episode of Batman, so there seemed to be a link between the shows. Little did I know that both series were produced and narrated by William Dozier! After a cold open, each episode went into the opening credits montage with Dozier’s narration, “Another challenge for the Green Hornet, his aide...
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