Goober and the Ghost Chasers

Okay, I freely admit that this is not the most momentous day in show business history, although it may be somewhat of note to people precisely my age: today marks the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the Saturday morning cartoon show Goober and the Ghost Chasers. I stumbled on the image above recently and its existence came rushing back into my memory; it only ran for the one season, September-December, 1973.

Apart from the Columbia Shorts Department I can think of no entertainment production studio that plagiarized its OWN programs more than Hanna-Barbera. Goober and the Ghost Chasers was almost identical to Scooby Doo, except it was cluttered up with a lot of confusing additional premises. One is that, on this show, there would always be GENUINE ghosts who would help Goober and his three human friends solve the mysteries, which (as on Scooby Doo) would always involve criminals (or non-criminals) masquerading as ghosts. The element of actual ghost detection was one of the many reasons I was so disgruntled and unimpressed when the movie Ghostbusters premiered about a decade later. It seemed like the entire universe was afflicted with amnesia. Why is everyone raving about how original this comedy is? It’s the premise of 10,000 Saturday morning kids shows, including another one literally named Ghostbusters! In addition to this, Goober (voiced by Paul Winchell), would fade out and go invisible himself from time to time, kind of like Esmerelda from Bewitched, and also would speak directly to the audience in humorous asides that the other characters wouldn’t hear, like a sit-com comedian, complete with laugh track. Oh and also, about half of the episodes featured the kids from The Partridge Family, in a crossover from their own cartoon show.

“What’s that noise, Danny Bonaduce?

And there were other celebrity visits from the likes of basketball star Wilt Chamberlain (recalling such things as The Harlem Globetrotters cartoon and their crossover film with Gilligan’s Island, which also had its own cartoon show) and Michael Gray, the kid on Shazam! Goober’s three human friends were played by Ronnie Schell, Joann Harris, and Jerry Dexter. Oh, and surely Goober’s very name comes from George Lindsay’s character from The Andy Griffith Show and his knit woolen hat from Michael Nesmith of The Monkees?

And yet…the show looks to the future as well. Because that look the art department devised for Goober so very much anticipates what we think of as a ’90s slacker. Can’t you see him getting high on a second hand sofa listening to Alice in Chains?

By the way, today is also the anniversary of the premiere of a much better remembered Hanna-Barbera show, The Super Friends. We wrote about that show here.