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The Green Hornet

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The Green Hornet was an American radio program that ran on WXYZ (Detroit), the Mutual Network and the ABC Blue Network from January 31, 1936 to December 5, 1952. Created by WXYZ's George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, who also created The Lone Ranger, the juvenile adventure series initially starred Al Hodge in the title role, followed by Donovan Faust (1943), Bob Hall (1944-51) and Jack McCarthy (1951-52). The radio show used Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" as its theme song, blended with a hornet buzz created on a theremin.

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[edit] Radio series

The series detailed the adventures of Britt Reid, debonair newspaper publisher by day, crime-fighting masked hero at night, along with his trusty sidekick, Kato, a Filipino of Japanese ancestry. With the outbreak of World War II his Japanese heritage was almost completely dropped, leading to the common misperception that the character's nationality had been switched by the show's writers. (When the characters were used in a pair of movie serials Kato's nationality was inexplicably given as Korean.) Reid is a close relative of The Lone Ranger. The character of Dan Reid, who appeared on the Lone Ranger program as the Masked Man's nephew, was also featured on the Green Hornet as Britt's father. The Lone Ranger's name is often incorrectly stated to have been John Reid, an error first made in a volume called The Big Broadcast in the 1970s. In fact, however, writers for WXYZ never provided a first name for the character.

In the original introduction of the radio show announcer Mike Wallace proclaimed that the Green Hornet went after criminals that "even the G-Men (FBI agents) couldn't reach". The show's producers were called by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover who prompted them to remove the line implying that some crime fighting was beyond the abilities of the FBI. During World War II, the radio show's title was used as a codename for SIGSALY, secret encryption equipment used in the war.

[edit] In other media

[edit] Film serials

The Green Hornet was adapted into two movie serials both in 1940. The first, self titled serial starred Gordon Jones in the title role, while The Green Hornet Strikes Again starred Warren Hull. Keye Luke, the famous #1 son of the Charlie Chan films, played Kato in both. Even though America wasn't in the war yet, Kato's nationality is stated as Korean.

[edit] Television

Inspired by the success of the Batman series, ABC brought The Green Hornet to television in 1966-67, an adaptation which introduced martial arts master Bruce Lee to American audiences and starred Van Williams as the Green Hornet. Unlike Batman, the TV version of Green Hornet was played straight, but in spite of the considerable interest in Lee, it was cancelled after only one season. However, the rise of Lee as a major cult movie star ensured continued interest in the property to the point where proposed Green Hornet productions typically have the casting of some major martial arts film star as Kato as the first order of business. Lee's popularity in Hong Kong, where he was raised, was such that the show was marketed there as The Kato Show.

While the music of "Flight of the Bumblebee" was strongly identified with The Green Hornet Billy May wrote the new theme song, which was played on trumpet by Al Hirt. Years later, this music was featured during a key scene in the 2003 film, Kill Bill, which paid tribute to Kato by featuring dozens of swordfighters wearing Kato masks during the film's key fight sequence.

The TV series displayed the Hornet's car, Black Beauty, a 1965 Chrysler Imperial customized by Dean Jeffries. The car's regular headlight cluster could be flipped over to reveal green headlights. It could fire tiny explosive charges from tubes at its bumpers, which were said to be rockets. Mr. Jeffries built two vehicles for the series. One is now in the Petersen Automotive collection in California, and the other is in a private collection in South Carolina.

The TV series also employed an audio device from the radio show. In its era, the engines of cheaper cars made a lot of noise; the expensive Pierce-Arrow was reputed to be extremely quiet. So, when the Green Hornet said, "rig for silent running," the hornet-like buzz on the radio show was turned off and the listener was left to imagine that the car really was silent. On TV, the car sounded like a modern car, but the noise was removed from the soundtrack after this command.

[edit] Comic books

Green Hornet comic books began in December 1940. These were originally published by Helnit, but passed to Harvey Comics with issue # 7. The original series ended in 1949, having run to 47 issues. (Though the title was changed to Green Hornet Fights Crime in issue #34 and Green Hornet, Racket Buster in issue #43). In 1967 Gold Key Comics produced a 3 issue series based on the tv series.

In the 1990s a comic book series from Now Comics, written by Ron Fortier and illustrated by Jeff Butler, attempted to reconcile the different versions of the character. The Britt of the radio series had fought crime as the Hornet in the 1930s and 1940s before retiring. The television character was revealed to be the nephew of the original Britt Reid, who took up his uncle's mantle. In the comic a young descendant named Paul Reid takes on the role of the Hornet and is assisted by a new, female Kato, as well as the Kato who assisted his predecessor. The male Kato was also featured in his own spin-off miniseries, written by Mike Baron, in which he took the job of bodyguarding a heroin-addicted rock star. According to Fortier, it was the addition of the female character, Mishi Kato, that led to the comic series' cancellation.

There were two Green Hornet series from Now, as well as various annuals, miniseries, and spin-offs. The first began in 1989 and lasted 14 issues. The second volume began in 1991 and lasted 45 issues, ending in 1995. And, like Tonto before him, Kato got his spin-offs: a 4 issue series in 1991, and a two issue Kato II series in 1992.

There were two different versions of the Black Beauty used in the Now comic series. The first was loosely based on the Corvette Indy concept car. Painted black and green, as a sports/exotic car, it was a big change for the Black Beauty limousines used by all Green Hornets before. With the various changes to the series, the Black Beauty was again changed to a 4 door sedan, this time based on the 91-96 Oldsmobile 98 Touring Sedan.

[edit] Recent developments

A new film version of the character has been in the works for decades. Screenwriter John Fusco created a screenplay for the film around 2002; as of the summer of 2004, Kevin Smith was writing a screenplay for a new rendition of The Green Hornet which was originally scheduled for release in 2005. It was rumored that Jet Li would portray Kato and Jake Gyllenhaal would play the Green Hornet.

In 2004 Kevin Smith put the film on the back burner. After a long downtime in which his status with the project was unknown, Smith announced at the 2006 Wondercon that he officially no longer has anything to do with The Green Hornet [1].

A ten-minute The Green Hornet fan film was released in 2006. The short film was produced by Aurélien Poitrimoult and is, along with a making of featurette, distributed free on the Internet.


[edit] External links

es:Avispón Verde fr:Le Frelon vert ja:グリーン・ホーネット

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