Rest in Peace to ‘Space Ghost’ Actor George Lowe, the Greatest Voice in Adult Swim History
Earlier today, the adult animation community learned of the passing of voice acting legend George Lowe at the age of 67. There’s now a Space Ghost-sized hole in the heart of every cartoon fan who understands why we even have an Adult Swim in the first place.
Before Cartoon Network committed to courting the market of adults and teenagers who also enjoyed animated comedy shows about zany, supernatural characters with the now-institutional programming block Adult Swim, the channel tested the waters on mature-ish cartoons by having legendary TV executive Mike Lazzo make a subversive, surrealist talk show hosted by a lesser-known Hanna-Barbera character. Space Ghost Coast to Coast first hit the airwaves in 1994 and introduced a massive, yet-untapped audience of men in their 20s who love cartoons and cannabis to the superhero-turned-late-night-host who would change the course of TV history forever.
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The late Lowe played the title character in Space Ghost Coast to Coast for all nine original seasons, the 17 revival episodes on Game Tap and in the five Space Ghost specials in a performance that spanned three decades and sparked the explosion in the adult animation genre. Every subsequent Adult Swim voice star owes Lowe an interstellar debt of gratitude.
In his performance on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Lowe struck a supernaturally effective balance between the deep baritone seriousness of an old-school, Adam West-esque superhero actor and the surreal, alt-comedy, stream-of-consciousness-style humor that would come to define the late 1990s and early 2000s in animated adult comedy. Lowe’s combination of melodrama and vaguely sociopathic absurdity was so powerful that it propelled Lazzo’s Williams Street Productions and the emerging adult animation genre to taking over an entire time slot, as reruns of Space Ghost and the show’s devoted cult following became the bedrock upon which Lazzo built Adult Swim in 2001.
Back in late 2023, Lowe spoke to Cracked about his experiences in laying the foundation for Adult Swim, his hilariously combative interview with West himself and his reverence for the original Space Ghost character, explaining that, at first, he felt like he was living in the shadow of the original voice actor, broadcast legend Gary Owens. “Every Saturday morning, I sat down with my best friend Larry and my best friend Tom and watched the original cartoon,” Lowe explained. “I especially loved how Gary Owens did that big voice — ‘SPAAAAACE GHOOOOST!’ — right at the beginning.”
“For the first couple of episodes, I was almost trying to do a send-up of Gary Owens’ voice,” Lowe admitted. “But I realized the laughs were bigger when I was doing me saying things like, ‘On tonight’s program, Michael Stipe from R.E.M.!’”
Once Lowe literally found his voice, Space Ghost Coast to Coast became the most original, electric and medium-shifting show on television, and there are now dozens upon dozens of voice actors on Adult Swim who are trying to live up to the casual insanity that Lowe introduced to the world of comedy just as he looked up to Owens’ performance. No matter how much the genre of adult-focused comedy cartoons changes, Lowe and Space Ghost will always be the gold standard of vocal performance, and the legacy of Space Ghost will live on whether David Zaslav and Max like it or not.
