Tribute Footage And Clip Of Space Ghost Voice Actor George Lowe In His Final Performance Are Released After His Untimely Death At 67
Another voice of a generation has been silenced. Voice artist and radio personality George Lowe, known best as the voice of Space Ghost for over a decade on Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, has died. He was 67.
Lowe passed away in Lakeland, Florida. His death was confirmed by his agent. His family explained that he underwent an elective surgery in November and had a rough recovery according to Comicbook.com. Beyond that info, they are keeping the circumstances quiet and will have a private memorial service.
Lowe was born in Florida and began his career on the radio in Atlanta for Top 40 station Power99 and later its alternative rock replacement 99X according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the mid-90s, he started portraying the character that defined his career.
Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, which ran sporadically for 11 seasons (some more truncated than others toward the end), reinvented the child-friendly Hanna-Barbera hero as a silly and ornery talk-show host who had a habit of blasting his band leader Zorak into a toasty crisp.
Made on a shoestring budget, the show was Cartoon Network’s first original program mixing animation with out-of-sync live-action interviews with celebrities of the time. (Some of us remember an episode with Tad interviewing Jim Carrey and Chuck Russell about The Mask tacked on as a special feature for the film’s VHS release.)
Lowe embodied the character so well that eventually, his personality bled more and more into the recording sessions. “We would just turn on the mic the second he entered the room,” show writer and producer Dave Willis said to The New York Times. “Over time, the character took on certain aspects of George in a way that really made the show work.”
Lowe became a permanent member of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim’s talent roster, voicing other characters that include himself and a unicorn on the programs Robot Chicken, The Brak Show, Squidbillies, Sealab 2021, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
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His last performance as Space Ghost was in the less adult Hanna-Barbera ensemble cartoon Jellystone! In the Season 3 episode “Kabong Along with Me,” the Ghost is back in action to save the Earth from a meteor shower of meatballs. The episode is streaming on Max, but a clip of Lowe’s work in it is making the rounds online.
Adult Swim honored Lowe’s memory with a montage of outtakes from a 10th-anniversary celebration marking his first decade as Space Ghost. Watch it below. (See you, Space Cowboy.)
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