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| 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. |
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Grad the Entire 3 DVD Set for Only $9.95 |
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Disk 1
01
The Silent gun |
Disk 2
11 The Hunters And
The Hunted |
Disk 3
21 Bad Bet On A
459 Silent |
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All of our Old Time Radio programs are from our own private collection, and are considered to be in the public domain and have not been sold commercially as far as I know. This is a service only and we are not actually selling the programs. We make no claim of ownership or copyright of the programs. |
