Painting depicting the television series iterations of the Green Hornet and Kato
The Green Hornet is an American multimedia franchise centered around the titular character — a wealthy newspaper publisher who moonlights as a masked vigilante — and his valet and crime-fighting partner, Kato. The franchise was created by businessman and WXYZ radio station president George W. Trendle and writer Fran Striker, who had previously worked together to create the popular Lone Ranger radio series, which the pair specifically intended The Green Hornet to serve as a modern-day counterpart of. The franchise debuted with the initial broadcast of the resulting radio series on January 31, 1936. It has since expanded into a host of other media including two, four feature films, a live action television series and numerous comic book and prose adaptations. Since the debut of the radio series, the song Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov has been closely associated with the franchise as its theme song.
Multiple upcoming Green Hornet projects are currently in the works.
Creation[]
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Media adaptations[]
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Supporting cast[]
The franchise includes a number of recurring characters who act in supporting roles to the Green Hornet and Kato. The following is a list of characters who appear in two or more media iterations of the Green Hornet franchise. If the full table does not display, scroll over to view additional contents.
| Name | Radio | Serials | Gold. Age | BLBs | TV | IL | DD | Gold Key | NOW | Dyn. | MSBs | 2011 film | Dick Tracy crossover |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lenore Case | Main | Main (1940) Main (1941) |
Main | Main | Main | Recur. | Recur. | Main | Recur. | Recur. | ? | Main | Recur. |
| Michael Axford | Main | Main (1940) Main (1941) |
Main | Main | Main | Recur. | Recur. | Main | Recur. | Recur. | ? | Recur. | |
| Frank Scanlon | Recur. (Unnamed D.A.) (2 eps) (1940) Absent (1941) |
Main | Recur. | Recur. | Main | Guest | Guest | ? | Main | ||||
| Ed Lowry | Main | Absent (1940) Main (1941) |
Recur. | Recur. | |||||||||
| Bill Gunnigan | Recur. | Recur. (7 eps) (1940) Recur. (? eps) (1941) |
Cameo (as City Editor Bill Corman) (1 ep) |
Cameo (Unnamed city editor) |
Guest | Recur. | |||||||
| Britt's father | Recur. | Recur. | Guest (?) | Guest (?) | Recur. | ||||||||
| James Higgins | Main (1947-1952) | Recur. (Unnamed police comm'r) (5 eps) (1940) Absent (1941) |
Guest | Recur. | |||||||||
| Newspaper boy | Main | Guest | Recur. | ||||||||||
| Jasper Jenks | Main | Main (1940) Absent (1941) |
|||||||||||
| Clicker Binney | Main | Guest (1 ep) (1940) Absent (1941) |
Guest (1 issue0 |
||||||||||
| Linda Travis | Recur. | Guest | Recur |
||||||||||
| Sergeant Doyle | Recur. | Recur. | Mentioned | ||||||||||
| Sergeant Moran | Recur. | Recur. | |||||||||||
| Emmet Dolan | Guest (1 ep) |
Cameo | |||||||||||
| Miss Hewitt | Recur. | Cameo |
Legacy and impact[]
The franchise and its title character have had a significant influence on popular culture. The character's success at the dawn of the superhero boom led to the creation of numerous similar characters, such as DC Comics' the Crimson Avenger, the original iteration of the Sandman, and the Blue Beetle (the latter of which originated as a Victor Fox Comics character). The Green Hornet also introduced the concept of the supercar as a part of hero's equipment in the form of the Black Beauty, a black turbo-charged armored car, which has become iconic in its own right. It in turn helped inspire later similar vehicles, such as Batman's Batmobile. The television series, which aired in the United States from 1966-1967, helped introduce general audiences to martial arts and launch Bruce Lee's screen career. Although the series only lasted a single season, it proved immensely popular in Hong Kong and has inspired numerous derivative films and unofficial spin-offs, while others have paid direct homage to it such as Jet Li's Black Mask franchise and Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films. Still other films have used the television series itself as a central plot point, such as Dragon: The Bruce Lee Movie. The Green Hornet and Kato respectively placed at #41 and #17 in Comic Vine's 2011 countdown of the top 100 superheroes.[1]
Other aspects of the franchise have also proven to have an enduring presence in the American popular consciousness: automotive industry resource Edmunds listed the Black Beauty as one of the 100 Greatest Movie and TV Cars of All Time[2], while Big Screen International included the television series' rendition of Flight of the Bumblebee as one of the top 100 TV theme songs[3]. As of 2024, the Green Hornet and Kato are two of approximately forty superheroes to have their own entries in the Britannica Online, the online edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
See also[]
- Green Hornet in comics
- Green Hornet in film
- List of Green Hornet radio episodes
- List of Green Hornet television episodes