George Lowe, voice actor known and beloved for his irreverent Space Ghost, dies at 67
A statement from the family would be forthcoming, the representative said. No cause of death was given, though friend and radio host 'Marvelous Marvin' Boone wrote Tuesday on social media that Lowe had died after 'a long illness.'
'I'm beyond devastated,' he said on Facebook. 'My Zobanian brother and best friend for over 40 years, George Lowe, has passed away after a long illness. A part of me had also died. He was a supremely talented Artist and Voice actor. A true warm-hearted Genius. Funniest man on Earth too. I've stolen jokes from him for decades. He stole some of mine. He was also the voice of Space Ghost and so much more.'
Casper Kelly, the writer-producer-director behind Adult Swim's 'Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell,' remembered Lowe on X, writing, 'Wonderfully kind and funny man. Brilliant improvisor. Art collector. Raconteur. Space Ghost was genius and helped usher in a new wave of oddball tv.'
Voice-over actor Billy West said Tuesday on X that Lowe 'was mighty and one of the best of the best VOs ever. Very generous of spirit and very kind… and funny funny funny. He will be missed.'
'My heart is broken. George Lowe was one of the funniest people I've ever known and one of the nicest people to ever exist. You will be missed more than you know my friend. RIP,' Tim Frasier, an executive producer at iHeartRadio subsidiary Premiere Networks, said Tuesday on Facebook.
'Incredibly heartbroken to learn that long time broadcasting buddy George Lowe (Official) has passed away,' radio host and voice-over artist Roy Hersey said, also on Facebook. 'One of the most creative and funniest people I've ever known. We worked together at Power 99 in Atlanta before he became the voice of #spaceghostcoasttocoast on the Cartoon Network. ... I visited with him just recently at his home in Lakeland, Florida. So glad I got to see him one last time. If there is a heaven, he's got 'em in [stitches].'
Lowe was born Nov. 10, 1957, in Dunedin, Fla., and worked in radio before moving to voice acting in the 1990s. He was also a visual artist and art collector, according to the American Visionary Art Museum, ultimately amassing hundreds of works including Pop Art prints by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and others.
Space Ghost, who originated in the 1960s on CBS (courtesy of Hanna-Barbera Productions) , evolved in the 1990s from a serious fighter of outer-space supervillains into an irreverent talk-show host on a show that mixed animation and live-action.
'Space Ghost Coast to Coast' was billed as the first late-night show to feature a cartoon superhero as its host, and during its run from 1994-99, and off and on until 2012, it welcomed 'guests' including Björk, Adam Carolla, Conan O'Brien, Bob Costas and Michael Stipe of R.E.M., to name a few. The guests were filmed live and inserted into the animated show.
On the premiere, diet guru Susan Powter, comic Kevin Meaney and the Bee Gees were Space Ghost's guests, accompanied by his TV band — led by former archenemies Moltar and Zorak.
Lowe took over the Space Ghost gig from 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In' announcer Gary Owens, who voiced the superhero during his early, more serious stints in the 1960s and 1980s. Owens, who died in 2015, made a cameo appearance as Space Ghost replicant 'Gary' in a Season 5 episode of 'Coast to Coast.' In the episode, Lowe's Space Ghost destroyed Owens' replicant.
'The great thing about Space Ghost is that he'll be returning at a time when heroes like X-Men and Batman are especially popular,' former Cartoon Network executive Mike Lazzo told The Times in 1994. 'Here we have a hero working with his former enemies and there's a completely loopy, nutty spin, making something for both kids and their parents.'
Lowe voiced numerous roles on Adult Swim shows including 'Robot Chicken,' 'The Brak Show' and 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force,' and in 2024 voiced Space Ghost in the Season 3 'Space Con' episode of 'Jellystone!' The voice actor spent time in recent years meeting fans at various Comic-Cons and similar gatherings.
Art by Lowe is hung at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Georgia Museum in Athens, Ga., the Polk Museum in Lakeland, Fla., and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, according to the latter museum's website.
Former Times staff writer N.F. Mendoza contributed to this post.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
3 hours ago
- Forbes
Adam Silverman: LACMA's Seeds and Weeds are Ceramic Art
LACMA Seeds and Weeds, Installation view, Los Angeles, 2025, Ceramics has long oscillated between the functional and the artistic. California has a long tradition of makers who span the chasm between the two, from Beatrice Wood to Jonathan Adler. Among the LA ceramic artists who began making functional pottery and who, in the last decades, migrated to increasingly conceptual artworks is Adam Silverman, who has a show of new work, LACMA Seeds and Weeds, at BLUM in LA on view until August 16, 2025. (BLUM recently announced they will be closing the gallery, so see this while you can). Silverman's early background was in architecture, and he takes special care in how his work is displayed. In the Blum galleries, Silverman has grouped certain pieces that take on additional totemic power together, as well as individual pieces that stand out, positioned around the room, on the floor, on a platform, or on a shelf. Silverman's placement of his work is akin to how a Zen gardener places his rocks, contextualizing the work as worthy of contemplation. Silverman was the 2024 artist in residence at the Skirball Cultural Center, where he showcased his installation Common Ground, a conceptual work for which Silverman collected clay, water, and wood ash from all fifty American states, as well as from Washington DC, and the US Territories of Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands to make the glazes. The final exhibition includes a tableware set of fifty-six plates, fifty-six bowls, fifty-six cups, as well as fifty-six ceremonial pots. For his exhibition at Blum, Silverman has spent the last five and a half years collecting materials from the LACMA demolition, which he refers to as the 'oozing, living history of the city.' Silverman used the materials to make the glazes; he also would blow matter into the kiln while it's superhot in a manner that affects the surfaces of the pottery. Finally, actual demolition debris was incorporated into the pieces. The total effect does not say LACMA, but rather speaks to the primordial location, sitting as it does near the Tar Pits. LACMA Seeds and Weeds, Installation view, Los Angeles, 2025. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Some of the works grouped together, which Silverman calls 'seeds,' look like fossilized dinosaur eggs that have bubbled up from the tar pits. Silverman calls other works on display, 'weeds,' as if they sprung from the seeds. Some of the works recall ancient amphora, others are objects that emanate a certain ancient power as if used once for ritual or commemorative reasons. The borders between ceramics, sculpture and painting are increasingly porous. At one end of the spectrum are participants in the 'Maker' culture a DYI aesthetic powered by the lowering of barriers to entry for object making. At the other end are artists engaging with ancient mediums whose possibilities have been enhanced by technology. Silverman's works speak to place, time, history, and our emotional connection to the objects derived from specific sites. The source of Silverman's site-specific additives is not apparent when you look at the works. Yet they do add a conceptual and metaphorical dimension that enhances our connection to the work. Silverman's ceramics both delight us and haunt us because we know they are man-made and yet contain primordial history.
New York Times
6 hours ago
- New York Times
Raymond Saunders, Painter Who Rejected Racial Pigeonholes, Dies at 90
Raymond Saunders, a belatedly recognized Bay Area artist who decried the art world's tendency to pigeonhole Black artists by race even as he produced paintings that actively explored racial subjects, died on July 19 in Oakland, Calif., just a few days after his first retrospective at a major museum, in his native Pittsburgh, closed. He was 90. His nephew Frank Saunders said he died in a hospital after he had aspirated a piece of food and contracted pneumonia. Mr. Saunders prided himself on his independence from movements. In 1967, he published a now-famous polemical pamphlet, 'Black Is a Color,' which rebutted an article by the poet Ishmael Reed, a leader of the Black Arts Movement. Breaking with the collective spirit of the '60s, Mr. Saunders argued that Black artists should not feel obligated to share social goals, or to use their work to lobby for political change. He wanted to be seen as an American artist rather than be ghettoized as a Black one. 'Can't we get clear of these degrading limitations,' he wrote, 'and recognize the wider reality of art where color is the means and not the end?' Still, he was not averse to exploring questions of identity in his work. 'He wasn't throwing his fist in the air,' the artist Dewey Crumpler, a friend of his in Oakland, observed. 'It was more subtle.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Forbes
a day ago
- Forbes
Artist Xin Liu Gives Voice To Aging Satellites In Orbit
Xin Liu, NOAA: A Fall Towards Home, 2025. Commissioned by Hyundai Artlab Photo Xin Liu Navigating art, science and technology, Xin Liu explores themes of memory, intimacy and the human condition in an age of machines and outer space. With a background in mechanical engineering, interaction design and media arts, her practice often involves poetic experiments that span disciplines, from wearable devices and performances to biotechnology and cosmic probes. Her latest digital artwork, 'NOAA: A Fall Towards Home', commissioned by South Korea's Hyundai Artlab, invites online viewers on a clickable journey from the point of view of three anthropomorphized satellites – NOAA-15, 18 and 19 – each imbued with their own histories, technical quirks and emotional temperaments. Influenced by the final transmissions of real decommissioned NOAA weather satellites, Liu crafted stories shaped by their actual history, flight paths and malfunctions, as they watch 'home' from afar. The first to launch and to fade, 'NOAA-15: The Quiet Elder' drifts through space like a contemplative stargazer, its aging sensors tinted with wonder as it lovingly observes earth from afar, content simply to bear witness. 'NOAA-18: The Devoted Idealist' orbits with purpose and hope, tirelessly chronicling the planet's rhythms as if each data point could prove its worth and preserve a legacy born from loss. 'NOAA-19: The Loving Custodian' is the satellite that fell and rose again, transforming fragility into devotion as it tenderly double-checks its siblings' work, watching over earth with quiet care. With this new creation, Liu turns our gaze back to earth, exploring the existential solitude and quiet observation of these aging machines as metaphors for diasporic longing, technological obsolescence and the search for connection and purpose. In this conversation, she reflects on her origins and becoming an artist. You were born in 1991 in Karamay, Xinjiang. Tell me about your background and how you became interested in art. I grew up in Karamay, Xinjiang, which is a small, remote city in northwestern China. My parents are both surgeons. When I was a kid, I really loved math, physics, chemistry. No one I knew was remotely working in the creative industry; everyone was a doctor or working on the oil fields or for the government. I never thought of the possibility of becoming an artist until very much later in life. I think it's common for children who did not grow up in big cities like Shanghai and Beijing to think that art is a luxury. I only had access to art when I went to college, and for the first time entered an art museum of any sort. I decided to study art after my undergrad. During college, I took a second degree in digital art, mostly because I was interested in gaming. And that was also when social media started to appear in China. I wanted to understand this new industry and the way self-expression was enabled through the Internet. After a couple of years learning game design and interaction design, I just got really hooked with all the possibilities in the arts and ended up applying for grad school. Xin Liu, NOAA-18: The Devoted Idealist, 2025. Commissioned by Hyundai Artlab Photo Xin Liu Studio What did you learn from your time at Rhode Island School of Design and MIT? Why did you decide to study both art and engineering, why do you view yourself not only as an artist but also as an engineer, and what role do research and experimentation play in your artworks? At Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), I had to start from scratch. I had to 100 % learn art history myself because all of my classmates and professors were way ahead of me. I spent most of my first year in the library just reading books on art history and modern and contemporary art. I remember I had this 'wow' moment with Duchamp's work. After RISD, I ended up going back to the tech field because I never saw myself going to grad school to become a professional artist; it was rather a desire to have a comprehensive education for myself. I think it's a pity nowadays that we have all these disciplines that are polishing one's knowledge and ability, but diminishing the potential of individuals to understand the world through various aspects, including technology, art, philosophy, science and even fiction. Education is the soil for my mind, for the construction of my world. I've never felt like there was a distinct separation between art and engineering. They are asking the same questions about what it means to be human in the 21st century. And how do we reconcile all the varieties of practices that take risks, make guesses, act on the edge, iterate and, ultimately, take a leap of faith to create an experiment to propose a theory and to create a piece of art? Describe to me your artistic language and philosophy. What is the most important consideration when you first start creating an artwork? Do you know exactly how it will look like when you start, or are you surprised by the end result? When I first start creating artwork, I often start with a moment that I want to achieve. I think film might be a big influence for me, as storytelling and a moment in a story that we reach is something I seek in my art: a concentration of energy and time you can capture in a sculpture, painting or installation, and slowly you sense it going through you even after you have left the exhibition. That's really what I'm looking for. I don't really know how the work will end up visually or the format of the entire work until much later on, in most cases. However, the sensation that I talked about and the moment that I tried to create do stay truthful to themselves, from the beginning to the end. Why do you choose to live and work in London? I work on probably two or three projects actively at any given moment, and probably two or three group shows every month. I moved to London because my partner's new job relocated us, but I'm also very excited to live in Europe for the first time. I grew up in China and I've studied and worked in the US for almost a decade. Europe is a new, exciting change, and I've been learning a lot already. Xin Liu and her partner Gershon Dublon capturing satellite images in Riis Beach, New York Photo Xin Liu Studio Tell me about your work with decommissioned NOAA weather satellites. This work actually started in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. Living in New York City, I climbed to the rooftop of my Brooklyn apartment. I used a self-made antenna out of broomsticks to receive data from remote satellites. For me, in many ways, technology and innovation are like the satellites that orbit earth really far away, but that are continuously watching and taking care of us and providing access and connectivity. When I talked with the team at BMW about the IPA system and the iDrive system, I learned that the intelligence and technology are really about companionship. I immediately thought about what I did during the pandemic with the satellites because that was my only activity and entertainment during the lockdown, when I climbed to the roof and tried to connect to remote things, which were satellites that had been decommissioned for already 20 years, but that kept orbiting the earth to bring data back. Barely anyone could hear them except for amateur artists like myself. I thought how I could push further on that and how perhaps my attempt to connect could bring some emotions to them or allow for creativity. That's why I imagined a wild dance for them and the video is actually a live simulation that I wrote for the algorithm. The little squares represent vehicles that are being pushed and pulled by the planets that are represented by circles. They give these trajectories that I imagined, where they're hopefully having their own dance while watching us. What were the biggest challenges in the process of making 'NOAA', a commission by BMW first presented in Shanghai, where you were asked to propose a view on the future of AI and automobiles? There is a sound piece in the background and there's noise that is actually data from satellites in space. In the meantime, I think people see technology as providing really exciting opportunities for the future, but also as something a bit intimidating if they don't have the background or knowledge themselves. So for this piece, I tried to make an emotional connection and help people to go to a place that is a little bit farther away from this really exciting metropolitan city. The way I hope that I've managed to do that was to invite my husband to whistle a song that I really like and that's going around in this space.
