Space Ghost Coast to Coast/Piledriver

Piledriver
Season 4, Episode 18
Airdate	November 14, 1997
Production Number	9718-51
Written by	Rich Dahm Alan Laddie Mark Banker
Directed by	—
← 4x17 Hipster	4x19 → Suckup
Space Ghost Coast to Coast — Season Four

Piledriver is the eighteenth episode of the fourth season of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and is the fifty-first episode overall.

Guests: Rob Zombie (Himself), Raven Symone (Herself)

Voices: George Lowe (Space Ghost), C. Martin Croker (Zorak/Moltar), Dave Willis, "Macho Man" Randy Savage (Leonard Ghostal)

Plot Overview

Space Ghost brings his grandfather, Leonard Ghostal to the show and interviews an indignant Rob Zombie. After Zombie starts to verbally assault Space Ghost, Leonard tries to get Space Ghost to do something about it. When he doesn't, he goads him into going off to fight some unnamed evil on another planet. After Space Ghost flies off, Leonard takes over the show and finishes the interview with Zombie. Unfortunately for him, when he tries to blast Zombie, his power bands fizzle and die.

Meanwhile, Space Ghost is being held captive by the Mind Taker, but only because his heart just isn't in the superheroing business anymore. Meanwhile, back in the studio, Leonard tries to interview Raven Symone, but spends most of the time namedropping wrestlers. After a while, Zorak sneaks up behind him with a folding chair and brutally attacks him. At this point, Space Ghost comes back to find his grandfather dazed and beaten on the floor. Leonard blames Zorak, who blames Raven, who gets blasted by Space Ghost. While Space Ghost blasts Raven, Leonard sneaks up behind Zorak and gives him the beating of a lifetime.

Suddenly, the violence is stopped when a saucer crab that appeared earlier in the episode comes to the Ghost Planet and asks for Space Ghost so that they can deliver his weekly beating. When Space Ghost wusses out and backs down, Leonard takes flight and is captured by the ship. They then reveal that it was all a ruse to help Leonard get away from his grandson. They fly off to give Mary Hart a beating.

Notes

Guests

• Rob Zombie: Rob Zombie was the founder, singer and songwriter for the American heavy metal band White Zombie. At the time of the interview, White Zombie was on its last legs. The remix album Supersexy Swingin' Sounds was released a year prior and Rob Zombie was beginning to focus on his solo career (which would release its first album in 1998). In recent years, Zombie has become a horror director, most notably directing movies like House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects.

• Raven-Symoné: Raven-Symoné was a child actress who appeared on television shows like The Cosby Show and Hangin' with Mr. Cooper. Following the end of Mr. Cooper, Raven appeared in several films like Dr. Doolittle. In recent years, Raven has dropped the "Symoné" from her name and has become a cornerstone of Disney Channel original programming shows like That's So Raven.

Trivia

The Show

• Special Thanks: There are special thanks credits for WCW and Gordon Solie. At this point in time Randy Savage was working for the WCW and Gordon Solie was an announcer for Florida Wrestling.
• Real World: The wrestlers that Leonard Ghostal name drops are all real wrestlers. Several are old and obscure, but they are in fact real.

Allusions and References

• Haystacks Calhoun: Haystacks Calhoun was often billed as the "World's Fattest Wrestler." Calhoun was so big that he was often billed as being 800 pounds. In actuality, Calhoun was 6'4" and weighed over 600 lbs. He died in 1989 of diabetes.

Grandpa Ghostal: Have you met Haystacks Calhoun? He was a mountain of a man! I sent him home to Mommy with a rollin' DDT!

• Mary Hart: Mary Hart has been the hostess of Entertainment Tonight, a syndicated television show based around celebrity gossip since 1982. This explains Leonard's comment about "finally, some entertainment tonight." Although Hart has been a figure of the show for so long, in March 2006 her contract ended, leaving he in limbo, possibly with the option of going to The Today Show with Matt Lauer in order to replace Katie Couric.

Memorable Moments

• Space Ghost gets captured by the Mind Taker and laments in his mind about how the wound caused by getting blasted by the Mind Taker's ray gun is going to get infected.
• Zorak bashes Leonard Ghostal over the head with a folding chair.

Quotes

• Raven-Symoné: I haven't done anything bad yet.
  Zorak: Except for this show! (evil laugh)
  Grandpa Ghostal: Shut up, Blip, or I'll slam your head so far down between your shoulder blades, you'll have to open that vest to face your own anguish as I hold a mirror up to your midsection!

• Grandpa Ghostal: Is, is that you, Thaddeus?
  Space Ghost: Are you alright?! Talk to me, Grandpa, say something!
  Grandpa Ghostal: Your pet monkey hit me with a folding chair.
  Zorak: The, uh, the Cosby kid made me do it.
  Space Ghost: Be gone, wicked girl child of television's "Hanging with Mr. Cooper"!