The 90-Minute Version of "Space Stars"

Did you know that Hanna-Barbera's Space Stars was originally supposed to have been a half-hour longer than it was when it premiered belatedly for NBC's 1981-82 Saturday morning lineup?

The story goes like this: these extra 30 minutes was to have contained a second new Herculoids segment (that's right: there were supposed to have been two Herculoids segments a week for a total of 22 segments), the "Space Science" vignette, and, get this... reruns of The Jetsons chopped into 8-minute segments.

Who really wanted to see these edited reruns of a show that introduced Astro to the world, and who already had a new segment of his own within the existing 60 minutes of Space Stars called Astro & the Space Mutts?

This extra half-hour was dropped because of the mid-1980 actors' strike, which also bumped off Space Stars from its inclusion in NBC's 1980-81 Saturday morning lineup to the same network's 1981-82 season Saturday morning lineup. Luckily, though, the "Space Science" bumpers were preserved for the Warner Archive Collection DVD release of this series that saw the light of day October 8, 2013.

~Ben

My other thought about the 11 missing Herculoids episodes would be: did they consider airing 11 of the older Herculoids episodes (from the 1967 run)?

~Ben

I purchased the "Space Stars" dvd set.

Other unseen short segments included on the dvd had "Space Magic" with one or two Space Star characters performing a magic trick that kids can do at home, a two-part "Space Mystery" that incorporated the "Space Science" topic of the day, music videos with laser light animated backgrounds and cartoony space ships and Space Star characters flying around, and a three-part "Space Code" puzzle clue segment in which the answer can be found in the "Space Star Finale" cartoon story.