Playboy bachelor and media mogul Britt Reid is the owner and publisher of the Daily Sentinel newspaper but, as the masked vigilante Green Hornet, he fights crime with the assistance of his martial arts expert partner, Kato, and his weapons-enhanced car, a custom Chrysler Imperial called the "Black Beauty".

The series stars Van Williams as the Green Hornet and introduced martial artist Bruce Lee to American television audiences as his partner, Kato.

The Green Hornet was the first time broad swaths of the American public saw true martial arts fighting and this led to its increasing popularity.

He most frequently used it to open locked doors, although he was also seen using it to set things on fire (presumably by vibrating them and causing heat through friction) and to threaten criminals to get information.

In the television version, Kato used green "sleeve darts" to give him a ranged attack he could use to counter enemies both at a distance and in hand-to-hand combat.

The impression Bruce Lee made at the time is demonstrated by Kato's Revenge Featuring the Green Hornet, a TV series tie-in coloring book produced by Watkins & Strathmore.

Each episode begins with the following monologue, narrated by producer William Dozier[9] Another challenge for the Green Hornet, his aide Kato, and their rolling arsenal, the Black Beauty.

On police records a wanted criminal, the Green Hornet is really Britt Reid, owner-publisher of the Daily Sentinel; his dual identity is known only to his secretary, and to the district attorney.

1, in which director Quentin Tarantino paid tribute to Kato by featuring the dozens of sword-fighting members of "The Crazy 88" wearing Kato-style masks during one of the film's fight sequences.

After reporter Pat Allen is killed in the Daily Sentinel's eighth-floor city room by a leopard, Britt Reid finds a transmitter in a cigarette box.

Organized crime's "Protection" Boss Duke Slate decides it's time to acquire "the city's Chinatown district" and uses Low Sing's tong to handle his influence.

Low Sing, a martial arts professional, instructs his craft to his gang using the actions of a caged Praying Mantis, analogizing its intricate moves to proper Kung-Fu application.

Later that same season, the Green Hornet & Kato appeared in the two-part second-season episodes "A Piece of the Action"[21] and "Batman's Satisfaction", which aired on March 1–2, 1967.

[10] In the two episodes, the Green Hornet & Kato are in Gotham City to bust a counterfeit stamp ring run by Colonel Gumm (portrayed by Roger C.

One other appearance of The Green Hornet, Kato, and Batman was broadcast in the Autumn of 1966 on a Milton Berle Hollywood Palace television variety show.

[23] The TV series featured the Green Hornet's car, The Black Beauty, a 1966 Imperial Crown sedan customized by Dean Jeffries[24] at a cost of US$13,000.

[25] A set of switches on a secret control panel behind a tool wall would sequentially set the lights to green, attach clamps to the bumpers of Reid's personal car, rotate the floor of the garage – hiding Reid's car (a Chrysler 300 convertible), and bringing up the Black Beauty – finally unclamping the Black Beauty's bumpers.

[4] The Black Beauty would then exit the garage through a hidden rear door, and enter the street from behind a billboard advertising the fictitious product Kissin' Candy Mint (with the slogan "How sweet they are") designed to separate down the middle and rejoin.

The Black Beauty, which carried rear license plate number V194,[26] could fire explosive charges from tubes hidden behind retractable panels below the headlights, which were said to be rockets with explosive warheads; it had concealed-when-not-in-use, drop-down knock-out gas nozzle in the center of the front grille, and the vehicle could launch a small flying video/audio surveillance device (referred to as the scanner) through a small rectangular panel in the middle of the trunk lid.

The 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood has a scene in which stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) has a confrontation with Bruce Lee (played by Mike Moh in full Kato gear) on the set of The Green Hornet.