military coup came four days later. As a lyricist and record producer, he launched the careers of almost all of the Greek pop groups of the sixties, working mainly with the Forminx and their keyboard player Vangelis Papathanassiou, later known as the film score composer Vangelis. Mastorakis was instrumental in the creation of Greek television in the late 1960s. From early 1966 (before the junta years) and until 1973 while Greece was under the Regime of the Colonels, he produced and hosted numerous entertainment shows in the army-owned YENED TV station. While the station's primary goal was to propagandize for the army his shows were mostly apolitical fare, such as game shows and celebrity interviews, including a Greek version of This Is Your Life, and he was among the most popular TV personalities of the time. He produced local versions of many international formats (Candid Camera, To Tell The Truth) and worked for both YENED and ERT, the country's national TV network. In addition to his shows he produced and directed Alati kai Piperi (Salt and Pepper), hosted by noted Greek columnist Freddy Germanos. One of the highlights of that show was when Mastorakis brought John Lennon and Yoko Ono into the military TV's two-camera studio. He wrote, produced and directed dramatic series and variety shows as well as the short-lived breakthrough sci-fi episodic Invasion From Another Planet, the first on Greek TV to be shot on film. However his TV career took some dramatic turns as he was ousted twice by the junta, the unofficial reason being cited "for speaking freely". The first time that his shows were abruptly banned was for his comment to a 6-year-old girl (on a family show) "how can you ever buy a Christmas tree with the cost of life as they are today", a comment which was considered by the military regime as "anti-government propaganda". At the time he was serving in the navy and eventually returned to TV, only to be ousted (by order of dictator Georgios Papadopoulos) because he interviewed a 12-year-old girl who had married and had a baby. Papadopoulos considered the interview as "corruption of ethics for the Greek family". For almost a year, Mastorakis was producing "underground" with the silent consent of YENED's management until his final return. His career as a journalist also had clashes with the junta. After writing a long piece about Mikis Theodorakis’ concert