Jonny Quest

If you grew up in the '60's and early '70's, as I did, "Jonny Quest" was in many ways THE ultimate animated adventure show. And it's only gotten better over the years. The plotting and animation were certainly the most sophisticated Hanna-Barbera ever did. And the voice casting was perfect, as well. Sorry, fellow Cherry Hill-ite J.D. Roth, but, for me, Jonny will always be the young Tim Mathieson. Ditto Mike Road as Race Bannon and John Stephenson (earlier) and Don Messick (later) as Dr. Benton Quest. And Hoyt Curtin's jazzy score was just the icing on the cake.

With the so-called "Real Adventures of Jonny Quest" being such a pale imitation of the original, it's so good to see the original back on a series of four excellent DVDs. A later generation deserves a chance to enjoy the real thing, and nostalgic grown-ups deserve a chance to remember.

This was the high point of my Saturday cartoon watching as a kid. As long as I got to see Jonny Quest the rest of my viewing didn't matter. Jonny ruled then. JQ had everything. There was action, adventure, spies, bad guys, monster (both giant and smaller), mad scientists, rockets, planes, boats, tanks, army guys, submarines, espionage, intrigue and more. Hard to believe but all of this was packed into only a half an hour. Every saturday you got to see Jonny, Dr. Quest, Race Bannon, Hadji and Bandit save our country and/or the world. They went on adventures you could only dream about. This was the coolest cartoon on in it's day. Was there a better opening to a show. The instrumental opening was great. It let you know how much action was about to come your way. The only other opening I could remember like this was Bugs Bunny and the Flintstones and they had lyrics. Of all the cartoons on when I was a kid this one was the one that I made sure I watched. There hasn't been a cartoon like it since that could come close. Maybe Scooby-Doo, at least he had monsters, or bad guys posing as such to deal with. Even that doesn't match up to Jonny Quest. My parents would even sit down and watch it too. It was that entertaining. JQ had excellant stories to go with the action. For those who haven't seen it, the best five episodes are The Lizard Men, pilot episode, Dr. Sins Robot Spy, The Curse of Anubis, Turu the Terrible and the Invisible Monster. Jonny Quest was the best damn cartoon ever and remains so. JQ rules.

This was the coolest show ever! You had top notch designs from Doug Wildey and Alex Toth, great voices from the likes of Don Messick and Tim "Otter" Matheson, great stories and kick-a** music. People actually died in this show! (unlike 80's fare, like GI Joe, where they always parachuted to safety, or everyone misses with lasers). Despite being tagged as violent, the show illustrated that violence had consequences. You learned that if you fire a gun, people die, or at least get hurt.

What's not to love about a show with dinosaurs, WWI airplanes, robot spiders, lizard men, Dr Zin, invisible monsters, mummies, and secret armies? You got jet packs, lasers, submarines, hovercraft, hydrofoils, vstol jets, and other cool rides. You have evil villains like Dr Zin, Ivar, Dr Karim, Ashida and his dragons, and a host of foreign spies. Throw in exotic locales and you can't lose.

Yeah, it wasn't the most PC of shows (take that you heathen monkeys, indeed) but it was still pretty entertaining; and, Hadji was always portrayed as an intelligent and equal character. Sure, Dr Quest and Race Bannon sure seemed to avoid women (except Jezebel Jade) but, you know, they were positive role models.

By the way, if you ever wondered what happened to Jonny's mother, check out the excellent Comico comic book from the 80's. It was an outstanding story that will bring tears to your eyes, and add a wrinkle to Dr Zin.

There are very few pieces of Animation that I will remember for the rest of my life....and when I have children, will want to sit them down and say, "This is what animation is all about." Many of them came from the minds of Hanna-Barbera, and were "age appropriate": such as The Flintsones, The Jetsons, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, etc. Others VERY dear to my heart were straight from Japan such as "Astro-Boy", "Marine Boy", "Prince Planet" among others. But this one..this is the one that stole my little girl heart, and these were the first tv "guys" I ever developed my first crush on.

No, Not Jonny. Dr. Benton Quest and Race Bannon. When you're three/ four years old, many folks say: "Ah, they wont remember a thing at that age." Oh yeah, I remember.

Race Bannon was it! I swore when I grew up, I was going to find a man similar to "Race Bannon". He was cool, swave, strong, smart, and oh, so sexy. Dr. Benton Quest, was - the genius. He was the quiet/sensitive type, smart, a work-a-holic and WANTED for his brain. Whatever happened to his wife...I didn't CARE!

For that time, this cartoon was of a higher calibre than "let's just entertain the kiddies with colorful images." This had action, adventure and a little boy close to our age we could relate to. Adding Hadji was a stroke of smartness as well, here was a character in a cartoon from a background...no one else brought to the screen (Quick, tell me how many Indians from India are cast in Hollywood mainstream films? Cartoons? Commercials?) Of course by today's standards Haji might be a bit dry, but it was interesting to watch Jonny and Hadji interact.

Jonny Quest was NOT your run of the mill cartoon from that era. And to be perfectly honest..the opening and closing music and montage scenes were to die for, made me excited about the series just as much as the series itself. Cartoons today wont go through that much production. ("The Simpsons" being the exception!)

I recommend this 60's series highly to those who want to see the early Hanna-Barbera animation of action-adventure, done with pretty decent scripts that never talked down to its audience, even parents enjoyed this one. Smart, fun, sexy. See all of the installments if you can. Don't go to the 80's/90's ones, this is the set to get!

One of my friends popped several episodes of this on a disc for me. Man I didn't even know this existed till now! It rocks hard.

Jonny is a cool little dude with his Hindu friend and little dog. And I love the spy-like adventures they have (my favourite eps are the ones with the villain Dr. Zinn in em); and all the dated scientific gadgets his dad comes up with is awesome. It's also nice how the eps are so varied in both story and location. I gotta get some more of these eh.

My girlfriend has some old books called Rick Brent's Electronic Adventures (or something like that). I read one and it's like Jonny Quest (even has the Hindu buddy, a laserbeam to the moon, little dog, etc). Maybe that's where they got the JQ idea. Anyhow it's a really cool idea. Too bad they don't show these cartoons now. I like this type of stuff a lot more than what's played these days. If IMDb had a rating for this, I'd be laying out a 9 on this one.

Good stuff here. If you haven't seen Jonny Quest, you should do yourself a favour and have a go at it. It's safe for all ages BTW.