Jonny Quest: An Animated Action Series for the Young at Heart

Animated prime-time series were still a rarity on American television in 1964. The Flintstones was starting to wind down a successful six-year run. The Bugs Bunny Show and The Bullwinkle Show had enjoyed brief stints in prime time. The Jetsons lasted but one season in 1963. So, it was a bold move when Hanna-Barbera, who produced the Flintstones and Jetsons, set out to make a prime-time animated action series.

The studio’s original plan was to adapt the radio series Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy for TV. It enlisted comic book artist Doug Wildey to develop the show and give it a unique look. When the negotiations for the rights to Jack Armstrong stalled, Hanna-Barbera decided to create its own character: an 11-year-old boy who accompanied his scientist-father on adventures around the world. The young hero’s original name was Chip Baloo, but it was changed to the catchier—and more descriptive—Jonny Quest.

Though the original Jonny Quest series last just 26 episodes, it made a lasting impact on television animation. The key was that Wildey treated it like a live-action show. Characters didn’t fall from cliffs and bounce right back up with no injuries. The locations were sometimes exotic, but always realistic. The humor was natural, usually delivered by Jonny’s dog Bandit. The show’s terrific jazz score, composed by Hoyt Curtin, gave the series a unique sound (and perfectly accentuated the action). I even like how Jonny and his companions are introduced in the show’s credits, just as if they were real people.

Each character is concisely defined, which is essential in a half-hour action series where “character development time” is at a premium. Dr. Benton Quest, Jonny’s father, is a single parent who takes his son everyone (which is cool…but does place Jonny in dangerous situations). Hadji is an 11-year-old Indian orphan who is adopted by Dr. Quest (as shown via flashback in the episode “Calcutta Adventure”). Roger T. “Race” Bannon is the family’s bodyguard and a tutor to Jonny and Hadji. Finally, there is the aforementioned Quest family dog, Bandit, who gets into humorous trouble—but also rescues the family from some perilous situations.

The plots in Jonny Quest are an exciting mix of action with splashes of science fiction. In “Turu the Terrible,” the four adventurers encounters a prehistoric pteranodon that’s been trained to guard a mine containing a valuable ore. A circus acrobat-turned-thief poses as a gargoyle so he can steal a valuable formula in the atmospheric “House of the Seven Gargoyles.” The villainous Dr. Zin sends a nearly-indestructible, spider-like robot to spy on Dr. Quest’s experiments in the appropriately-titled “The Robot Spy.” Being an ensemble series, the “hero” varies depending on the episode. For example, in “The Robot Spy,” one of Dr. Quest’s inventions saves the day, while Jonny is the first one to spot a “living gargoyle” in “The House of the Seven Gargoyles.”

Without a large budget, Wildey had to limit the amount of animation in Jonny Quest. He maximized the use of static shots and moving backgrounds. And, as if to compensate for limited movement, he employed a rich palette of colors for drawing both characters (e.g., Jonny’s bright yellow blonde hair) and backgrounds (some of the night scenes are stunningly bathed in deep blue).

A young Tim Matheson provided the voice for Jonny. Matheson, who enjoyed a solid acting career in film and television, is probably best known as Otter in National Lampoon’s Animal House. Veteran voice actor Don Messick played Dr. Quest (in all but five episodes) and Bandit. If his canine sounds seem a little familiar, it may be because he also provided the “voice” for Scooby Doo and the Jetsons’ Astro!

There have numerous unsuccessful attempts at reviving the Jonny Quest franchise, starting with a new 13-episode series that ran as part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera in 1986. The USA Network broadcast a made-for-TV movie called Jonny’s Golden Quest in 1993 and TNT showed a sequel called Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber Insects in 1995. The following year, TNT launched a short-lived series called The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, in which Jonny and Hadji were teenagers.

Every few years, there seems to be discussion of a live-action film version. In the meantime, one can enjoy the complete, original Jonny Quest series in glorious color on DVD.