Jonny Quest - Spares No Bullets

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bad_dad_brad

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Just today Turner studios released the first season of that 1960's Hanna Barberra prime time cartoon action series, 27 showings of the James Bond Boy Jonny Quest, on DVD.

Well since I was a young teenager during that time, and I have plenty of money to waste, I bought the series at about $50 to satisfy a nostalgic whim. I started watching it tonight.

I was struck by how much firearms played a part in the shows. This little cartoon attempt to cash in on the Bond phenom of the time managed to include many a model of 1930's to 1960's guns.

Albeit cartoon interpretations, in the opening credits I saw a Ma Deuce, a light tank Chaffee shooting an alien spider, a Thompson or was it a BAR wielded at the hip by Race, science fictionalized M1 Carbines, and of course a LASER cannon and the obligatory death ray.

Subsequent viewings produced a Walther P38, what looked to be a S&W 19 that the bad guy pistol whipped "Race" cum "Doc Savage" Bannon with. Another Thompson clone with an AK banana clip, lizard scuba men with mini-spear guns, and some rather odd accented Europeans out of a futuristic submarine that toted ancient WWII Mauser Karibiners with leather slings no less.

Most entertaining.

Of course there were hovercrafts, submarines, weird airplanes, dinosaurs, and snow skimmers galore. How very odd. The animation was crude but quite Popular Science effective, and for any boy in us that grew up in the formative James Bond decade of the 1960's I would highly recommend this DVD set.

It spares no bullets. Must be about 50 shots per half hour series so far. Even the bolt action rifles were shot at semi-auto pace. Animation has no rules. Of course the bad guys are as usual terrible marksmen and the good guys only shoot to wound.

Such cartoon fun!
 
I LOVED Johnny Quest as a kid! :D

The Yeti, the Sargasso Sea, & the "space Spider" episodes being some of my favorites.

Seem.........Seem...........SalaBeem!!!!!!
 
I watched JQ when I was a kid, and it was my favorite. Now, because of the Boomerang Channel, I watch it with my daughter (8) who also thinks it's cool. What a great thing to watch together.

I'll have to get her the DVD.

Scott

"See that, honey? Race Bannon is a stud."
 
My favorite cartoon as a child. I watched it when it first came on and many times since. Here is a website of interest I found sometime back.

http://www.classicjq.com/

The FAQ cleared up the mystery of an episode I thought I had always missed. When closing credits are rolling, there is a scene of a hovercraft (pursued by angry natives) going into the Quest jet. The jet door closes behind the hovercraft and spears bounce off the door:


What about that scene in the closing credits showing African tribesman chucking spears at some people in a hovercraft as they enter their jet plane?

This question is frequently accompanied by a statement such as "I'm sure I saw the episode with that scene in it a long time ago, but haven't seen it in any of the recent re-runs." As unsatisfying as the following may be, it is, as far as I am able to determine, correct. The scenes were NOT part of any released Jonny Quest episode. They were definitely (mentioned by several rather unimpeachable sources including Joe Barbera and Doug Wildey) from the short film produced as part of the proposal of a "Jack Armstrong" animated series. When this project fell through because Hanna-Barbera were unable to come to terms with the Jack Armstrong people, the concept of a boy and his world-wide adventures was changed and grew into what would become Jonny Quest.

I have no explanation for the apparently strong recollection of seeing these scenes in an episode by a number of fans, unless it was possibly scenes from Pursuit of the Po-Ho; or maybe even A Small Matter of Pygmies that over the years has merged with the familiar ending credits.
 
Hadji was the mack daddy.

His nehru jacket and the jewel on his turban must have gotten him all the babes. Plus, he could levitate. How cool is that?! :D
 
The tank shooting at the spider-think looked mor like an M41 Walker Bulldog or M47 Patton to me.

Another scene that stuck in my memory was in an episode where they were foling around in the Arctic Ocean and the BGs were after them. Some AF jets came up and blew the BGs away. Anyway, these planes looked exactly like F-16s, except that they were 10-12 years early. I've always wondered if JQ somehow inspired the f-16 design.
 
I'll never forget it. I was watching late night reruns of Johnny Quest (the orignal series, not the wussified "Real Adventures of Johnny Quest remake) on the Cartoon Network a few years ago. Race Bannon, Dr. Quest, Johnny Quest, Hadji, and Bandit were travelling down a river in Africa in a small boat. Natives begin chucking spears at them. Like all people from Africa, they had decorative headdresses and bones through their noses.

Anyway, Race returns fire with what looked like a Mini-14, exclaiming...now get this...

"Get back, you heathen monkies!"

I just froze for a second. I couldn't believe it. He did not just call black people from Africa heathen monkies. But he did. Then I started laughing; I almost pissed myself.

Boy, times have changed, huh? LOL

As for Hadji...
This is Hadji. He, like all people from India, can perform bizarre acts of mind over matter with yoga. Also, like all people from India, he is not a Super Friend. Sorry, Hadji!
Click to expand...

From Seanbaby's original Super Friends Page. Also check out the New Super Friends Page. :D
 
Anyway, these planes looked exactly like F-16s, except that they were 10-12 years early.
Click to expand...

I just got the DVD set, and I noticed that too. I was going through mental gyrations trying to remember if Jonny Quest or the F-16 came first.

Take another look. I think those jets in the cartoon were modeled after the T-38. T-38s entered service in 1961, in time for the show.

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/t-38/
 
"Get back, you heathen monkies!"
Click to expand...

I understand that the both the "heathen monkeys" line and the "ignorant savages" line, from the Po-Ho episode, have been edited out of the DVD. They still appear in the subtitles, though.
 
Bad guys actually got killed in these cartoons, usually by falling off a cliff, building collapse, eaten by monsters, explosion, etc. but I seem to recall Race actually shooting a couple of guys in the "Q Missile Mystery". You won't see that on "Captain Planet".

Of note, Tim Matheson of "Animal House" fame was the voice of Jonny (not Johnny, it was years later before I noticed this). He spelled his name "Mathieson" at that time according to the website I posted earlier.
 
I have long boycotted the series, for pesonal reasons - - -

;) The Jonny Quest series was being first-run televised late during my high school days. My surname, while not exactly common, is of old and honorable British origin. Any of you want to hazard a, uh, an estimate of the nickname with which I was saddled while the series was in it's heyday?

Even today, people who have some dim, far away recollection of the original series, or one of the reincarnations, make the (supposedly honest) error and call me "Johnny Quest." Gets bit old, really.

But I try to take it all in good humor. While teaching classes, I write my name on the board, introduce myself, sell the name aloud, and then explain some of the above. And I tell the class that, over the decades, I have accomodated myself to the mistakes; that I hope to one day meet the originator of the cartoon series, and shake his hand, and introduce myself. And then do him great bodily harm . . . . :D

Best,
Johnny
 
SkunkApe, didn't the jets on "JQ" have intakes under the nose?
Click to expand...

Shep854, you're right. The inlets do appear to be under the nose. They look like thay might be bifurcated, however. Still, the resemblance to the F16 is marked.
 
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