REVIEW: The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
To me, Jonny Quest was one of the best animated series a kid could grow up on in the 1960s. The prime time show had nice designs, great storytelling and you could imagine yourself getting mixed up into adventures with Race Bannon and Hadji. It was relatable and fun and exceedingly well done.
By the 1990s, though, Indiana Jones and his brethren raised the stakes for action/adventure in live action as well as animation. The Cartoon Network recognized this and commissioned an updated version known as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest which aired from August 26, 1996 to April 16, 1997. To make the concept contemporary, they added Jessie Bannon as the duo became a trio while Dr. Benton Quest and Race Bannon went looking into the unexplained. Given the fondness for CGI at the time, some of the stories also meant visits to the three-dimensional QuestWorld (hoping to tap into the audience’s fascination with virtual reality)
The show never quite worked and still doesn’t hold up to repeated views, but for diehard fans, Warner Archive has released the first season in two volumes of thirteen episodes each, the latter set recently released. The show certainly suffered when showrunner Peter Lawrence was fired in 1996 and John Eng and Cosmo Anzilotti arrived to take over. You can tell where Lawrence left off after the first season’s initial 13 episodes (volume one) as his real world –based storylines were replaced with more traditional SF/supernatural stories. The goal, turning the beloved character, into a global icon and franchise fizzled given poor execution and despite a massive marketing campaign.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b-Y7Bjr9bQ[/youtube] (more…)