Why ABC Canceled ’60s Cartoon Jonny Quest After Just One Season

Doug Widley’s 1964 animated series “Jonny Quest,” animated by Hanna-Barbera, only lasted 26 episodes, but to Generation X it may seem like much longer. Thanks to a series of interesting distribution deals, along with clever remixes and repackagings of the company’s shows from the 1960s and ’70s, Hanna-Barbera cartoons remained in reruns for decades, allowing new generations to grew up watching “Scooby-Doo, where are they?” You?”, “The Flintstones” and “Jabberjaw.” For kids of the 1980s, not a Saturday went by without various Hanna-Barbera shows appearing before our eyes, often by pure chance.

“Jonny Quest” always seemed to work its way into my generation’s cartoon rotation, and many viewers my age became very fond of the tacky, stilted animation, thick line drawing style, and funky “laser” sound effects. of the program. The premise was typical of children’s adventure novels: Jonny Quest (Tim Matheson) was an 11-year-old prodigy expert in martial arts, the use of weapons and diving. He was the son of Dr. Benton Quest (Don Messick), an independent scientist who often took jobs for the United States government investigating unusual acts of high-tech embezzlement.

Meanwhile, Jonny’s mother had died and his guardian was Race Bannon (Mike Road). However, there is nothing to indicate that Dr. Quest and Road were dating. Joining the adventures were Jonny’s 11-year-old brother Hadji (Danny Bravo) and his dog Bandit (also Messick). The Quest family lives and operates in Florida. His archenemy, Dr. Zin, was played by Vic Perrin, perhaps best known as the narrator of the opening of “The Outer Limits.”

“Jonny Quest” debuted in September 1964 and aired weekly until March 1965, when it was cancelled. The series did well with critics and even earned pretty high ratings. Hanna-Barbera eventually canceled the series because, well, it was too expensive to make.

Like many shows before it, “Jonny Quest” didn’t find a mass audience until it was in syndication. It often came packaged with other Hanna-Barbera series (kids of the ’80s can tell that reruns of the show aired in the middle of giant animation blocks), so it was watched over and over again for two decades straight. “Jonny Quest” also had the distinction of airing reruns on ABC, CBS and NBC during its lifetime. Few other programs aired on all three networks.

“Jonny Quest” took many of its visual cues from Milton Caniff’s popular adventure comic strip “Terry and the Pirates,” and Doug Widley added high-tech gadgets like speedboats and jetpacks. In 1986, Widley was interviewed about “Jonny Quest” (an interview that has been preserved on a “Jonny Quest” fansite) and revealed that he was initially hired by Hanna-Barbera to design characters for a television adaptation of the radio drama “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy.” However, that project changed and mutated during development, as Hanna-Barbera was unable to secure the rights to the Jack Armstrong character. Hence Widley turned the character into Jonny Quest and a legend was born. Initially, Hanna-Barbera did not want to give Widley creative credit, but eventually capitulated.

Actual budget figures for a typical “Jonny Quest” episode can’t be easily found, but it’s worth remembering that Hanna-Barbera resolutely tried to work on a shoestring. In fact, many of Hanna-Barbera’s characters were designed in such a way that animating them would take less time. Most Hanna-Barbera characters are viewed at a 3/4 angle, meaning they could be looking to the side or toward the camera, depending only on their eyes. Think Fred Flintstone. This design ethos allowed for a type of limited animation that was cheaper and faster to produce. It allowed Hanna-Barbera to stick to a weekly television schedule, something most animation studios couldn’t do.

“Jonny Quest”, being more visually rich, probably required too much money to produce and too much time to animate. Perhaps unable to keep up with Hanna-Barbera’s pace (and budget), “Jonny Quest” was scrapped.

Thanks to endless reruns, “Jonny Quest” remained in the pop consciousness for years and interest in the character remained high. In fact, in 1986, Hanna-Barbera attempted to revive the character with the animated series “The New Adventures of Jonny Quest.” Scott Menville played the character of the same name and Don Messick returned as Dr. Quest and Bandit. This new series was originally intended to be a sequel series with an adult Jonny Quest as the main character, but the studio rebooted it. That version, however, only lasted 13 episodes.

A decade later, in 1996, Hanna-Barbera tried again with “The True Adventures of Jonny Quest,” which added even more advanced technology (as well as a edgier tone) to the young man’s adventures. Furthermore, Jonny was up to 14 years old. “Real Adventures” was sharper and used high-tech computer animation, with JD Roth playing Jonny. It aired on Cartoon Network and was the most successful “Jonny Quest” show to date, with 52 episodes spread over two seasons.

A live-action “Jonny Quest” movie had been stuck in development hell for more than a decade, and about a dozen directors had signed on to the project. There was a version with Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron in the works back in 2009, Robert Rodriguez was once said to be working on a “Johnny Quest” movie, and Chris McKay was attached to direct a “Johnny Quest” movie in 2018. There’s no script and nothing has been greenlit, so we’ll have to wait to see if that movie ever gets made.

However, those involved in the film better hurry; The people who still know “Jonny Quest” now are all middle-aged or older.