The other day I was reading through random Wikipedia articles and I happened across the entry on Jonny Quest. For our younger readers, this was an animated adventure series broadcast in 1964-'65 that followed the adventures of 11-year-old Jonny, his government scientist father, bodyguard/tutor Race Bannon and Hadji from India. The show was incredibly bad-ass considering it was made by Hanna-Barbera, with hardcore sci-fi themes and plenty of international espionage, and in the pre-anime era it was just about the coolest thing on. I was surprised to read that when the show (which originally ran during prime time) was moved to the Saturday morning time slot, it was decried by parents' groups as "the epitome of what's wrong with cartoons" because it showed on-screen deaths, murder attempts and dangerous situations, and the violence was removed. I had to laugh at that, since to me, Jonny Quest was everything that was right with animation at the time, with stories that engaged and excited me without insulting my intelligence just because I was a kid. What would those critics say today if they knew we'd be watching awesome shows like Code Geass or Fullmetal Alchemist, which use violence as a tool to tell compelling stories that can be appreciated by a wider range of viewers, including many who would have watched Jonny Quest. A large part of the reason anime has been embraced so totally by young people over the last two decades is busy-body adults insisting that everything we watch be be sterilized -- the idea that someone's kids right now are sewing Gothic Lolita outfits and reading Touhou doujinshi becuase they didn't do enough to resist the lame-ification of American animation is very ironic to me.
Jonny Quest was a show that was ahead of its time, whose villains included a Nazi war criminal.
5 comments:
Im 100% whit you
ALL HAIL LORD PETER o/
btw is this new code geass project coming out or what? I havent heard news of it in a while.
Have you seen "Venture Bros."? It's a hilarious, well-written show that heavily parodies the feel, and some of the characters, of Jonny Quest.
V2, yes, it's totally lame. What do they think kids are? Just because they want them to have no opinions until they turn 15-16 doesn't mean they can control our minds. "Our" minds in the sense that I'm still a kid at heart, if not in body anymore ^_^
FifthDream, I haven't seen it but I read about it online, sounds cool.
And did you know that Hadji combatted Kahn Singh? He was supposedly written into the Eugenics Wars novel, oh brother.
http://bit.ly/axqeap
This is partly the reason Invader Zim(one of my favorite cartoon shows)was cancelled prematurally. The show had a dark sense of humor that was very fun to watch. Nickelodean however didn't quite see it that way. Now I'm stuck with crap like Fanboy and Chum,Chum.
IF you enjoy Johny Quest
You watch Venture Bros. sometime
Its what a spoof of JQ and there Show
too. But very good.
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