September 14, 2007
The Adventures of Jonny Quest
By Stan Dyer
A few weeks back, a friend and I were talking about life as a kid in the 1960's in Denver. Television was really growing in popularity as a form of indoor entertainment and the networks started to air their first programs in
living color. It was a good time to be a kid as many stations featured prime time shows especially directed toward the younger audience. One of those shows was the animated feature, "Jonny Quest"
Most kids were completely fascinated with Jonny Quest. It was the story of the son of scientist Dr. Benton Quest who lived with his father on their private research island in the Florida Keys with bodyguard Roger "Race" Bannon and an adopted street urchin from India named Hadji. The family also had a pet dog named "Bandit". Through 26 episodes beginning September 18, 1964 and lasting into the next fall, the quartet traveled the world solving mysteries and thwarting the plans of arch nemesis, the evil "Dr. Zin". That sounds neither exciting nor original, and it wasn't. What was exciting and original was the way they did it.
What made Jonny Quest "cool" were the stories, the animation and the musical score. This generation was used to cartoons with anthropomorphic animals banging each other on the head to a background score from some carnival. Jonny Quest introduced a generation to real, science fiction stories, more detailed animation with elaborate backgrounds and real, human characters who kids could identify with. Jonny and Hadji were just regular kids and they had to do their homework, but they also traveled to exotic places, operated complex machinery and weapons, and had a lot of opportunities most kids of that generation just dreamed about. To spice it up, the stories always involved spaceships, mummies, gargoyles, invisible monsters and many other unusual things that attracted the interest of young, growing minds, and included a brilliant musical score that heightened anxiety, intensity and drama. The first season was the best, and, at least in that one season, it was a great kids' show. It still is today.
On Friday nights, mom would go to the Denver Drumstick take-out and bring home a "Boxcar" of burgers that the whole family would enjoy together while we watched first "Jonny Quest", then "Batman" with Adam West and Burt Ward, and finished off the evening with "The Green Hornet" featuring Van Williams and Bruce Lee. Of course, the Drumstick also offered Boxcars of fish or chicken, or folks in Denver could phone "Chicken Delight" to have dinner delivered, but people rarely ordered out for pizza. If you can believe it, pizza was not that popular as a delivery food and struggled to compete with the burger.
When you consider there was no cable T.V., no satellite T.V. and we only had the wide variety of five different channels to choose from, this was the heyday for prime time entertainment programming aimed at the pre-teen generation. A lot of effort was put forth to create a product that attracted those younger viewers and sold them P.F.Flyers, Frisbees and Slinkees.
Despite the quality of video games today, and the wide assortment of programming available, it wouldn't surprise me at all if today's younger generation still found Jonny Quest just as fascinating as we kids of the 60's did. Of course, today's kids may not care for the experience of having one, entire evening with the family, viewing programming focused just on kids served up with a Boxcar of dinner, and they may find the toys of that generation passé, but few could argue that Hanna-Barbera didn't launch something special that day in 1964 that influenced future generations. It was something special for those of us who lived it and it is still something special for those who remember it. We only get to be kids once in our lives, but no one says we can't keep a little bit of that with us as we grow older. The Adventures of Jonny Quest and the memories of those family Friday nights are memories that will always linger with me.