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Show:		4.0
Picture:		4.0
Sound:		6.0
Extras:		4.0
Score:		4.0

Director(s):	Various
Writer(s):	Various
Starring:	George Segal • Jennifer Hale • Michael Benyaer • Quinton Flynn • Robert Patrick
Genre:	Children & Family
Website:	http://www.kidswb.com
Release Date:	February 17, 2009

List Price:	DVD - $26.98
Amazon:

Do you remember that short period in the mid-90s in children’s animated television, where the utter hokey-ness of programs like Captain Planet and G.I. Joe had not yet left us, but the interest in all things digital and internet related that was to dominate the next decade hadn’t yet taken hold? If you don’t, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest: The Complete First Season sure does. Even if the show’s attempts at updating the original Hanna Barbera program are unsuccessful, it serves as an interesting time capsule from the days before we really understood where the internet was going, as well as what powerful executives thought kids liked back in 1996.

The central premise is markedly unchanged from the original show: Dr. Quest (George Segal) is a scientist who works for the government investigating strange phenomena with his son Jonny Quest (J.D. Roth). They are joined by Hadji (Michael Benyaer), a mystic about Jonny’s age who has all sorts of powers, and Race Bannon(Robert Patrick), their bodyguard who has the occasional flashes of campy inspiration with his folksy metaphors (‘colder than the north end of a southbound moose’). Together, they travel around the world and face various villains of differing ethnic backgrounds; the ethnic backgrounds bit might not seem important but trust me: the formula for this show’s villains could easily be reduced to ‘minority-of-the-week’. Not wanting to disappoint die-hard fans of the original series (which presumably exist), the little dog Bandit also makes several appearances here.

The most visible attempts at modernization are both obvious and misjudged. The group is joined by Jessie, Race’s daughter (Jennifer Hale), whom avoids adding anything to the dynamic of the show by neither being one of the lead characters nor a completely irritating damsel-in-distress that early commentators thought she would be . There is also the addition of QuestWorld, a virtual reality landscape (which strongly resembles that of Tron) that the lead characters plug into at various times during the show. It is easy to see how such things seemed possible in 1996; most Americans barely understood the concept of e-mail. Why shouldn’t we be able to don headsets and create elaborate vehicles and scenarios for ourselves simply by pressing a button? With the benefit of hindsight, such things now look entirely ridiculous, hopelessly naïve and not to mention really creepily animated. While the novelty of digital animation undoubtedly provided this with a certain cache, what used to pass as groundbreaking now looks more than a little creepy, in the same way that the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials now do (can you look at the Heat Miser without screaming in terror?).

What comes across more than anything here is that The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest is a show out-of-step with any era. The central conceit of a man studying phenomena for the government with his son reeks of 1960s-style wishful thinking (one can’t help but wonder if Jonny ever goes to school), while the lack of any sort of sense of humor and the bald-faced attempts at making the show more ‘hard-edged’ smack of mid-90s executive committee thinking. There also doesn’t seem to be any recognition of the fact that the television viewing habits of children had changed greatly since the 1960s. Having been in the target audience of this show when it was released, I can confirm that most of us were more concerned with getting to watch The X-Files than with anything that was playing on Saturday Mornings.

DVD Bonus Features

This First Season DVD set includes the entire season as well as a short documentary called "Jonny Quest Returns" which consists mostly of people who worked at Turner at the time this show was produced talking about how they attempted to make the show darker and more realistic. This show still features fourteen-year-olds disarming grown violent men, in case you were wondering.