Thursday, April 05, 2007

THURSDAY THEME SONG: JONNY QUEST

This month will only contain two Thursday Theme Songs because I will be out of town on a vacation/honeymoon for the last two weeks of April. So I have two theme songs for you and if there is ever another month with only two Thursdays I will post another two on this theme: "Here's Johnny!"


Are we there yet?
Jonny Quest

Jonny Quest, the story of an eleven-year-old boy who tags along on his scientist father's dangerous explorations, is a fan favourite of kids young and old. The action and stories are exciting, the drawings and animation are fun to watch and the characters are fun to be around.

When Hanna-Barbera first developed the show, they wanted an action-adventure show based on the popular radio program Jack Armstrong. But licensing fell through and the show was reworked into Jonny Quest.

One of the first things you will notice about this show, especially comparing it to other Hanna-Barbera shows like Scooby-Doo, Flintstones or even Super Friends, is that the artists have pulled out all the stops.


How is Dr. Quest gonna get outta this one?
Hanna-Barbera shows had a small budget because they were a small time animation company. They didn't have the revenue that Disney or Warner Bros did so they had to find creative way to make their show good but cheap. A lot of the time the animation suffered because it would be to expensive to make a character get up out of a chair or change direction while running on screen.

But HB knew that Jonny Quest needed to have better quality animation and artwork in order to tell the stories the wanted. The result was bold and dynamic characters and backgrounds and animation that was still limited but way more fun to watch.

The show was cancelled after one season even though ratings were high. The show was just too expensive for Hanna-Barbera to keep in production.

This theme song is by Hoyt Curtin who did most of Hanna-Barbera's music in the sixties and seventies.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for helping bring back some great memories. Jonny Quest is one of the greatest!