Thread 149413789

JOHNNY QUEST was popular enough to get new shows for 30 years...but he hasn't had a new one since the late 90s. Why did people stop caring about this character so suddenly?

>>149413789 (OP)
Two words:
Venture Bros

johnny (WHIPCRACK) test

>>149413789 (OP)
johnny quest was only thrilling when there was nothing better.
the moment really good tv was invented, its death warrant was signed. was Real Adventures better? sure.. but who the fuck would admit to having watched it?

>>149413999
>but who the fuck would admit to having watched it?
I would. SO IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF RAGE!

>>149413837
Yeah this.

>>149413789 (OP)
>JONNY Quest in the OP image
>STILL spells it wrong
Anyway, didn't we get a crossover movie a couple years back?

>60s version happens
>people become nostalgic for it 30 years later
>90s version happens because of this
>is reasonably well received but wasn’t a hit because people resonated with the newer, more exciting properties
This was the fate of all reboots until fairly recently. They tried to make the 60s come back in the 90s, they tried to make the 80s come back in the 2000s-2010s, and they’re trying to make the 90s come back now. The problem is that now nothing new (and most importantly, nothing actually good) is getting made at all to replace the old stuff.
You need a good, cool core idea for a franchise to last long. Transformers will always be cool because the idea of robots that transform into cars is a timelessly cool concept. “2 guys, a kid, and a funny little Indian go on adventures” isn’t really a concept worth keeping alive unless it’s through inspiration, like Venture Bros.

>>149413837
No normal person remembers or cared about that show

>>149414319
For the longest time I also thought it was Johnny.

>>149413789 (OP)

The '80s seasons were generally considered inferior to the original to the point that the sequel films ignored them.

Then Real Adventures never really caught on and that was mostly it for the franchise.

There's just nothing that interesting about JQ after the 60s. He's just some kid. There are more unique adventure stories and characters and people would rather watch those. Hell even the genre isn't really in demand these days sadly.

semi-oldfag here, two things REALLY hurt the IP's reputation
For one, the production of Real Adventures was a mess. They ended up having to combine two different projects to make it. I think that, on top of that, I think the messy production hurt it's chances to have a timely launch for things like toys or games.
Second, and this is really big- Turner invested so much in RA, that it oversaturated it for the next few years. It got to the point where you could probably run through the series a few times a year. It became a staple of lock filler- Toonami was semi-infamous for having it on for two years straight. When they did promo shows it was the first one to cut, like when they had a Beast Wars week.
Toonami's programmers recognized the frustration- and it's one of the shows targeted in a Toonami promo about reruns
https://youtu.be/bPD7p7BnNx4?si=OA7C4CDuHcIY9ktT
That segment is interesting because it basically a prelude to 1999 and all the big changes that would happen to tonnami that would make it go from a mix of American cartoon reruns and some syndicated localized anime, to being more of an anime block with more faithful(for what they could do) localization
Real Adventures was made for when Turner was planning to make original action cartoons for their channel. Then Toonami showed that there was a much bigger market for just acquiring dubbed anime. That ended up putting JQ out of the playing field for the next few years, and he just never had a chance to have a comeback

>>149414506

I thought there were two of the '80s revival but it was just one thirteen episode season.

Anyway, they ignored most of the new characters except Jessie, who they retconned as being Race's kid.

>>149414540
>he just never had a chance to have a comeback
And then Venture Brothers kicked the shit out of what little staying power Jonny had left.

>>149413789 (OP)
Because there’s nothing appealing or special about the show anymore

>>149413789 (OP)
Sometimes, things become irrelevant. It was one of the few legitimate action cartoons of its era, and the art itself remains pleasant, even if the animation routinely isn't, but it had little reason to exist beyond the 80s.

>>149413999
>was Real Adventures better? sure.. but who the fuck would admit to having watched it?
One of the class bullies I knew in 6th grade admitted specifically to watching The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest back during its original run. He was definitely sort of self-conscious about it, lol.

Also one of the only shows I can recall where Toonami formally announced dropping it off the schedule, lol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZo44Yukl-k

>>149414547
Jessie comes from one of the 90's movies they did after the 80's revival She was always Race's daughter but it was something she hid for the first movie that's only revealed towards the end

>>149414547
Came here to post this, it's shit but it exists

Venture Brothers wasn't even the first Jonny Quest parody, but it was the first to get made into a full series. The Toby Danger parody in Freakazoid never got past being a pilot.

>>149414529
Real Adventures was a solid adventure show that didn't shy away from showing characters dying. Ezekiel Rage's wife and young daughter died which drove him insane. I don't remember much about the movies but I know it introduced Race's daughter and there was something about alien bugs.

>>149414655
AIEEEEE!

>>149414540
>Then Toonami showed that there was a much bigger market for just acquiring dubbed anime.

I agree, but acquiring already successful anime was also easier than developing original IP. Why experiment with millions of dollars of your own company's money when you can get the survivors of the brutal Japanese cartoon ecosystem for pennies?

>>149413789 (OP)
Even as a boy I never wanted a boylet to be the protagonist of a show. It can work occasionally (FMA and Mighty Max come to mind) but I usually dislike it.

>>149413789 (OP)
Race & Dr. Quest are gay lovers in my mind

>>149413789 (OP)
People don't really make fun adventure stories in any genre now and this show is pure adventure fantasy

>>149414736
Whenever I would watch the show as a kid, I was always wondering why Johnny didn't really feel like the protagonist and more like just a way to allow Race Bannon or even Hadji to get into some action. Not that I minded it, I just thought it was funny that Jonny felt more like a conduit than a star.

>>149414487
Shut the fuck up.

>>149414319
It's weird there was a period where
>"Hey, Mr CEO, could we do a *Insert Whatever* animated film?"
>"I don't know..."
>"Tom and Jerry will be in it."
>"Hot DAMN, greenlight that shit!"
Happened.

>>149413789 (OP)
>>149415325
This. I feel like my entire childhood and adolescence I was looking for a show like this: globespanning pulpy adventures, and I got nothing but the Venture Bros (which I love, but is still technically a parody of the genre.) For some reason around the mid-90's people decided that Adventure fiction was done for. We got a few things like The Mummy movies and Hidalgo, but as far as animation goes it's been nothing but a dry spell.

>>149414319
Hubba hubba

>>149413789 (OP)
This series was only interesting when there was nothing better on TV at the time.

>>149414639

Jessie originally came from the New Adventures episode Deadly Junket where she was the daughter of one of Benton's colleagues. The films took the same basic character but made her Race's daughter.

>>149414655
You have no idea of the whiplash I got when Race said in a episode of Real Adventures, "Let me throw a barrel at it!"

>>149416762
I think the genre still has some juice, but it would require leaning heavily into the pulpy aspects.
Out of all the coma seasons of Archer, Adventure Island was my favorite and I found myself wishing there could be a whole show like that. It could work if creators used it as a vehicle to celebrate the pulp adventure genre instead of trying to subvert it,

>>149414655
I think this ended up being Don Messick's last role as Dr. Danger. Basically, he went out mocking himself.

>>149415346
That's part of what Toby Danger poked fun at. He spends most of the short trying to sneak into a casino because he wants to see a real Keno girl while Dash gets all the barrel-throwing action.
>"But I really am Mr. Peanut!"

>>149416312
The weirdest thing is the Tom & Jerry / Jonny Quest crossover is actually GOOD and one of the best of the direct to DVD T & J movies.

it shouldn't work together but it does

>>149414487
not true at all

>>149413789 (OP)
Why did WB stoped using HB IPs after the 90s? Popularity? Not sure about that some HB characters are atuñill recognizable but they don't use them unless they try to remake them into something different.

>>149419593
Honestly it was Ted Turner / Turner Entertainment that used the HB properties. The WB buyout didn't happen til the mid to late 90s and at that point, WB never really cared like Turner cared.

Will and Joe pretty much retired from day to day to activities and just kind of "executive produced" the Scooby Doo and T & J direct to video movies

>>149414540
The dated 90s aesthetics didn't help.

>>149416762
Adventure shows also require a lot of new designs per episode
One thing people don't really talk about is how unpopulated shows became since the 90's. This is partly due to how character design and art direction began being more of a major job over one that you could farm things like extras out to younger inexperienced cartoonists.
If you watch an 80's cartoon like GI Joe or Transformers and you see a city, you'll see a crowd full of background extras. Since the 90's, showing dense scenes like that is largely not done. If it's a city, it's usually at night or some time where you won't see so many people. If you see new characters in a show, they're usually intended to be reused at some point instead of one-offs that were common in older cartoons. A lot of the time, background characters were handled by the lowest rung of animators- since style consistency is more of a thing(and there's less of an emphasis on "realistic" styles that gave you some leeway with generic designs), there's more work(and thus money) put into even minor background characters now.
Bruce Timm, for example, got his start working underneath another artist in charge of background and vehicle work in the GIJoe cartoon.

>>149413789 (OP)
I like all their outfits, these are all very strong designs.

>>149416312
>>149418810
That's the thing. It was crazy enough to work.

>>149413789 (OP)
By the late 80s, and especially in the 90s through early 2010s, American TV animation was focused on original concepts made passionately by creators.
When this started to change by the mid-to-late 2010s, and nostalgia-driven reboots gained more steam, the material that people would be nostalgic for, that these companies would try to appeal to older fans of, is stuff from the past 30 years, not stuff from the 1960s.

Though Jonny Quest did have a comic book miniseries last year.

>>149414660
Rage himself kept dying in insane ways.
>Stranded in the prehistoric era

>>149414487
>normal people remember and care about Jonny Quest, a show that went off the air 30 years ago

>>149416312
https://youtu.be/yotj4itLwZQ?si=yrG_r1qFsa2s6td1

Tom and Jerry get up to some shit since no one actually cares.

>>149420670
With a t-rex charging him and a nuke going off on the truck he was on. And we all know that if there was another season he would've been revealed to have survived that. It's the same guy that survived a space station falling from space into the ocean along a deadly bacteria he was going to use to wipe out humanity. I love insane villains that always have ambiguous deaths they somehow survive.

>>149418810
>>149420946
Those movies during that period were surprisingly well animated.

>>149421465
It was like all the oldhead animators left at WB animation being left alone to do whatever as long as it tied into an IP WB owned or licensed.

>>149416762
I wonder if it might just be that video games took the place of other mediums in the adventure genre market. Given the choice, kids would probably rather play Uncharted or Tomb Raider than sit down and watch Jonny Quest or Tintin.

>>149420683
It's back on the air idiot. Boomerang recently let the show out of the vault and has been doing all day and nightly marathons of the 60s and 80s era show

>>149420515
yeah ikr

>>149421680
This, plus it was on Tubi for a bit.

>>149420663
>not stuff from the 1960s
and yet Scooby Doo is STILL a fucking thing, and Yogi Bear has come back a few times. Why are we being denied Quest kino?

>>149421465
>>149421533
Even Disney veterans like John Pomeroy worked on these. The Tom and Jerry direct-to-DVD movies looking so good is a direct result of Disney abandoning hand-drawn feature animation.

>>149422046
shit, I missed it

>>149413789 (OP)
I'm hoping as things get increasingly awful, the public will have a need to dive deeper into fiction and fantasy. It would be cool to see the adventure genre revived without having to worry about whether or not it's realistic to discover a lost ancient city/civilization in this day and age with google maps having already photographed every inch of the earth.

I actually rather liked the New Adventures...when quest world wasn't stinking up the screen...and the original series, it's vibe and how it straight up dovetailed to include The Venture Bros.

There's a lot to love about super science and the antics that can entail, it's one of the reasons why I love Batman:TAS so much as well quite frankly.

there is one oddly specific thing about johnny quest that kind fascinates me is how in 95 TNT aired the movie during prime time and seemed to make a big deal about it. I recall seeing this ad several times and indeed watching the movie which i recall being pretty cool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-X-DyflVP8

but why was this even on TNT? They had Cartoon Network right there, it was popular and about to hit it's full 90s stride over the next few years.

>>149424753
>why was this even on TNT?
Because airing it on a more adult-focused network would make it seem more important.

>>149414540
>with more faithful(for what they could do) localization

Not really considering at best the dubs of Tenchi Muyo and Inuyasha and Rurouni Kenshin, still took a quip approach with stilted acting, then you had Funi and Viz butchered dubs of DBZ, YuYu Hakusho, Rave Master and Zatch Bell in the middle, the Cloverway dub of Sailor moon, and the rest was 4kids tier with Pokemon, Yugi Oh, Card Captors and that one kids anime about the pet Hamster.

You don't know what you're on nigga, when the most accurate dub was Gundam Wing which even had japanese texted episode previews, and that's mostly due to Sunrise tight grip.

>>149422244
Scooby Doo never stopped being a thing

>>149416773
fr