Jonny Quest - The Complete First Season Reviews

• REMASTERED means REVISED Jonny Quest DVD Box Set

  
  By A3DBTNJSACQ9NR on 2004-06-22
  When the JONNY QUEST DVD Box Set was finally released I was one of the first to buy it. The wait for these fantastic episodes was finally over. And what a long wait its been! What a shame it is then that the "politically correct" people at Warner Brothers found it their duty to EDIT, that's right, EDIT these classic cartoons! A typical EDIT from DISC ONE "Pursuit of the Po-Ho" A purple Race Bannon confronts the Po-Hos who have Dr. Quest held hostage with,"All right you ignorant savages, get a load of Aquizio you heathen monkeys!" The "REMASTERED" version is a watered down, "Get a load of Aquizio!" All the while Race's mouth is moving but no words come out! At least no words that some idiots at Warners find offensive. Who are they and how dare they think they can just EDIT someone elses work! What's even more outrageous is that for some reason they don't have a problem showing the UN-EDITED versions on their own CARTOON NETWORK! Get it together guys and RE-ISSUE the Jonny Quest Box Set UNTOUCHED, UN-EDITED, and truly REMASTERED as your packaging states! And the next time you think its "your job" to EDIT a classic cartoon, DON"T! Thank GOD your EDIT MONKEY kept his stinking paws off the LOONEY TUNES Box Set!
  
  

• Please don't let these classics be lost!

  
  By APUWLD6DBD2JX on 2003-11-10
  Please don't let these classics be lost to another generation!
  The few of the original series that have been made available on VHS from Hanna-Barbera and Turner have been smash-hits with both my nephew AND my nieces. Ian, at five, wanted us to be Dr. Quest and Jonny, and we spent many hours running about the house and yard with walkie-talkies on Quest adventures (my wife got to play Roger "Race" Bannon). Kate and Kris (5 and 7) love to dance to the theme music I was fortunate enough to find on Napster in its heyday. Mary Madison (4) wants to know: "Is Hadji a girl or a boy?"
  Turner Home Entertainment has done a very poor job of releasing and supporting this great series -- the few they have done are so filled with promotional crap for its Cartoon Network that it's nearly unbearable. It takes five minutes of fast-forwarding just to get to the feature. And any "Classic Quest" fan will tell you the new "Real Adventures" just don't cut the mustard (more like the cheese).

  I urge all fans to review here and sign up for release notification to help pressure Turner into properly re-mastering and releasing the entire 1964-65 series (26 episodes).
  (...)
  
  

• "PC" as Political Corruption

  
  By A9LFL1M2H0X0M on 2004-09-07
  It was 1964-65, and being almost 11 at the time, I remember JQ very well indeed. My brothers and I would be totally captivated by JQ when it aired on Friday evenings at 7:30. It was light years ahead of any other animated program... bar none! Fast paced, intelligently written with story lines that would even hold our father's interest.
  After it's one season run, JQ was rehashed in syndication for several years. I will always recall noticing how in the mid-70's someone decided to "crop" certain scenes from each episode... usually involving some level of violence. This always seemed to lend an air of "lameness" to that particular episode... ala the "A-Team" where a dozen guys with automatic weapons fire at each other with NOBODy getting seriously hit!
  Hmmm... violence with NO consequences... gee, what a FANTASTIC message for impressionable young minds!
  Gee, in this day and age of rampant "PC", I am surprised to read that only comments such as "heathen monkeys" and "ignorant savages" are being voiced over. How in the heck did Jade get away from the censors with that cigarette holder she is almost always seen with ?!?
  What can we expect next from the "PC" brigade... screening every film since 1972 for any reference to the World Trade Center and editing THEM out too?
  Come on, people... Jonny Quest is a CARTOON. Leave things as they were originally ment to be, will ya' ?!? Anything less is just plain insulting to those of us that remember...
  
  

• A Hacked, quicky transfer

  
  By AYBX5U5Y70BSC on 2005-10-23
  When I found out that all 26 episodes of the classic Jonny Quest were released on DVD I was stunned. I felt that finally the HB execs are getting it together and recognizing the good stuff. After watching the first two episodes I realized I had been DUPED! Editing dialogue to be PC, using the same ending credits for all episodes and no credit for Doug Wildey. A (...)release of the best classic prime-time animation of the 1960's.
  
  After I finish watching all the episodes, I'm donating the DVD's to my local public library. I know better now to read the reviews before buying. I think Warner Brothers and Hana-Barbera owe all of us an explanation for this hack-job. WHY DID THEY HAVE TO DICK WITH IT?
  
  When I pay for DVD's, I expect the real deal without edits and deception. I can only hope that they fix it with another release with everything intact except the insert commercials. And you can bet they know that we will buy it again. Greedy, corporate pigs!
  
  (...)
  
  

• The best we're gonna get, considering our era...

  
  By on 2004-05-18
  The era of timid, PC a__ -covering, that is. I refer of course to the dialogue edited from the PO-HO episode, tho' apparently Pygmies can muster no relevant pressure groups which would deluge Time Warner with choreographed protests, so it's still okay to note that they were not "warm and friendly people."

  Actually, I'm a bit surprised that this set was released at all, cognizant as I am of the number of spare-timers in the world these days whose sole occupation is waiting to be offended, and if the stimulus doesn't come, seeking it out. That said, there are just four very minor beefs about this set which any sane person (i.e. any person whose all-time favorite show wasn't Jonny Quest, and who has not been waiting since the 70s for a release like this) can safely ignore:

  1. The aforementioned censorship. Cheap, low-class, sniveling -- more offensive than what Race actually said, in the sense that it was a cartoon character saying something about a far-remote and imaginary jungle tribe DURING the mid-1960s IN prime time. Meanwhile, the cut is REAL. So you thought you could toss your VHS copies when this set came out, eh?

  2. Of all the grand artwork produced in conjunction with this series in the Sickles/Caniff/Toth/Wildey mold, the good folks at Time Warner went to great pains to dredge up a hack image which appears to have come from the mid-1980s version of the show -- the existence of which most Jonny Quest fans refuse to recognize -- and slap it on the box cover.

  3. Remastering is a fine thing where film and video are concerned (it is death to original analog sound recordings, but that's another topic), but the saturation of these colors is a little blatant, seemingly in line with the idea of making the show look as if it were produced yesterday. Film prints age like wines and cheeses, and take on a velvety richness which is quite subtle. This subtlety is steamrolled in cranking up the colors to an extent which they never really possessed (anyone who has seen original cels or early film prints of JQ will acknowledge this to be the case). Again, a minor quibble, and certainly not something I expected a DVD reissue campaign to even consider.

  4. Extras, schmextras. Aside from the P.F. Flyers ad, I'd rather all that space went to just two things: Hoyt Curtin's musical cues (as many as could be found and cleared -- note the bootlegs currently up on for auction), and all the original model sheets, , presentation boards, promotional art, storyboards and layouts that H&B archivists could lay their hands on, be it from the vaults or by putting a call out to happily-obliging collectors. Most of this material has never been reprinted in books satisfactorily -- imagine the ability to bring it up nice and sharp on your TV screen!

  There you have it, the rants of a nitpicker. Suffice it to say that the CONTENT of this show cannot be ruined no matter how many heathen monkeys or ignorant savages at Time Warner get in on the act.
  
  

• DESERVES MORE THAN FIVE STARS!!!
  By AVBRJYZH2WFFO on 2004-03-10
  Just found out that this SUPER series is finally coming to DVD, ...Santa got my letter. This show along with "The Flintstones" is truly a favorite of mine. It's better than the new Jonny. It only lasted one season, but was a great adventure show for the whole family. I like that phrase "For the whole family", you don't have too many shows like these anymore. This is a must for any DVD collection. Here are the air dates and the rerun dates for the season.
  {SEASON ONE}
  9/18/1964 "Mystery of the lizard men"
  9/25/1964 "Arctic splahdown" 4/8/1965
  10/2/1964 "The curse of the Anibis" 6/3/1965
  10/9/1964 "Pursuit of Po Ho" 4/1/1965
  10/16/1964 "Riddle of gold" 4/22/1965
  10/23/1964 "Treasure of the temple" 3/25/1965
  10/30/1964 "Calcutta Adventure" 7/1/1965
  11/6/1964 "Robot spy" 5/6/1965
  11/13/1964 "Double danger" 5/27/1965
  11/20/1964 "Shadow of the condor" 4/29/1965
  11/27/1964 "Skull & double crossbones" 7/8/1965
  12/4/1964 "The dreadful doll" 6/24/1965
  12/11/1964 "A small matter of pygmies"
  12/18/1964 "Dragons of ashiba" 3/18/1965
  and 4/15/1965
  12/25/1964 "Turu the terrible" 5/20/1965
  12/31/1964 "The fraudulent valcano" 8/12/1965
  1/7/1965 "Werewolf of the timberland" 7/22/1965
  1/14/1965 "Pirates from below" 5/13/1965
  1/21/1965 "Attack of the tree people" 6/10/1965
  1/28/1965 "The invisible monster" 8/5/1965
  2/4/1965 "The devil's tower" 8/19/1965
  2/11/1965 "The Quetone missle mystery" 9/9/1965
  2/18/1965 "The house of 7 gargoles"
  2/25/1965 "Terror Island" 7/15/1965
  and 7/29/1965
  3/4/1965 "Monsters of the monastery" 8/26/1965
  3/11/1965 "The sea hunt" 9/2/1965
  
  
• Still Not Complete After Such A Long Wait...
  By on 2004-06-26
  The shows themselves rate five stars, of course. The two star rating is for the presentation, merited by the following:

  1. Dialogue edits from "Pursuit of the Po-Ho"
  2. Dialogue edits from "Monster In The Monastery"
  3. Atrocious, hack artwork on the box
  4. Cutting of JQ title cards from the introduction sequences
  5. Use of only one end credit sequence (the only one without creator Doug Wildey's name on it) for all 26 episodes
  6. Amping up the colors to an eye-straining saturation level
  7. Ridiculous modern extras; as a previous reviewer stated, they should've included pre-production artwork and/or Hoyt Curtin's musical cues

  Never, never, never, NEVER trust a bunch of hamfisted, bottom-line watching suits to preserve something like this in the definitive, most complete way it should be. The Peter Principle is alive and well in every company big & small, and this set was spit out by one of the biggest. Keep those VHS copies handy...
  
  

• Classic Jonny Quest - Why so long to put this on DVD??
  By AZD6D8TV7G0YT on 2003-12-19
  I clearly remember there were a few things that inspired me on T.V. in the 1960's and 70's. Couple this with some really great comics, boyhood adventures, tunes from the oldies, and you have some wonderful memories to share with your children. Classic Quest may have been simple science fiction plots or they may have set the ground work for some really great movies or T.V. episodes, who's to say? Nevertheless, they were good, clean fun and way ahead of it's time. It had a single working parent (Father at that), the spirit to pull together (including Bandit) and a little cultural diversity which Rush Limbugh would be hard pressed to criticize. Whoever is waiting to release this piece of Americana, please wait no more. I'd hate for another Christmas or Birthday to go by without sharing the fun and excitement of Jonny Quest.
  
  
• Adventures For Boys
  By A3KJ6JAZPH382D on 2004-06-01
  I was four years old when this was on Television, yet I remember several episodes plain as day. That was how exciting I found young Jonny Quest to be and how enveloping the inventions and science fiction to be, even as a preschooler. I also remember being excitedly scared by some of the more fantastic elements of the show...like "Turu the Terrible" and "The Invisible Monster!" This was the kind of stuff an eventual reader of Hardy Boys, Tom Swift and Danny Dunn books craved before books began to seep into my life. Now that these DVD's have been issued, it's a safe bet to say they will have a permanent space on my DVD shelf.
  
  So why not a perfect 5 stars? We'll get to that. First the plusses. These were, more than anything else, adventures for boys. Jonny and Hadji were always there when the brilliant Dr. Benton Quest got a call to rush from Quest Laboratories in the Florida Keys to some far off country, travelling on the most recent invention. Lasers and Space Flight were frequent resources for story lines, and as a 4 year old want-to-be astronaut, it made it seem like anything was possible. Of course, this was the era of cold war politics, so the villains were often foreign guys with creepy accents. (Think Dr. Zin.) One of the frequent reasonings for Dr. Quest to have to go out on one of his missions was to make sure that these innovations didn't fall "Into the wrong hands."
  
  But it also meant that Jonny (and, by proxy, I) were able to visit Tibet, the Arctic Circle, South American rain forests and other exotic (and real!!) locales before I even entered school. Looking at these 40 year old episodes anew, it's amazing that Jonny looks like he could be drawn today; an inquisitive eleven year old in black shirt, blue jeans and sneakers, he could be from anywhere USA even now. And who wouldn't want to have an extended family with a cool an adoptive brother as Hadji (one of animation's -- or, for that matter, all of prime time's -- minority main characters), a tutor as devoted as teacher/bodygaurd Race Bannon or a dad as equal parts brilliant to understanding as Dr. Quest? Add that the animation was far more real looking than the club footed dopiness of "The Flintstones" or the animals acting like people of "Top Cat," (Bandit never suddenly started to ask for treats...) etc, and the world of Jonny Quest was something that we all could slip in to.
  
  In the pre PC world, Jonny could react exactly as a kid could when first confronted by an inquisitive girl (in "The Dreadful Doll"). No matter how you slice it, a kid his age would be flustered and annoyed by a female his age making inquiries. By the time the "New Adventures" came out, Jonny had to have a female foil, and my response was just what Jonny's would have been had he been a typical (read: real) 11 years old..."Ick!" And can you imagine a show today with a broad base of young watchers where the Father character smokes? (Dr. Quest enjoys a pipe in one of the episodes.)
  
  Which leads to my short list of minuses. Coloration throughout the set is really good, but sometimes oversaturated, and in "The Werewolf of the Timberland," White Feather's skin is in two different colors! Also of dubious note, what happened to Doug Wildey's credit? It seems to only show up during "Double Danger," otherwise I seem to get the impression that the end credits were remastered from one episode then taped onto the end of all the episodes for DVD transfer.
  
  And the worst offense...what heathen monkey was responsible for editing the dialog out of "Pursuit Of The PoHo"? Is this from the same brain trust that wiped out explosions and gunfire from classic Warner Brother cartoons and then blacklisting Speedy Gonzales for being stereotypical? If I emerged unscathed from that kind of language as a 4 year old, why am I expected to be offended by it now? If that was the root case, why not edit out the smoking, the shooting, the animal cruelty and the really obvious stereotypes from the Cold War era? It's enough to make me want to wave my hands while muttering "Sim Sim sala Bim" and to thusly wipe all of you ignorant savages of the face of the Cartoon Network.
  
  OK, end of rant.
  
  Those are all just me carping. If you were at all enthralled by "Jonny Quest" in 1964 or its countless repeats on Saturday Mornings, you need to have this. As soon as the exquisitely James Bond-ish musical theme comes up (Hoyt Curtain's music for this series was light years beyond most TV shows, and even today's), you'll be back in your PF Flyers and ready for more adventures for boys.
  
  
• Buy Johnny Quest Before the Feminist Outlaw It
  By ANUJUFRP6RNA2 on 2006-03-17
  Just imagine, a cartoon made for boys. Your son can unashamedly watch these amazing shows about courage, masculinity, adventure, and combat without feeling one ounce of guilt about being a male. Nothing has been produced since the Johnny Quest series that comes remotely close in production quality. The writing and plots are superb. These incredible shows combine the perfect mixture of exploration, mystery, and science fiction. My son loves these shows and has thanked me over and over again for buying them for him. I thoroughly enjoyed the Johnny Quest shows when I saw them in syndication 30 years ago and I appreciate them even more now when I compare them to the gender-neutral garbage on television today. Do your kids a favor and buy this classic show.
  
  
• Overall, pretty good, but with a few distracting problems
  By A9VVRMQJKIV1W on 2004-08-30
  First of all, I'm thrilled to finally have Jonny Quest on DVD. Despite being a product of its time, with its overt racism, sexism, etc., it's still head and shoulders above the sanitized pablum that is currently inflicted on children (and the parents responsible enough to watch what their children are viewing). Let's face it, even the sanitized pablum has its problems with non-PC issues...they're just disguised better than they were in the old sixties cartoons. Yes, JQ was quite violent, but it showed violence with consequences. People were hurt or died when they were shot or beaten. Nowadays, cartoons show violence as being safe, i.e., nobody dies, everybody just bounces back and recovers.
  
  Overall, the DVDs are pretty good, however, I'd also like to complain about the dialogue edits that other people have mentioned. Given all the other non-PC issues in JQ that were left in, these particular edits (of outdated terms that most of the younger generation are unlikely to even recognize as racist slurs) are ridiculous.
  
  In terms of the DVD production, I agree with other reviewers that the colors are oversaturated.
  
  I'm also going to mention that two episodes, "Mystery of the Lizard Men" and "Pursuit of the Po-Ho," have a bad case of the telecine jitters. So if you've noticed these episodes jittering back and forth, it's not because your eyes are tired or your equipment is bad. Somebody involved in the DVD production decided to be cheap, obviously, since they didn't bother to correct this problem. I sincerely hope the various technical issues are resolved in a future release.
  
  JQ started out with a five from me for the nostalgia factor, but because of the edits and the technical problems, I'm subtracting a point.
  
  
• Jonny Quest fans...this is your call to arms!
  By on 2003-09-19
  This is your chance to let the powers that be know that there is an audience out there ready to buy the COMPLETE ORIGINAL JONNY QUEST series in a DVD boxed set... place your name on the email list and vote for a full release of the series in its entirety!
  
  
• Give credit where credit is due
  By A22L2XINTAGUJQ on 2004-05-17
  Before I start singing any praises to Warner or Hanna Barbera, I've got two major complaints:

  1) Why is Doug Wildey's name conspicuously missing from the end credits? On the broadcast versions he was credited with the original Jonny Quest concept and there was no mistaking (or missing for that matter) his distinctive signature on the end credits. Seems to me that the real driving force behind the look and feel of Jonny Quest deserves better treatment than to be dropped from the show he helped to create.

  2) If you are remastering the episodes anyway, is it that much trouble to include the real end credits that accompanied each episode? If you pay close attention to the end credits on the DVD set, you'll see that it's the same one being used over and over again. The end credits on the broadcast versions were different in regards to voice acting and writing/storyline credits.

  Pretty shabby folks. I can only wonder what kind of flack would have resulted if somehow Warner or Hanna Barbera weren't credited on this set. But I guess so long as they get their recognition, it doesn't matter if the people who deserve the real credit get overlooked.
  
  

• Fullproof and Perfect
  By AH0K6KAO3N1RH on 2004-07-26
  Jonny Quest was an extremely innovative cartoon series in its day, and in many ways, still is. Like the Flinstones which preceeded it, it was originally an experimental prime-time cartoon aired in the evenings for the growing numbers of teens in this country at that time. Hanna-Barbara were the bomb in the 60's and always strove to push themselves and their audience.
  
  This new DVD box-set is everything a great cartoon DVD set should be. It's flawless. Every single episode of the classic 1960's Jonny Quest cartoon is here in its entirety, remastered, in 5.1 surround sound, and with subtitles. The colors look brighter and richer than I've ever seen Jonny Quest when aired on TV throughout the years. The picture is sharp, clean, and clear - it looks like this was animated in the present, not over 30 years ago!
  
  Ignore the tagline Complete Season One as its misleading to consumers. There only was one season of the cartoon and all of the episodes are here - in other words, you aren't missing anything and there are no further box sets to buy. This is all the Jonny Quest that fans need every purchase. It's that complete!
  
  I love the Jonny Quest series: the characters are so unique, the stories are so neat, the drawing-style of the animation is so stylish and comic-like, the music is so cool, the villians are so different and awesome...its quite a treat.
  
  It's hard to say what my favorite episode of the series would be. There's too many ultra-classic episodes here. I suppose if I did have to choose a personal favorite, I'd have to go with "The Dark Tower". I love the weird concept of a renegade Nazi war criminal using a lost civilization of neanderthals as his slaves. That's the kind of other-worldly adventure that makes Jonny Quest so cool, even to this day!
  
  
• Waiting for uncensored version...
  By A37RB1BFQ9NY3W on 2007-05-08
  I grew up watching Jonny Quest and it was a favorite. Why were there so many good intelligent shows back then? Lost in Space, Star Trek, Ultraman, Speed Racer. This was before political correctness(feminization), dumbing down to lowest common denominator, anti-science and ant-male shrek hijacked popular culture. When violence had consequences and wasn't all fun-n-games. So now they release this watered-down PC version...BAH!
  
  
• JONNY "CLASSIC" QUEST!!
  By AVBRJYZH2WFFO on 2004-01-11
  This is one of my favorite cartoons from the 60's. "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" are truly classics also. I remember watching "Jonny Quest" all the time back in the sixties when I was young. Truly better than the new one they have out. Which reminds me...They need to bring the "Flintstones" out on DVD, along with "Space Ghost" and a ton of other "CLASSIC" toons.
  Here are the air dates along with the rerun dates for that summer season of "Jonny Quest". I loved the sixties.
  9/18/1964 "Mystery of the lizard men"
  9/25/1964 "Arctic splahdown" 4/8/1965
  10/2/1964 "The curse of the Anibis" 6/3/1965
  10/9/1964 "Pursuit of Po Ho" 4/1/1965
  10/16/1964 "Riddle of gold" 4/22/1965
  10/23/1964 "Treasure of the temple" 3/25/1965
  10/30/1964 "Calcutta Adventure" 7/1/1965
  11/6/1964 "Robot spy" 5/6/1965
  11/13/1964 "Double danger" 5/27/1965
  11/20/1964 "Shadow of the condor" 4/29/1965
  11/27/1964 "Skull & double crossbones" 7/8/1965
  12/4/1964 "The dreadful doll" 6/24/1965
  12/11/1964 "A small matter of pygmies"
  12/18/1964 "Dragons of ashiba" 3/18/1965 and 4/15/1965
  12/25/1964 "Turu the terrible" 5/20/1965
  12/31/1964 "The fraudulent valcano" 8/12/1965
  1/7/1965 "Werewolf of the timberland" 7/22/1965
  1/14/1965 "Pirates from below" 5/13/1965
  1/21/1965 "Attack of the tree people" 6/10/1965
  1/28/1965 "The invisible monster" 8/5/1965
  2/4/1965 "The devil's tower" 8/19/1965
  2/11/1965 "The Quetone missle mystery" 9/9/1965
  2/18/1965 "The house of 7 gargoles"
  2/25/1965 "Terror Island" 7/15/1965 and 7/29/1965
  3/4/1965 "Monsters of the monastery" 8/26/1965
  3/11/1965 "The sea hunt" 9/2/1965
  
  
• Buyer beware...
  By ACE1LUC0UDL7E on 2004-05-12
  Disappointed to find that the Complete series on DVD has been "edited for content". Politically incorrect dialog has been removed or "silenced". I find it particularly offensive that one can watch an unedited episode on TV, but after spending $60.00 for a DVD to watch in the privacy of your own home, Turner/WB decide to remove 40 year old dialog from classic animation. Save your money and look for "other" collections of the same series.
  
  
• Secret repository of American culture
  By A1KFCZF2V2FS62 on 2007-04-06
  Some of you may remember reruns of the TV show, Jonny Quest on the television machine.
  
  Jonny Quest was made in the early 1960s; the greatest years of american civilization. The tailfin years. The world of Jonny Quest is a world filled with super technology; they all have special secret agent gadgets, hovercrafts are how scientists get around land, they fly around in a supersonic jet; everything is tailfinned and jet powered. America had just conquered the atom and beat the stuffings out of the Nazis a mere 19 years before, and had turned the Empire of Japan into the empire of nice cameras and Godzilla movies. It was the time of the first generation of supersonic jet aircraft; every barrier that nature put up seemed breakable. This was the apex of the machine age. The age of optimism that built the Saturn-5 rocket that took americans to the moon. It was the age of chrome grilles and preposterous consumer items like 500 horsepower Plymouth Max Wedge engines.
  
  The Johnny Quest adventures happen in the wilds of the world. To the western mind of the early 1960s, there were still wild lands where one could experience high adventure. Places with poisonous snakes, quicksand, animated mummies, villains in submarines, booby-trapped ivy-covered hidden temples, levitating hindus and bone-through-the-nose cannibals. Places like Bali might as well have been the dark side of the moon to an american in those days. This is completely bizarre to modern sensibilities, but it is quite true. Even in the early 1970s, being able to make a few minutes telephone call from Vietnam to America was insanely difficult. Getting to Yemen was still an adventure; people actually wrote adventure travel books which simply involved going some place weird and far away.
  
  The animation is shockingly good. Apparently, this wildly popular show had to be canceled because the production quality was too high: it simply couldn't make enough money to justify itself. This is too bad, as amortized over its lifetime, I am sure it more than paid for itself. But people didn't have the concept of using films like high yield bonds the way the studios do now a days. Those were more innocent times, indeed.
  
  One of the more interesting things about this show is Hadji. Hadji was the first serious kids show character in america who was from another culture. I remember being very confused why it wasn't called the "Hadji and Race Bannon show" -they were more interesting and sympathetic characters than Johnny Quest (who was the type of oafish kid who would give me noogies when I was younger) and Dr Benton Quest (who was a helpless wimp, really, always getting into trouble). Hadji by contrast was very well educated, and extremely composed. Not only that, but he was simply a lot smarter than Johnny. Plus he could do magic tricks, which was awesome. Since I was young when I watched this show, I identified best with Hadji. I wanted to be a sikh or a hindu or whatever he was supposed to be, so I could levitate, jump around magic jars, and pick bones out of dogs ears. Apparently, Hadji is the american soldier nickname for natives of Afghanistan and Iraq. All things considered, it seems to be a high compliment.
  
  Race Bannon was also a great character. Back in those days, a hero could have grey hair. George Clooney aside, that doesn't exist any more. Now the hero has to have striations on their abdomens. While Dr. Quest was supposed to be the smart one, it was generally Race Bannon who knew important stuff, like what the Sargasso sea was all about, how to do judo throws, or how not to get kidnapped. I never quite figured out who Race was supposed to be, but I knew he was bad to the bone. Upon re-watching the show as an adult, I realize he was a CIA man; spies were often considered universal men in the early 1960s. He was an american James Bond sent to look after the hapless Dr. Quest and his high spirited lad.
  
  I see this show (recently rereleased) as a sort of last ultimate embodiment of a certain kind of adventure entertainment. Men's adventure magazines died around the time Johnny Quest died; they were cut of the same cloth. Early Dr. Who was something similar, though it was more British; a kids adventure show that teaches a bit of history and geography. It's fortunate such things still exist in video form; they embody something which is really great. Will you be offended by its anachronisms? I suppose many people who calibrate their exquisitely sensitive moral barometers with a protractor made from recycled tofu, a straight edged icon with Germaine Greer's photograph in it, graph paper and a copy of the New York Times Editorial section will be offended. But such people are born to be offended. Those folks miss out on many of the great things in Western culture, like Mr. Moto movies, and the fact that they don't live next door to cannibals. I think modern kids will love it. It's not jaded, or wretched and denatured like modern kids entertainments; just wholesome adventuring.
  
  
• Very Disappointing
  By A1ETFRVJYM8X9D on 2007-05-13
  Buyer beware. The episodes are all here but NOTHING has been done to clean them up. They look to be transferred directly from flim stock that has been played a thousand times complete with major scratches, dirt and hair bits showing throughout the programs. With such good packaging you would expect an excellent product. This isn't it. Shame on Hanna-Barbera for putting out such a shoddy product.
  
  
• thank God for the quality reviewers
  By A3SR90QT5J2FI3 on 2006-10-23
  I couldn't believe it when I saw this boxed set for the nice price, holy cow! I really love this show, the artwork, etc., and I would love to own it, BUT for it to be edited and tampered with, missing title cards, missing credits, that just plain sucks. What's up with DVD makers not giving the fans what they want? It's like they need surveys for the obvious... Maybe every DVD maker oughta' put up a webpage explaining to the fans what they're doing every time they make a DVD, just to check to make sure they're getting it right... Jeez, how hard is it?
  
  All I can say is thank God for the quality reviewers. I'm passing on this 'til the DVD makers get it right.
  
  
• More testosterone per square frame than an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie
  By A3CKPNSGA7JOLK on 2007-03-18
  Here it is, the series that sent busybody do-gooder group Action for Children's Television (ACT) into apoplexy in the 1960s and 70s. The most politically incorrect cartoon series ever made.
  
  Johnny Quest features two ten-year old boys who occasionally handle guns! Johnny Quest follows the adventures of Johnny (white) and Hadji (Aryan Indian), and their pet bulldog "Bandit" a preternaturally intelligent animal who is almost human with his miniature body type and cowardice of Lou Costello. Johnny's bodyguard "Race" Bannon is there to keep Johnny and Hadji safe (Rutger Hauer modeled his character in "Blade Runner off of him), and Johnny's father famous scientist Dr. Benton Quest (you can tell he's a scientist, he has a flaming red goatee) invents reasons for them to have lots of guns and jet planes.
  
  Graphics are all in detailed comic-book-panel like minimalist animation. In the Johnny Quest universe there are lots of ray guns built by evil people in exotic places, so our heroes have to race around the world blowing things up.
  
  And yes: "here there be dragons."
  
  Johnny Quest is a world without females to slow things down.....plenty of violence and comic relief....gigantic and expensive mechanical toys.....evil yellow skinned mastermind criminals...mindless henchmen only there to get shot and blown up, etc. Yes, the only thing missing from these "Boy's Own Ripping Tales" are the drinking and the tang. Jet planes, hovercrafts, rockets, boats, submarines, scuba gear, lasers, guns (and lot of `em), all terrain vehicles, and real Land Rovers with all the safari gear you'd need. Ignorant savages burbling unintelligible gibberish dropping their portage loads and running off into the jungle? You got `em Bawhana, in nearly every other episode. Monsters? How about Pterodactyls, mummies, komodo dragons, robots, Asians, crocodiles, Africans, snakes, and women (Race Bannon's mysterious old flame, Jezebel Jade, occasionally shows up).
  
  Because he is from the mysterious east, Hadji can levitate people at will by merely incanting "sim sim alah-bim" over and over again. Scientist Dr. Quest accepts this as normal.
  
  Boys raised on Johnny Quest who then saw "Animal House" in high school saved fraternities and the Greek system on college campuses nationwide, since whacked `68 liberals by that time had intoned its death knell.
  
  
• Finally...
  By A5FV0BXC7YNFV on 2004-05-06
  I remember, at the tender at of 9, switching between the 5 channels I had available to me on my family's little black and white television set, and coming across this cartoon that, from that first second, held me in awe. The show was Jonny Quest, and the episode was Mystery of the Lizard Men! It had high adventure, incredible suspense, thrilling music, wonderful comedy- and most importantly, a young boy right in the middle of it all. (Was his dad irresponsible? Eh...whatever.) From that moment on, I was hooked. So much so that, on a weekly basis, the show simply had to be enjoyed from the first frame of the opening titles, to the very last "This has been a Screen Gems presentation" closing (as spoken by Race Bannon!)

  And when those opening titles played, boy, were we thrust into adventure! That thrilling music! Those incredible visuals. Maybe it was my age, but no show before or since has quite had that kind of impact. It's so nice to see it finally arrving on DVD.

  My favorite episodes:

  Mystery of the Lizard Men
  The Curse of Anubis
  The Pursuit of the PoHos
  The Robot Spy
  Shadow of the Condor
  Dragons of Ashida
  Turu the Terrible
  The Invisible Monster
  House of the Seven Gargoyles
  
  

• Jonny's On DVD! And Looking Good! Very, Very Good In Fact!!
  By A1FDW1SPYKB354 on 2004-05-14
  This ultra-cool four-disc DVD boxed set from Warner Brothers contains all 26 episodes of the original 1964 animated TV series, "Jonny Quest" (aka: "The Adventures Of Jonny Quest"). This set is part of the slick-looking "Hanna-Barbera Golden Collection".
  
  This original version of "Jonny Quest" only lasted one season (1964-1965). Therefore, this collectible DVD boxed set contains *every* episode in the entire so-called "Classic Jonny Quest" series. The show was twice revived in later years (for syndication only), once in the 1980s and again in the 1990s. But I think I'm safe in saying without fear of getting much argument that the subsequent resurrected versions of "JQ" cannot nearly measure up to the original 1964 variant of the program, which seems to exude a kind of timelessness and authentic quality which makes these "Classic" episodic adventures fun to watch again and again.
  
  Every exciting and peril-filled '64 Quest adventure is here, complete with all the various cool vehicles and gadgets that are utilized by Dr. Benton Quest and his son Jonny, who are accompanied by their ever-present colleagues, Roger "Race" Bannon and "Hadji". (Plus Jonny's often-helpful dog, "Bandit".)
  
  So many memorable set-pieces came out of the Jonny Quest cartoon series. .... Watch in glorious Digital clarity as Dr. Quest's #1 nemesis, the evil Dr. Zin, makes multiple futile attempts to "take over the world". This fun series also features the likes of abominable snow creatures, gargoyles, very unfriendly sea beasts, some angry pygmies, a spider-like "robot spy", werewolves, lizard men, deadly spiders, poisonous snakes, wild panthers, man-eating dragons, an invisible energy-absorbing monster, and one of my favorites (in the episode "Turu The Terrible") -- a Quest-hating prehistoric pteranodon, which was trained by a wheelchair-bound madman, voiced by Everett Sloane. ("Kill, Turu, kill!!"). :)
  
  This adventure cartoon debuted on ABC-TV on Friday night, September 18, 1964, in the 7:30 PM (ET) time-slot ("The Farmer's Daughter" and "The Addams Family" followed Jonny on the ABC schedule). I, however, best remember seeing Jonny in reruns on Saturday mornings. The producers of this series (Hanna-Barbera) sure got their money's worth out of this one-season wonder. The series still holds a lot of fans spellbound.
  
  Each of these twenty-six "Classic JQ" episodes is presented in its original, uncut form (with a running time of about 25:15 each). The original "Episode Title Cards" (complete with the thunderously-dramatic four-note musical cue) are also included here.
  
  The picture quality for these color episodes is terrific....virtually perfect! Colors look very bold and vibrant, with Race Bannon's always-present red shirt showing up bright and vivid. The image aspect ratio is as you would expect from a TV program aired in the 1960s -- Full Frame (1.33:1).
  
  The sound comes via Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono tracks, with pleasing results. There is also a DD 1.0 Mono "Spanish" track included for each episode. "JQ" relied heavily on music to build suspense and carry each storyline along. The music cues used in the programs, as well as the rousing opening and closing themes, come across very well on these discs. Each episode also features subtitles in English, French, and Spanish.
  
  Once again, it's worth repeating with vigor here --- THESE EPISODES LOOK FANTASTIC ON THESE DVDs! High praise must be showered upon whoever is responsible for these DVD video transfers. These Quest adventures look and sound as clear, sharp, and rich as when they were first aired (probably even better)!
  
  NOTE REGARDING THE EDITED-OUT PORTIONS OF THE "PO-HO" EPISODE: I'm not thrilled at all that two brief portions of dialogue have been edited (muted) off the soundtrack in one episode ("Pursuit Of The Po-Ho"). In fact, I'm pretty ticked off about it. These edited comments have been left intact on the soundtrack whenever aired on broadcast TV; so why would they be cut out of a home video release?! Ultra-silly! However -- as stupid as these edits are, don't let this tiny setback stop you from getting this top-notch DVD set! These Jonny Quest shows are some of the truly greatest works of animation ever done. They should be treasured -- by "Heathens" and "Savages" alike. :)
  
  If you check out my other "Jonny Quest Season One" review here at Amazon, I'll have a detailed rundown of the DVD's Special Features (plus information on the Menu design and the DVD's Packaging).
  
  These well-written and visually-impressive episodes of this memorable animated series are still a pleasure to watch, even all these decades later. And the show is made infinitely more enjoyable thanks to this outstanding boxed set of DVDs from Warner Home Video. This is a DVD collection I shall enjoy for many, many years to come.
  
  
• The Coolest Series Ever Released on DVD!!!
  By A3KF8A4ESRHPCI on 2005-11-16
  Despite criminally deleted un-PC dialog and abominably incorrect end credit re-splicings that fail to give credit to creator Doug Wildey and great guest voices like Keye Luke, Jesse White and Edward Van Sloan, this DVD set is a wondrous experience of adventure extraordinaire! The tampering and neglect fail to harm this awesome series! It's immune due to the infinite quality with which JONNY QUEST was produced in 1964, far surpassing all other TV animation untill 1992's BATMAN series 28 years later. The music, art, action, stories and more, combine to form a chemical reaction that bursts out of your TV screen like a super-sonic jet in a life-or-death pursuit of danger. The film and video quality on this DVD set is exquisitely beautiful. The sound is way cool. You'll want to listen to this loud. The voices, sound effects and music are awesome and very effective. Don't deprive yourself of the coolest DVD watching experience you'll ever have. Don't think about the Jonny Quest's of the 80's and 90's. This is the primal stuff that defines true adventure. JONNY QUEST is without rival my most prized DVD set of all. Treat yourself to this influential show that formed the grand peak of animated TV excitement!
  
  
• Classic Adventure Series
  By A1NV9ECONPJEV5 on 2004-04-19
  If you think about it, you could probably come up with many examples of classic comedies, classic dramas, classic cop shows, detective shows, etc. But you would be hard pressed to come up with numerous classic adventure programs. Jonny Quest is certainly one of the greatest adventure series that television ever produced. Along with the other great Hanna Barbera series like The Flintstones and The Jetsons, Jonny Quest was blessed with inspiration from the word go. Who can forget the classic Hoyt Curtain theme? Who can forget the great voice talent the show offered, even though Vic Perrin and Henry Corden worked WAY overtime to create a wonderful rogue's gallery of villains. But what really makes this show succeed is its storytelling. These are just good stories well told-and fans of the series have their favorites.

  I am especially looking forward to this set to re-watch the all-time great episode The Curse of Anibus. As many know, this is the famous mummy episode. Has a mummy EVER been more scary, in real film or animation?? Perhaps the mummy in the Brendan Fraser film ranks about as high as this one, but what makes the spirit of Anibus especially creepy is that this mummy doesn't talk or make any sound at all. It just walks and follows. You've got to see this one. And full marks must go on how beuatiful and terrifying the mummy is drawn. Watch for the famous moment where the mummy is looking into Jonny's bedroom window. Wow, this is the stuff for nightmares!!

  This is a marvelous series that is finally being released and it is worth watching again and again. May you all enjoy and re-enjoy this set as much as I plan on doing!
  
  

• Not Quite the Real Thing
  By A2S5L7CFGRUA78 on 2004-07-20
  Yes, it's wonderful to be able to watch the original adventure series on DVD. However -- it is atrocious, inexcusable, and deserving of a kick in a sensitive place to the decision-makers who decided to change the originals.
  You can see other reviews for explanations of where dialogue was cut.
  Almost as egregious is the stupid, stupid, stupid repetition of the SAME end credits for EVERY episode, EXCEPT for episode 9, "Double Trouble." It's a real shame that a voice talents like Keye Luke, as well as others, are ignored by this lame-brained patchwork job.
  Why would somebody do this? Probably not to leave creator Doug Wildey's name off. My guess is that this DVD release was just more metaphorical sausage ground out from the Warner Bros mill. Especially since it was a title created by another studio (Hanna-Barbera), and available for release simply because Ted Turner had bought HB. No, the clueless decision makers probably figured that nobody would care. Or, worse, they may have asssumed that the credits were all the same for every episode. Of course, that doesn't explain the different end credits for "Double Trouble." ...
  Anyway, buy this and relive most of your childhood memories. And look on the web for a proper listing of the creators of each episode of the coolest cartoon show on Earth.
  
  
• The greatest Politically Incorrect cartoon ever!
  By A9FFO06F9Y299 on 2005-05-07
  I have very fond memories of this series. Over the years, it has been sliced and diced, and even in that state, wasn't shown for years due to it's violence.
  
  Today, all that joyus and glorious stuff that made this show what it was has been lovingly restored to us. This was made during the time when you fired a machine gun or lazer pistol at someone, they would DIE. Pure and simple.
  
  Jonny Quest always had GREAT, if not ethnically acceptable villans. Of these, Dr. Syn was my all time favorite.
  
  My all time favorite episode of the series has to be "The Robot Spy". still as scary and chilling as ever, after nearly 40 years.
  
  
• Still Great Despite The Carping...
  By on 2004-05-20
  Although I will agree with some of the negative comments found in many of the reviews here, I also don't think any of them are all that significant. People are only commenting about the set, not the shows themselves, which are pretty much unassailable in my view. The small flaws in the set surely don't qualify as deal-breakers, not even close. If you love Jonny Quest, this set IS an improvement over your old VHS set taped off of TV. Geez, what Jonny Quest fan honestly WOULDN'T want these DVDs?

  Some of the complaints have merit, but I think they only serve to show just how much people love Jonny Quest and wanted the "permanent" release to be perfect. No release will ever be perfect enough, the fans who truly love the show could always do some things better.

  I can't argue with those who find it shameful (and a bit suspicious?) that the only episode whose credits DON'T include creator Doug Wildey's name are the credits that were selected to be used for EVERY episode's end titles, even though rotating teams of different personnel worked on each individual show.

  As for the cutting of two lines of dialogue from PURSUIT OF THE PO-HO, that does irk me quite more than anything else, and it is just what the previous reviewer called it: "PC a-- covering". Never mind that the show went out over the airwaves on Cartoon Network with that dialogue INTACT. You, the individual viewer who has shelled out part of your paycheck to enjoy the program in the privacy of your own home, cannot be trusted with subversive language such as Race Bannon (a cartoon character!) speaks -- you might become overnight skinheads or join the Klan, to say nothing of what would happen to your children if they ever heard such a thing. Ridiculous, but not too surprising in the current climate. Meanwhile, Tarantino can direct the words "dead (expletive deleted) storage" to Samuel L. Jackson, a black man, and get high fives from Hollywood. Somehow, I doubt that PULP FICTION hit the shelves with that line cut out...and I'd have been mad about that too, if it had!

  But like I say, this is a small matter, just like the amateurish cover art they chose for the box. It's something that kind of annoys you at first, but once you're basking in these great shows in BEAUTIFULLY restored prints, you remember the reason you WANTED this set in the first place, and those little mistakes just doesn't seem important anymore. To paraphrase Dr. Quest:

  "Bandit, I have just one thing to say, and you can quote me: GOOD DVDs!"
  
  

• Like You Never Saw It!
  By on 2004-05-24
  The most remarkable thing about this DVD set is that you get a full 25 minutes in each episode. I've watched the first 7 so far, and I thought I had seen them all a million times. But I hadn't.

  The thing is, when you see them rerun on TV, you see maybe 20 minutes - maybe less. Let's see, if we cut this episode to 19 minutes, we can add 2 more 30 second commercials.

  And what's more, most of those "restored" minutes have some of the best dialog and scenes that flesh out the characters.

  And finally, you get a cartoon you can show your son, that has guy characters doing guy stuff. As opposed to modern day role-reversal cartoons, where the guys get rescued by the girls, or there are no responsible male characters (don't get me started).

  I took away one star for the cheesy packaging - why can't they give you a decent box for these things? The episodes, of course, get five stars.
  
  

• The All Most Definitive Jonny Quest DVD Set...
  By A3HLRBRF6SOJ5B on 2005-01-17
  I grew up watching Jonny Quest during it's many re-showings on Saturday Morning television during the 70s. I wasn't around to watch the series during its original run in the early 60s. With all the awful, poorly conceived and animated shows that aired on Saturday mornings during my childhood Jonny Quest was a breath of fresh air. This series had interesting characters, exciting situations, intelligent stories and fantastic animation which was miles above what was being broadcast at that time.
  
  So, now that the Jonny Quest series has made it to DVD I should be overjoyed, right? Well, the DVD set is good and does contain every episode of the original (real) series (please forget Hanna-Barbera's horrible modern Jonny Quest attempts) and they do look clean, crisp and colorful but the set does have its flaws. First, the extras really stink. The documentary about the series is poorly done and features nothing more than a group of people I don't know and never heard of offering their memories of the series. Who cares? I want to know about the complete history of the show with profiles of all the creators and voice actors who participated in its production. The documentary was a BIG disappointment. Secondly, having read the reviews on Amazon, I have learned about the various PC edits that have been made to the shows. This, of course, doesn't sit well with me. Also, as someone else stated the music that plays on the main DVD menu window is ridiculous. It sounds like the theme to some old game show or something. Why didn't they play the theme or music excerpted from the series instead? Bad decision guys.
  
  What would I have liked to have seen? How about a real tribute to Doug Wildey, Jonny Quest's creator. They really needed to have included a something of substance for this great man. They could have also included, assuming it still exists, the original pilot film for Jonny Quest (when I believe it was going to be based on Jack Armstrong). Scenes from the original pilot film appear at the very beginning of the end credits. You know, the scenes with the hover craft and the angry African natives throwing spears.
  
  I would give a full five stars to the show itself but have to give the DVD set less due to my above comments.
  
  

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