Baby boomers of a certain age, and anyone fond of classic
Hanna Barbera cartoons, might find the 40-year-old episodes in
Jonny Quest: The Complete First Season an exciting blast from
the past. Five years before Hanna Barbera made a comedy about
amateur youths solving exotic mysteries in Scooby-Doo, Where Are
You!, the animation giant captured a more serious spirit from a
different era in Jonny Quest. The series played on primetime
television--a very big deal for animation at the time--in 1964, and
was infused with energy from sundry pop trends as well as cold war
paranoia and a prevailing belief in limitless technology (largely
inspired by America's race to the moon). Part intelligence thriller,
part science fiction, Jonny Quest made a child's adventure
out of thwarting international espionage and sabotage with
super-computers, state-of-the-art transportation to every corner of
the planet, an apparently bottomless budget for building fantastic
weapons, martial arts, and more. The fact that schoolboy Jonny, as
well as his best friend, Hadji, and canine companion Bandit, were
having adventures akin to those of James Bond was terribly exciting.
Young Jonny (voiced by actor Tim Matheson, later a co-star of
Animal House and The West Wing) is the motherless son of
government scientist Dr. Benton Quest. The latter conducts all
manner of research from a remote island, where he lives with Jonny,
Hadji, Bandit, and chief assistant Race Bannon, a rugged fellow who
tutors Jonny but also provides muscle when the group is on
assignment anywhere from the Arctic to Calcutta. The original 26
episodes (on four discs) find the team battling conspirators amidst
half-sunken pirate ships in the Sargasso Sea (in the pilot, "Mystery
of the Lizard Men," sans Hadji), working undercover to stop a
Jahilipur manufacturer of fake gold ("Riddle of the Gold"), and
foiling an effort to steal an experimental, "mind-numbing" drug (and
passing off a Race look-alike as the real McCoy) in "Double Danger."
(The last introduces Race's hottie girlfriend, Jezebel Jade.) The
slow, deliberate animation (even more stiff than Scooby) can
get a little wearing, but the uniqueness of Jonny Quest as a
genuine adventure-drama makes this collection a must. --Tom Keogh
Season One
#
Title
Original airdate
Prod #
101
"The
Darkest Fathoms"
1996-08-26
H00616-94004
Two centuries ago, ruthless pirate Black Jack Lee
rode his
frigate, the Ivory Web to the
Bermuda sea floor. When oil explorers are assaulted by a
ghost ship under his apparent captaincy, Dr. Quest prepares the
Questor for an investigation.
102
"Escape
to Questworld"
1996-08-27
H00616-94021
Race is hired to contain a nerve gas leak in
Chicago, the legacy of a botched raid on Dr. Jeremiah Surd
years earlier. When he and Dr. Quest are trapped, it's up to
Jonny, Jessie, and Hadji to find the renegade scientist.
103
"In
the Realm of the Condor"
1996-08-28
H00616-94002
The Quest team follows Estella Scheele to find
her missing ornithologist grandfather, and ends up finding the
lost golden city of El Dorado.
104
"Rage's
Burning Wheel"
1996-08-29
H00616-94018
Apocalyptist Ezekiel Rage hijacks the space
shuttle carrying Dr Quest and Hadji. Back on Earth, Jonny and
Jessie must find a way to stop Rage's apostles who have taken
over Mission Control.
105
"Ndovu's
Last Journey"
1996-08-30
H00616-94016
Jonny, Jessie and Hadji track an elephant, Ndovu,
as it returns to the elephants' graveyard. On the way, they run
into poachers who aren't willing to wait for Ndovu to die.
106
"Manhattan
Maneater"
1996-09-02
H00616-94013
New York City lives under the threat of a deadly
slayer during a trip by Dr. Quest, Hadji and Jonny; they learn
that the killer is from a different type of jungle, and become
embroiled in a citywide race to eliminate the culprit.
107
"East
of Zanzibar"
1996-09-03
H00616-94001
The Republic of Seychelles has suffered the
mysterious wrecks of whaling vessels and the loss of a
submarine. Dr. Quest's investigation is hampered when Jonny and
Hadji are swept up by a waterspout while sailing.
108
"Assault
on Questworld"
1996-09-04
H00616-94036
With Dr. Quest and Race in the
Himalayas for a phenomenology conference, Jonny and Jessie
are helpless in their attempts to free Hadji, whose mind is
being drained by Surd as part of a plan to take over the Quest
Compound.
109
"Ezekiel
Rage"
1996-09-05
H00616-94015
His plea for help turned down, a compromised spy
and his family are presumably killed on duty. But when Dr. Quest
visits a cave in New Mexico, he finds that Ezekiel Rage—and his
anger towards the government—is very alive.
110
"Alien
in Washington"
1996-09-06
H00616-94017
Extraterrestrial transmissions turn out to be
warnings to stop a series of space experiments, and the Vice
President turns out to be an alien.
111
"Return
of the Anasazi"
1996-09-09
H00616-94003
Holding an
Anasazi beacon capable of calling the alien fathers of
current technology, Alice Starseer is pursued by
men in black and asks Dr. Quest for help, whose capture
provokes a cross-country rescue by Jonny and Jessie.
112
"The
Alchemist"
1996-09-10
H00616-94014
Dr. Quest is commissioned to find the
Philosopher's Stone, which is reputed to turn dross to gold.
But when he succeeds, the stone is later stolen from a museum by
Quest's partner, who wants to try it out for himself.
113
"Trouble
on the Colorado"
1996-09-11
H00616-94040
Alice Starseer is returning to Earth to lay her
grandfather to rest, and Dr. Quest has been invited to attend
the ceremony. Old enemies and new allies lurk among the rapids
of the Colorado river, the route to the meeting site.
114
"In
the Wake of the Mary Celeste"
1996-09-12
H00616-94007
A century ago, the cargo ship
Mary Celeste sank under mysterious circumstances. While
on an expedition to find the Mary Celeste's remains, Dr
Quest discovers what look like
crop circles at the bottom of the
Sargasso Sea - and a graveyard of ships in an area barren of
marine life.
115
"AMOK"
1996-09-13
H00616-94044
On an archaeological expedition in
Borneo, the Quest team run into a giant creature, reputed to
savagely attack from all directions at the same time. Then they
find out that man can be the greater beast...
116
"Besieged
in Paradise"
1996-09-14
H00616-94038
Jeremiah Surd taps into, and gains control of,
the
cetacean communications bandwidth, prodding cetaceans
worldwide into savage attacks. The Quest team enlists the help
of Captain Havell to stop Surd.
117
"The
Spectre of the Pine Barrens"
1996-09-17
H00616-94005
Dr. Quest, Jonny and Hadji head to
New Jersey to investigate the Jersey Devil. Then they run
into a two-hundred-year-old feud between descendants of the
Redcoats and the
Minutemen over the original copy of the
Declaration of Independence.
118
"Heroes"
1996-09-18
H00616-94025
Despite the breaking of its head, the recovery of
a statue of Apollo from Greece by Quest Enterprises heralds an
important archaeological find—sure to catch the attention of
Jeremiah Surd, who has his own plans for the monument.
119
"The
Ballad of Belle Bonnet"
1996-09-19
H00616-94011
Centuries ago, a female thief stole a wagonload
of gold to help an Indian school stay open, but the gold - and
the thief - were lost in vast caverns under the American desert.
Jonny discovers that her ghost is still guarding the cache.
120
"In
the Darkness of the Moon"
1996-09-23
H00616-94020
A werewolf attack in northern Canada brings the
Quest team to investigate. Race finds romance with an attractive
outback doctor who turns out to be the last female descendant of
a werewolf family.
121
"The
Secret of the Moai"
1996-09-24
H00616-94046
Thousands of years ago, the missing link between
apes and humans was engineered by aliens possessing auditory
DNA-altering technology. When Dr. Quest locates an alien ship in
Easter Island, Surd experiments in devolution and turns Dr.
Quest and Race Bannon into apes.
122
"Expedition
to Khumbu"
1996-09-25
H00616-94006
Betrayed by a colleague who wants sole credit for
proving the existence of
yeti,
Dr. Quest is all but lost in an avalanche in the mountains of
Nepal;
when his family begin searching, they are threatened by a
similar fate.
123
"Ice
Will Burn"
1996-09-26
H00616-94028
On a delivery mission for Dr. Quest in
Siberia, Jessie Bannon and the Quest Jet fall to the earth
and break through the ice to land in a massive underworld, where
she is hailed as the one who will restore a volcano's heat.
124
"Future
Rage"
1996-10-29
H00616-94019
Ezekiel Rage steals a compact thermonuclear
device and plans to melt the polar ice caps. The team set out in
the Questsled to foil his plan, unaware that the
Aurora Borealis in the sky above shall prove their greatest
weapon.
125
"Alligators
and Okeechobee Vikings"
1996-11-01
H00616-94010
Thought to be eco-terrorists,
Vikings in alligator suits assault a drilling rig and prompt
an inquiry from Dr. Quest. After Jonny and Hadji are lost in an
air boat incident, he finds that the Vikings are the least of
his problems...
126
"To
Bardo and Back"
1997-01-02
H00616-94039
By watching Jonny practice, Surd learns that the
team will be attending a rodeo and uses a mad bull to seriously
injure Race. The stakes are increased when Dr. Quest attempts to
miraculously repair the damage in Questworld.
