Jonny Quest The Complete Original Series Blu-ray

I was born well after this cartoon came out (early 70's) and I never knew that this cartoon came out in 1965/65 - I just did not expect a color cartoon to be out then! LOL. This show, along with other Hanna-Barbera cartoons used to come on in the 70's and 80's (Fantastic Fours, Thundar, Space Ghost, Jetsons, etc.) and I did NOT know that Jonny Quest was only a ONE SEASON show! How did a one season show last so long over the years? Ah well, I was always impressed with the artwork and different subject matter of this cartoon. I also wanted to see how a cartoon on blu-ray looked. Given the price and completeness if the series - I felt the need to buy it for some reason, plus I had not seen it in over 20 years. Upon viewing, I did recall the few few episodes and how they went down. The picture quality (as seen on a 4K TV) is BREATH TAKING! You can see the extremes of the artwork and what was set for animation (I always noticed those in cartoons) versus the paintings. It is SHARP, clear, clean and precise! Colors are perfect, as well as everything that you can think of. The sound is clear and clean, but the music IS louder than the dialog or regular show sound. For example, the intro music comes off very loud, then you have to turn the sound up once the show plays. Then the music shocks you back up when they do the music in between. Other than that - it is good to see this in it's finest form. I cannot say when I last saw these and the reviews said that these were the whole shows in their original form, with no censorship - so that played another factor in my purchase. While this was before my time, I still like this show enough to buy it. I could not imagine living in the 60's, but they did have some wacky, fun and great shows! Blu-Ray makes the most of them all and I may get more, even though I used to be against buying TV shows on home video. After seeing Twilight Zone - I feel the need to see MORE! Read more

Excellent quality. Really happy with the purchase. Read more

Excellent. This is what I remember as a kid, when I was it for the first time back in 1964 Read more

Brings back memories of my childhood. Read more

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. Read more

I remember watching this series on Saturday mornings when it was in syndication. It was produced and canceled about 6 or 7 years before I was born, but it was still popular. I think it still holds up. Some of it is a little dated, but it's still entertaining. It broke ground in that it was an animated series aimed at young audiences, but had mature themes and was grounded a little more in reality. It was a science fiction/ adventure show, but took place in real world locations and had real world consequences in that the bad guys could actually get killed. The Blu-ray package itself is great. Clear, sharp picture and bright colors. Great sound too. I'm also happy that the episodes appear to be complete and uncut. It's good to see these episodes as originally produced so that those who lived in this era can relive their past and those who were born in later years can learn how previous generations lived. Highly recommend this series. These series need to be preserved and if they sell well, Warner may decide to release more from this era. Read more