Why did ABC cancel the 1960s animated series Johnny Quest after just one season?

Doug Widley’s 1964 animated series “Jonny Quest,” animated by Hanna-Barbera, lasted just 26 episodes, but to Generation Xers, it may seem like much more than that. Thanks to a series of sweet syndication deals, along with clever remixes and repackaging of the company’s 1960s and 1970s shows, Hanna-Barbera cartoons have been in reruns for decades, allowing new generations to grow up watching “Scooby-Doo, Where Are They?” You?,” “The Flintstones” And oh, Jabberjo. For ’80s kids, not a Saturday went by without several Hanna-Barbera shows finding their way into our eyeballs, often by accident.

“Jonny Quest” always seems to make its way into my generation’s animation rotation, and many viewers my age have become very fond of the show’s elaborate, engaging animation, thick-line drawing style, and “laser” sound effects. The premise was adventure novels for boys: Johnny Quest (Tim Matheson) was an 11-year-old genius who was skilled in martial arts, weapons use, and diving. He was the son of Dr. Benton Quist (Don Messick), a freelance scientist who often took jobs in the US government to investigate unusual acts of high-tech malfeasance.

Meanwhile, Johnny’s mother has died and his guardian is Rhys Bannon (Mike Rudd). However, there is no indication that Dr. Quest and Rudd were friends. Joining the adventures are Johnny’s 11-year-old brother Haji (Danny Bravo) and his pet dog Bandit (also Missick). The Quist family lives and works out of Florida. Their archenemy, Dr. Zin, is voiced by Vic Perrin, perhaps best known as the narrator of the opening of “The Outer Limits.”

“Jonny Quest” debuted in September 1964 and ran weekly until March 1965 when it was cancelled. The series was a great success with critics and achieved very high ratings. Hanna-Barbera eventually pulled the plug on the series because it was too expensive.

Like many shows before it, “Jonny Quest” did not find a large audience until it was syndicated. It’s often lumped in with other Hanna-Barbera series (80s kids can tell you that reruns aired in the middle of the giant cartoon blockbuster), so it was watched over and over again for two decades straight. “Jonny Quest” also featured rebroadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC in its lifetime. A few other shows aired on all three networks.

“Jonny Quest” took many visual cues from Milton Caniff’s popular adventure comic strip “Terry and the Pirates,” with Doug Wedley adding high-tech gadgets like speedboats and jetpacks. Back in 1986, Wedley was interviewed about “Jonny Quest” (interview that Saved on “Jonny Quest” fan site.) and revealed that he was initially hired by Hanna-Barbera to design characters for a television series adapted from the radio drama “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy.” This project changed and mutated during development, as Hanna-Barbera was unable to secure the rights to the Jack Armstrong character. Then Wedley turned the character into Johnny Quest and the legend was born. At first, Hanna-Barbera did not want to give Widley created-by credit, but eventually gave in.

Actual budget numbers for a typical “Jonny Quest” episode aren’t easily found, but it should be remembered that Hanna-Barbera resolutely tried to work on the cheap. In fact, many Hanna-Barbera characters are designed in such a way that it takes less time to animate them. Most Hanna-Barbera characters are viewed at a 3/4 angle, meaning they can look to the side or to the right at the camera, depending solely on their eyes. Think of Fred Flintstone. This design ethos allowed for a type of limited animation that was cheaper and faster to produce. This allowed Hanna-Barbera to adhere to a weekly television schedule, something most animation studios could not do.

“Jonny Quest,” being more visually rich, probably took a lot more money to make and a lot more time to animate. Perhaps unable to keep up with Hanna-Barbera’s rigors (and budget), “Jonny Quest” was canned.

Thanks to endless reruns, Johnny Quest has remained in the popular consciousness for years, and interest in the character has remained high. In fact, in 1986, Hanna-Barbera attempted to revive the character with the “The New Adventures of Johnny Quest” animated series. Scott Menville played the eponymous character, and Don Messick returned as Dr. Quest and Bandit. This new series was originally intended to be a sequel series with adult Johnny Quest as the main character, but the studio rebooted it in the reboot. But this version only lasted 13 episodes.

A decade later, in 1996, Hanna-Barbera tried again with “The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest,” which added higher technology — as well as a more “modern” tone — to the young boy’s adventures. Also, Johnny was up to 14 years old. “Real Adventures” was more straightforward and made use of high-tech computer animation, with J.D. Roth playing Johnny. It aired on Cartoon Network and was the most successful “Johnny Quest” program to date, running 52 episodes over two seasons.

The live-action “Jonny Quest” movie has been stuck in “development hell” for more than a decade, and about a dozen directors have been attached to the project. A version with Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron was in the works in 2009, Robert Rodriguez was once said to be working on the movie “Johnny Quest.”and Chris McKay was on the hook to direct “Johnny Quest” in 2018. There’s no script and nothing has been given the green light, so we’ll have to wait and see if this movie gets made or not.

However, the film’s participants had better hurry; The people who still know about “Jonny Quest” are all middle-aged or older now.