We came across an excellent documentary on The Adventures of Jonny Quest, the Hanna-Barbera prime time cartoon that debuted in September 1964. There’s a lot of fascinating behind-the-scenes information, including some James Bond ties to the series.
Producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera hired cartoonist Doug Wildey to spearhead the project. It was originally intended to be an adaptation of the radio show Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy but that was scrapped for an original series. One notion behind the show involved Barbera’s happening to view a certain gentleman agent with a license to kill, as evidenced in this clip starting around the 23-second mark:
The title character of Jonny Quest was the young son of a scientist cosntantly in peril. The show’s Bond surrogate was Roger T. “Race” Bannon, a U.S. agent assigned to protect the Quests. Here’s Race’s origins:
To see the entire documentary, you can CLICK HERE and get instructions how to download it. You can also CLICK OUT THIS BLOG for more Jonny Quest information, art and commentary.
You can also see the entire documentary on YouTube, where it’s divided into 27 parts. Here’s part one, and you should be able to navigate to the others. Again, it’s excellent and takes a critical look at events where it’s warranted:
Filed under: James Bond Films, The Other Spies | Tagged: Doug Wildey, James Bond's influence on Jonny Quest, Jonny Quest, Joseph Barbera, Race Bannon, The Adventures of Jonny Quest, TV spy shows, William Hanna |
The Spy Command 
Ah…That’s one of the US TV shows we never got in France ( no TV, no VHS,no DvDs…Nothing ) along with Honey West and such classic TV Culture stuff …
Mind you : I was lucky enough to spend my childhood on the Riviera ( ie : could catch Tele Monte Carlo TV ! ) ,otherwise I would never have seen Get Smart, the Irwin Allen shows or much of the ITC british series either!!!!
Perfection.