Lest you think I’ve never had a silly blog idea before the time I thought “You know, I need a much broader platform to address my ongoing concerns about Highlander,” permit me to introduce my long-abandoned Tumblr project: The Benton Quest Field Guide to the world of Jonny Quest. Do Tumblr and WordPress cross-post well? I imagine not! But let’s not let that stop us. From here on out the posts will be new, but this first one is from 2011.
Well, I did say abandoned, didn’t I?
I recently got the opportunity to rewatch the original Jonny Quest cartoon series, with…interesting results.
As a child, I freely envied Jonny: his father was a marine biologist [more or less], and he got to travel the world with his best friend, his dog, and an ex-Special Ops guy as a babysitter. (In contrast, my father was a CPA, my dog and friends thoroughly uninterested in adventure, and while Mom really liked Chuck Norris movies, that does not a Navy SEAL make.) I was a big fan of nature magazines at the time, and the exotic locales and carefully rendered animals* captured my imagination completely.
It would be unfair to say that the show hasn’t withstood the test of time: more accurately, when confronted by the test of time, Race Bannon wrestled it to the ground while the rest of the show skipped gleefully toward Weirdsville. My goal is to watch the DVDs in order and chronicle, as best I can, the important tips and wisdom of the peripatetic Dr. Benton Quest (and his associates—please don’t hurt me, Mr. Bannon).
As for the opening credits above, what more clearly says “scientist” like furtively glancing around while you’re being piloted in an untenably huge jet? Dr. Quest should probably also concern himself with his son’s amazing disappearing chin.
*With one exception, which will be discussed later. I suspect it’s a hitherto-unremarked species!
You can also find this at The Benton Quest Field Guide!
