The Quest for Saturday Mornings

Gather ‘round, kids. Let me tell you the story of Saturday mornings.

Once upon a time, Saturday mornings were for cartoons. This was in the ancient days of the 60s and 70s, when TV networks dictated people’s lives instead of the other way around. There were only three of them back then, so if they all showed cartoons on a particular day at a particular time, then that’s what was on.

Fortunately, the system had a certain logic to it. Parents got a little time to themselves – sleep off the post-Friday-night hangover or whatever – while the electronic babysitter took care of the kids for a couple of hours. Of course in my family’s house the routine in the kitchen was as certain as the animation on the tube: my dad insisted on pancakes every Saturday morning, so like clockwork my mom made them for everyone. To this day the image of Scooby Doo and the taste of maple syrup are firmly linked in my sense memory.

To be sure, a host of cartoon classics crossed the cathode ray tubes of my childhood. The Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Show, The Pink Panther, Scooby Doo and many others all deserve their own spots on the blog (and perhaps someday they’ll get them). But recently I got a reminder of one of my all-time favorites that I had nearly forgotten.

While prowling the aisles of Hollywood at Home, I happened to glance up at the TV in the corner. The hipsters who ride the counter like to play kitschy, retro stuff, and disc they just happened to be playing was Jonny Quest.

For those unfamiliar with the series, here are the basics. Jonny Quest began life on ABC in prime time starting in the fall of 1964. That was a wee bit before my time, so it was my good luck that after cancellation the series moved to the Saturday morning line-up and ran in syndication on different networks for several years after the show died.

As the title suggests, the star of the show is a boy named Jonny. Although his mom is dead, he lives a pretty sweet life for a mid-60s pre-teen kid. His father is Dr. Benton Quest, a brilliant scientist with connections all over the world. Dad’s work takes him to exotic locales and involves him in adventure after adventure. And as if the travel and the thrills aren’t enough for one kid, Jonny also benefits from the constant protection of Race Bannon, a government agent assigned to look after the boy so his dad doesn’t have to worry.

However, the primary relationship in the series is the friendship between Jonny and his adopted brother Hadji. The Quests picked him up during an adventure in India, and he proved to be a natural fit. As an extra added bonus, he can do magic tricks.

And speaking of tricks, the ensemble is rounded out by Bandit, the family’s talented dog. Though he’s used primarily for comic relief, every once in awhile he plays a significant role in the drama.

Most of the stories are driven by Dr. Quest’s job. He seems to have expertise in just about every imaginable realm of science, making him a great asset not only to his colleagues in research but also to the military (hence the assignment of Race to his household). So anytime the government needs someone to design a new ray gun or investigate suspicious missile activity, Quest is the go-to guy. He also seems to be acquainted with a lot of scientists with penchants for getting into trouble and requiring rescue from criminals, angry locals or even monsters of their own making.

When it was created, the main attraction of the series was its realism. This was one of the earliest experiments Hanna-Barbera ever tried with animation that actually looked like real people, quite a departure from previous successes such as The Flintstones and The Jetsons. The less-stylized drawings proved to be harder to keep on model, and motion was frequently over-simplified. The over-use of cels wouldn’t have drawn much attention in a traditional cartoon, but the closeness of the animation to live action shows tended to invite sometimes-unfavorable comparison.

The stories were also a great deal more realistic; while many depended on science fiction or semi-supernatural elements, they were at least plausible and contemporary. Individual plot elements – particularly violence – closely mirrored what might have been expected from live-action adventure productions at the time, particularly the James Bond series. Though it never came anywhere near the gore levels of later shows – especially Japanese products – it wasn’t Daffy-just-readjusts-his-bill slapstick either. The bad guys had it especially rough, frequently suffering fates ranging from gunshot wounds to boiling to crushing to animal attacks and so on.

The show’s realism proved to be its undoing in more ways than one. Though the art was interesting to look at, it was expensive to produce. At the time cheap Japanese or Korean animation sweatshops weren’t an option, and American union artists were expensive enough to make the cost prohibitive. So even though the series was popular with critics and got good ratings, it was canceled after only one season. ABC – at the time a poor cousin to NBC and CBS – simply couldn’t afford the upkeep.

Even in reruns, the show’s non-cartoony treatment of violence made it a magnet for criticism. In the late 60s and early 70s, pressure groups zeroed in on the bad influence violent programs had on children. In the age of Bobo doll experiments, a show in which bad guys openly bit the dust was a natural tender spot.

From the perspective of a grown-up in the 21st century, the violence isn’t all that troublesome. However, other elements that wouldn’t have seemed too out-of-place 40 years ago now raise more than an eyebrow.

Primary among these is the rampant racism that infects the whole series. Almost all of the bad guys have foreign accents of one kind or another. White villains tend to sound Russian or occasionally British (though class-wise they’re clearly more Eliza Dolittle than Winston Churchill). But the really shocking ones are the East Asians. Though the words “Yellow Menace” are never explicitly used, the flavor of Fu Manchu infuses Asian characters from semi-regular nemesis Dr. Zin down to one-time-only baddies such as Dr. Ashida.

“Uncivilized” antagonists don’t fare much better. The Quests occasionally find themselves at odds with indigenous people, who get treated pretty much like animals. Oh, and quick side-note: some of the stories are hard on the animal kingdom as well.

Though such cringe-worthy crap is impossible to defend, it’s important to keep in mind that racism and sexism wouldn’t have seemed at all out of place to mass audiences in 1964 (as the show’s solid ratings proved). We’re talking about a world in which an Ivy-League-educated professor expected his wife to fix pancakes every Saturday morning. That doesn’t excuse the bigotry, but it does at least help explain it.

Further, in some ways Jonny Quest was ahead of its time. While sometimes terribly rough on the critters, in other places the Quests pass up obvious opportunities for cruelty. Even when it was being unflattering, it was sometimes at least honestly so. Few other children’s programs before or since would have featured elements such as genetic engineering and Pan-Arabism, however politically incorrect the presentation was.

Hadji also proves to be something of an conundrum. On the one hand, he’s a cartoon caricature of an Indian person. On the other hand, he’s a cartoon. Yes, it would be nice if his heritage didn’t apparently endow him with a natural ability to perform “the mysterious magic of the Orient.” But he frequently comes across as smarter and more trustworthy than the lazy, devil-may-care Jonny.

Despite all the pluses and minuses, I like this series because of pleasant childhood memories. Boomerang shows it on a regular basis in the wee hours of the morning, and my Tivo helped me time-shift it to a more convenient schedule. Sure, I had a few oh-my-god moments with the racism and all. But overall it was a pleasant experience.

I suspect that it’s almost pure nostalgia, because I’ve never had any luck with subsequent Quest incarnations. There was a second attempt at a series back in the 80s, and a cheap feature-length or two since then. But they just don’t evoke the flavor of pancakes like the first set.