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  • Awesome Art
    • Definitely one of Hanna-Barbera's most visually compelling shows, with the action sequences being well animated (for a 1960s cartoon show at least) and highly detailed backgrounds that provide a lot of Scenery Porn. The Thick-Line Animation and black shading also helped give the show a unique comic book feel.
    • Animating realistic movement without rotoscoping is something even Disney had trouble with for a long time, and Hanna-Barbera was (mostly) able to do it on TV with a barebones budget.
  • Awesome Music: The soundtrack to the show is a jazzy and exciting delight to the ears.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse
    • Jade, who only appears in two episodes, became very popular precisely because of how little we knew about her. She also offers a tantalizing glimpse at Race's past.
    • Doctor Zin seems to border on Breakout Villain at times, having popped up in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and become a recurring character on The Venture Bros., which points pretty much to him being this.
  • Fair for Its Day
    • Nearly all the characters from more "exotic" countries - including villains - are little more than ethnic stereotypes of varying degrees by today's standards (most notable example: the Chased by Angry Natives scene in "Pursuit of the Po-Ho" where Race infamously calls the tribesmen "ignorant savages" and "heathen monkeys"). This includes one of the main characters, Hadji (though, despite this, Hadji was treated as an equal by Johnny, Race Bannon, and Dr. Quest). This is also the case of some of the Asian villains, who clearly show shades of Yellow Peril in their characterization. That said, many of them are presented as capable and intelligent. Many episodes' plots are driven by the strange foreigners being colleagues or old friends of Dr. Quest, whom often does take note to respect their achievements and culture. An example would be the Raj Guru and his Tibetan township in Monster in the Monastery as a contrast to the villains. Raj Guru is presented as a wise leader of his community, a practicing Buddhist, and a kind host to the Quest team; joining in for the finale. The villains are a group of dangerous conquerors who wreck terror on the Tibetans and are implied to be from Maoist China. The show's portrayal of foreign cultures often comes down to if the characters are hostile or not.
    • Speaking specifically of Dr. Zin, he is very much one of the trope codifiers for the Yellow Peril Asian mastermind, but at the same time avoided some of its trappings. He does not have the stock droopy moustache, talon-like fingernails, a stereotyped accent, or a fashion sense 100 years out of date; but he could be just as capable a villain as Fu Manchu himself. Regrettably, Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber Insects went ahead and gave him a weird robe and a droopy mustache after all — but fortunately, that film remains the exception, and he's usually depicted as he was in the original series. In other later productions Zin still maintains these elements but also is allowed to be a bit funnier than he was in the original series.
    • Even still in 2015 his appearance in Tom and Jerry: Spy Quest is very similar to how he was depicted later. He's able to be a little sillier but has no problem plotting to cause some major damage. Strangely enough he gets to order around Tin, Pan and Alley, who while established over several years of Tom and Jerry movies happen to be Siamese cats. Interestingly, Future Quest has revealed that he has a Western-style first name: he is Dr. Archimedes Zin, and he and Benton were friends before Zin turned to crime (Future Quest also depicts Zin ultimately cooperating with Benton after his partners from FEAR finally cross his personal Even Evil Has Standards limit). That being said, despite Zin's ties to the Yellow Peril trope, his home company don’t have much problem using him today, something other companies are reluctant to do.
    • In his first few appearances, Dr. Zin is given what at the time would have been interpreted by viewer as a cross between a Nazi accent and a Communist Russian accent, such as referring to Doctor Quest as "Doctor Qvest". He is less a Yellow Peril and more a hybrid of all America's "enemy nations" of the time.
    • Many people have referred to Hadji as one of the reasons they grew up with a respect for the notion of racial diversity. Not bad for an animated character in a children's cartoon series!
  • First Installment Wins: The remakes and sequel series are generally not as favored as this original series.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: "Werewolf of the Timberland" has Dr. Quest denying the existence of werewolves, with the titular werewolf being an obvious "Scooby-Doo" Hoax to prove his point. The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest would feature real werewolves in the episode "In the Darkness of the Moon".
  • Memetic Mutation
    • Mike Pence is Race Bannon note 
    • A pre-internet example is how some of the villains would shout “aiiiieeeeee!!!” before being killed by something which became synonymous with the show’s cultural impact.
  • Narm: In “Werewolf of the Timberland”, the Number Two for the gold smugglers uses a werewolf disguise to scare off bystanders and keep the lower smugglers in line. When we actually see the disguise, it’s hilariously obvious it’s just a guy in a suit and the disguise even looks more cuddly than fearsome.
  • Older Than They Think: The Rick Brant novel series, which began in 1947, also featured a brilliant young hero who lives with his scientist father on an off-shore island, with father and son working for the U.S. government on occasion, traveling the world, and adopting an intelligent young Asian boy into the household.
  • Shipping: Jonny Quest's boys own adventure feel has often made it subject to Ho Yay shipping.
    • Some have wondered if Dr. Quest and Race have a relationship or if it's really just all business. (For instance, an episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law had Quest and Bannon in a custody dispute.) For what it's worth, Race did have a hetero love interest in Jezebel Jade, while Dr. Quest is noted to have had a wife who died to the start of the series.
    • Jonny and Hadji was tossed around at times as well due to their similar close relationship but of course there isn't much to go on beyond what can be considered subtext. However, there is a certain amount of No Yay due to them being adoptive brothers.
    • There's also Jonny's first red-head girl. Denise Lor, the Damsel in Distress in "The Dreadful Doll". At the end of the episode her attempt to kiss Jonny and Hadji ends with them running away from her. So there's that. And also this sometimes leads to obscure shippers to let Denise pair up with the similar redhead from The New Adventures of Jonny Quest Jessie Bradshaw.
  • Spiritual Successor
    • Bordering on Recycled Script or even plagiarism; both the main plot about a sea monster stalking and attacking people on a boat, and the unrelated subplot about stolen gold being smuggled during a political strife, in "The Sea Haunt" episode is awfully similar to Roger Corman's 1961 horror-comedy film Creature from the Haunted Sea.
    • The pilot—- where the heroes investigate a murder near the Caribbean and uncover a terrorist plot to sabotage the US’s attempts in the Space Race—- is incredibly similar to Dr. No which was a conscious inspiration for the series overall.
    • The overall premise of a boy and his adult companions getting mixed into international adventures is as close to an animated adaptation of Terry and the Pirates (a direct inspiration for the show) as one is likely to find.
  • Unintentional Uncanny Valley: As this was the first cartoon series to adopt a more realistic artstyle, it's natural that several of the characters would look off in terms of facial expressions and/or anatomy.
  • Unintentional Period Piece: The show is very much a time capsule for the US in the mid 1960s. The show is awash in 60s style vehicles and googie style architecture. Multiple episodes reference the then-ongoing Space Race. Technology like lasers are portrayed as cutting edge. Numerous villains are heavily implied to be working on the behalf of either the USSR or Maoist China. The show’s well-meaning but problematic archaic relationship to race is very indicative of the mid 60’s before the rise of the hippie movement.
  • Values Dissonance
    • While Fair for Its Day, the show still engages in some pretty cringy racism, most notably Race’s “heathen monkeys” line. Also, in “The Quentong Missile Mystery” Dr. Quest casually refers to Asian culture as vaguely “sinister” at one point.
    • The Chinese villain of “Terror Island” openly brags about how “his people” invented using torture to get what they wanted.

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