Jonny Quest(Cartoon Jazz Suite)

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For 60s and 70s cartoon fans, please note that I have also pulled together a Jazz suite from the Original Spiderman Cartoons-- music that, sadly enough, where teh masters have not been preserved. Due to the content owner's wishes- my video for that is not as enjoyable, but the music is great!    • Spiderman Suite (1967-68 Cartoon)  
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Jonny Quest (1964-5) was the ultimate Saturday morning cartoon for me. It had everything an 8 year old boy would want: jet packs, hovercrafts, evil spies, monsters, deadly robots, dinosaurs, death rays, cannibal tribes, mummies, deranged, homicidal Nazi war criminals, mad scientists, deadly crocodiles, curses and all sorts of gunfire and explosions. It was Nirvana after a few bowls of Captain Crunch. What made this cartoon unique is that people actually got killed in it. (Offscreen). Although the series only lasted on year in prime time (It was cancelled for being too expensive to make, and parental complaints about the violence), it ruled Saturday morning cartoons in reruns, and ended up being shown by all three major networks.

Not to mention, "Race" Bannon was the ultimate cartoon badass of all time-- even though he looks eerily like Mike Pence.

Not only did the show have much better art than the typical cartoons of the time, the music was INCREDIBLE, and what I remembered most about the show. Hoyt Curtin (the man who wrote "Meet the Flintstones") had a great taste for Jazz and a flair for arranging.


I was so happy when the music for Jonny Quest was released from the master tracks, but I didn't find listening the same as watching the show. About 110 minutes of music was released, but beyond the title tracks,, they were short cues and snippets, anywhere from 5 seconds to 2 minutes long, with long pauses, and I just didn't get the momentum I wanted listening to the music, even though the sound was excellent. There are also some great time signatures- there is a part in 5/4 and several jazz waltzes. Curtin was a trombonist, and the parts he wrote for trombone are legendary.

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Please Note: In the original posting (and the Video) I did not give Ted Nichols credit for his contributions to this music. (Thanks to Martin Proctor for pointing that out.) I can't change the video, but wanted to make Nichol''s contribution clear.
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I decided to edit a long Jazz suite taking highlights of the music, shifting the order, grouping different themes and using overlaps, cross-fades, and a bit of convolution reverb to make it sound like a long manic jazz composition-- an audio cartoon. To be honest, I had low hopes and didn't plan on posting it, but I really like the way it came together, and it's Hoyt Curtain's music that made this possible.

For the video, I've pulled clips from more than half of the episodes, trying to keep reflecting the moods of the music, and capturing the unhinged sense of adventure (and gratuitous violence) that the 8 year old me me still appreciates. For the reasons of Copyright claims, I was not able to duplicate the video of amazing intro to the show- which is well worth checking out.

As a note- some aspects of the cartoon are dated- there are a lot of "ignorant savage" tropes, and a lot of the "yellow peril" paranoia, and despite the presence of the lovely mercenary Jade, who is Race Bannon's equal, this show was targeted for boys who haven't yet discovered girls. So I've seen some articles about how the show show's male chauvinism and White Exceptionalism. It's a reflection of a different era-- I'd just laugh at the dated parts and soak up the action. And there is no shortage of action.

I'm submitting this under the Fair Use provision of the copyright act, for educational purposes, so that people may discover both this great cartoon and the music underneath it.