How Jonny Quest Inspired Me

Jonny Quest in the 90s had a couple of different titles, “New Adventures of” or “Real Adventures of” depending on the season and where you lived on Earth, so here I’ll just be referring to it as Jonny Quest and assume I’m discussing the 90’s show. Despite the 2 seasons being very different shows in regards to demographic focus, they both had the same main plots; Scientist dude and his action hero BFF take their kids around the world solving mysteries and fighting monsters and villains of all sorts. It sort of borrowed a lot from the X-Files craze in that regard and helped pave the way for other shows of its type such as the early seasons of Supernatural, Roswell: Aliens, Myths, and Legends, and numerous ghost and paranormal hunter type reality shows and documentaries.

The character I identified most within the show wasn’t the hotheaded young teenage titular Jonny Quest, but his father Dr. Benton Quest. Benton is the creator of the Questworld virtual reality system akin to the Matrix from those movies. It’s implied that this is what funds his research and lifestyle. Being a scientist who made his living doing awesome things and having adventures was definitely up my alley as a kid, and something I still strive for today.

I spent many years in my 20s trying to figure out the scientific phenomena behind seemingly supernatural occurrences; ghosts, vampires, magic(k), psychic powers, on and on. To me, the real magic was in understanding and potentially harnessing the phenomena that created these legends, and maybe even make a living explaining them. I had been called a debunker, but that isn’t how I thought of myself. I guess I viewed myself as an explorer, changing the theories and hypotheses to fit the data, rather than fudging the data to prove fanciful ideas “true”. I tried to approach skepticism with a “How could this work?” mentality, rather than a “This can’t work, because” mentality. This passion was largely inspired by shows like Jonny Quest and their secular approach to these phenomena.

I also love travel; seeing in person the majesties of nature that are astounding has such a different nuance than reading about it in a book or hearing and seeing it on TV or YouTube. And travelling around the world to explore the cooler (e.g. supernatural) aspects of each place and culture would be a real dream life. I’ve not yet been able to achieve anything close to what I’d like to in this regard, let alone something like the Quests do, but maybe someday. My daughter is a teenager now after all, and my best friends would probably be down for some world travelling, even if they had to face down weird things that may or may not be supernatural.

I would hope that anyone reading this would be inspired in similar ways, to see more of the world when they can and strive to understand more things about it. Even things that aren’t “supernatural” per se; the secular and mundane world has endless fascinating things waiting to be discovered.

All in all, this show came from a time when, even though kid’s shows were largely commercials used to sell merchandise, they still meant something to their creators, and probably to their stars as well, and were able to help shape the young minds that watched them in beneficial ways. And if being a little commercialized means that that’s the price to pay for such entertainment or inspirational content, I think it’s a small price to pay. Even though it sucks having to pay it. Questworld, online!