“Jonny Quest” Opening Remade by Roger Evans

By
on

This thing’s gone viral in the past week. Amid first posted about it back in November, and I have been getting flooded with readers sending me the link to the final product. So, here it is – a superb stop-motion recreation of the opening titles to Hanna Barbera’s Jonny Quest by filmmaker Roger Evans. Bravo, sir! Excellent job!

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  • uncle wayne

    oh, my WORD! Starlingly and staggeringly beautiful! Totally Complete even with the, as we say in the business, “Hanna-Barbera Palsy” A great picker-upper! Thank YOO! Now i can’t wait for the Space Ghost one!!!

  • http://beesbuzz.biz/ fluffy

    How much of that was traditional stop-motion and how much was CG? Obviously a lot of the shots are computer-composited, but the animation itself also looks like there’s a lot of computer assistance.

  • http://hand-drawn-animation.blogspot.com David Nethery

    @Fluffy: You wondered how he made it, how much is traditional stop-motion and how much is CG ?

    Take a look at his website for a detailed shot-by-shot description of how he made it:

    http://www.rogerevans.tv/jq_page2.html

    (click on the thumbnails for each shot to read about how the shot was made)

  • http://www.jonnyquest.tv Roger Evans

    Hi, guys! This thing has become much bigger than I ever imagined. When i started this, just for fun, I thought that maybe, just maybe, there might be 8,000-10,000 Jonny Quest fans left in the entire world. Boy was I ever off the mark! The response has certainly made it feel worth the time and effort we spent on each shot. Thanks to Amid and Jerry for their kind words and the exposure here on the Brew. My best to JQ and animation fans everywhere.

  • Sat

    Animation made out of love, this is how it always should be!

  • http://MBCraigMyLivesandTime/blogspot.com Mitchell Craig

    I’ve already watched this at least a half-dozen times. I’ll never tire of it. If it were financially feasible to do an entire series like this, you couldn’t tear me away from the screen.

  • http://tequilawhisperer.com Lippy

    Thank you for taking the time and effort, Roger!
    I love it — ESPECIALLY the walking Eyeball!

  • http://www.hobsonanimation.com Kevin

    Outstandingly awesome!!!

    This is even better than the original opening of “Jonny Quest.”

  • Lala_Marin

    It’s even better than I’d hoped. Excellent job!

  • Mike Johnson

    I’ll tell you how much of a Jonny Quest fan I am: I currently have a 7″ computer tablet, and on that tablet I have the entire Jonny Quest Season 1 DVD (yes, I know there was only one season, but that’s what it says on the tin) as well as the Great Jonny Quest Documentary and I watch me some Jonny Quest nearly every day.

    That being said, Roger did a jaw-dropping job of bringing the opening sequence to life, and I am so glad to read, both here and on other sites it is being showcased on, that there are so MANY JQ fans who are confirming what we all have known since the 1960s: Jonny Quest is truly timeless, and Doug Wildey and everyone else involved in the show would/should be very proud of what they have given us.

    I only wish that the industry was capable of putting out the same quality of program today. Too bad fart jokes and pop-culture references have killed all hope of that.

  • Michel Van

    Oh my god this AWESOME !
    Roger Evans. you made a fantasic work
    I hope you get chance for Jonny quest stop-motion movie

  • http://comicsradio.blogspot.com Tim DeForest

    I’m currently ignoring the actual work I have to do to watch this for the 4th time.

  • eeteed

    FAN-tastic!

    a really great job! shows what passion + hard work can achieve.

    what’s next for these animators?

  • Roy Stanton

    OUTSTANDING! Truly a beautiful piece of work, and my hat is off to you for putting all the time into creating an amazing work of art. Really captures the nuances and spirit of adventure in the opening titles in the same way as the original. It’s all there, and then some! AMAZING!

    And yeah, I’d go crazy for an actual SERIES made in this way….:)

  • Ken Layton

    This is fantastic! Bravo! Now how about Space Ghost?

  • Theo Marvin

    If the groundswell gets too big, WB will launch a crappy reboot. More work for Seth MacFarlane!

  • Deanaic

    That was fantastic, simply put. Not much else to say.

  • robb pratt

    This is one of the absolute coolest things I’ve ever seen in my life! Thank you so much for the passionate effort! Beautiful work – fun to watch!

  • tgentry

    Man, that’s awesome! I would love to see a stop motion episode of Jonny Quest. My only suggestion would be to dial down the lens flares. They feel really CG and artificial in an otherwise immaculate production.

  • DonaldC

    I’d watch this movie.

    And in 3D.

  • http://youtube.com/user/Mesterius1 Mesterius

    This is awesome! Faithful to the show, technically impressive and undeniably charming. My hat (if I had one) is off to Roger Evans and his team.

    Idea, by the way: Can you do Inspector Gadget next? ;)

  • Kartoonz kritik

    I knew Jonny Quest and his untimely death at the hands of the evil HB still hurts my heart.

  • Arthur F.

    It’s great because among other things, it allows to see the human / artistic side to animation if just by the decision-making (what to go after to get that certain feeling of the original without turning it into caricature) amidst all the computer and technical sides. I watched JQ as a kid, it was great, but after seeing the attempt at a resurrection, no thanks. Today I’m used to a decade of seeing the characters through the Adult Swim lens, including Harvey Birdman to Venture Bros, which certainly started as a kind of skewed homage to JQ.

  • http://www.bigdaddyanimation.com Big Daddy

    FANTASTIC! One of my all time favorite cartoons immortalized in stop motion! GREAT JOB!

  • Vince

    Off the charts AWESOME!! A lot of hours and a lot of love and a huge treat for all of us.
    THANKS!

  • http://www.totald.blogspot.com Darlie Brewster

    Posted all over my facebook.

  • Dave O.

    One suggestion: Better titles! Note to filmmakers everywhere in any genre: if you are simply typing your titles in, you are doing it wrong.

    The crappy end titles are totally mismatched for the care and attention put into this otherwise great homage. I wouldn’t bring it up if it weren’t so distracting.

    • http://www.rogerevans.tv Roger Evans

      Actually, the original JQ cartoon titles were just burn-in with a basic drop shadow. Pretty crude but that’s the “look”, for better or for worse. I tried to emulate the simple “burn-in” look but with a more modern edge. My titles (Hanna-Barbera, Jonny Quest, Race, etc) were created in Photoshop, hand modified, and carefully matched to the original cartoon titles, in terms of style with a bit of an updated look. I’m certainly not above critique; indeed there are hundreds of things in the clip that I would do differently and/or better given the time and resources but I would hardly call the titles crappy by any means. A great deal of effort and thought went into them and their appearance is quite deliberate, as are the credit font choices. Nothing was simply “typed in”.

      • The Gee

        Hopefully, the next thing you end up doing on your own is something you own.
        Whatever it might be will probably look as fantastic as this does.

        I know the people who are making requests mean well and it is easy to exclaim do This of That next. Their notions do put visions in my noggin’.
        However, I do hope that if and when some request comes along that there’s money attached it.

        If your next production is something you don’t have complete rights to then get paid for the amazing effort you put into making it.

  • sigh

    Thank you, Roger Evans.
    Just thank you.
    From a guy who remembers avidly watching the originals way back when.

    Next: Top Cat!

  • raymond

    Oh my god. That was simply amazing. I have the dvd collection of the original JQ. There has been no other animation that looks or feels like it, even Brad Bird has said that. But to see it brought to life…wow. This must have taken quite a chunk of time to work this out. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT! Thanks for your diligence and hard work. Hoping to see Jonny Quest brought back faithfully. Raymond

  • http://bobrumba.com Bob Rumba

    I love this & the time & oversight you put into this so much. Thanx for your every thought & feel that you put into it.
    (I have the orginal cel of the robot eye with the orginal backround from the opening.)