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Johnny Bravo is an American animated sitcom created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network. The second of the network's Cartoon Cartoons, it aired from July 14, 1997, to August 27, 2004. The titular Johnny Bravo (voiced by Jeff Bennett), who is loosely based on Elvis Presley and James Dean, is a blonde-haired sunglasses-wearing, muscular, and dimwitted young man who lives with his mother and attempts to get women to date him, though he always falls short because of his actions. He ends up in bizarre situations and predicaments, often accompanied by celebrity guest characters such as Donny Osmond or Adam West. Throughout its run, the show was known for its adult humor and pop culture references.
Partible pitched the series to Hanna-Barbera's animation showcase What a Cartoon!, basing it on his senior thesis project he produced while attending Loyola Marymount University. A pilot episode short aired on Cartoon Network in 1995. The series was renewed for a second season in 1999, after Partible was fired, and the show was retooled under the direction of Kirk Tingblad. In 2003, for the series' fourth season, Partible returned and restored the show to its original format and style. In its four seasons, a total of 67 episodes have aired. The first three seasons were produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, while the fourth season (and reruns of previous seasons) was produced by Cartoon Network Studios.
Johnny Bravo was nominated for four Annie Awards, one YoungStar Award, and two Golden Reel Awards. The series helped launch the careers of several animators, including Seth MacFarlane and Butch Hartman. Spin-off media include comic books, DVD and VHS releases, collectible toys, T-shirts with Johnny's well known phrase "Whoa Mama", and video games.
Recurring characters include Carl Chryniszzswics (Tom Kenny), a geek who idolizes Johnny despite being bullied and bossed around by him; Pops (Larry Drake), the unscrupulous owner of the local diner who provides advice to Johnny, along with food made from atypical ingredients; Master Hamma (Brian Tochi), a Japanese martial arts instructor who teaches Johnny but never considers him a student due to being the weakest and most pathetic student in the dojo; Donny Osmond (himself), a cheery and optimistic teen idol who irritates Johnny; and Jungle Boy (Cody Dorkin), a jungle-dwelling feral child with super strength and the ability to speak to animals.
Much of the series' humor is derived from celebrity guest star appearances and references to popular culture. For example, an episode in season 1 is based around homages to The Twilight Zone, and in another episode, one of the Village People can be seen in the background. The series has had numerous guest stars, including Adam West, Shaquille O'Neal, Seth Green and the aforementioned Donny Osmond. In the first season, creator Van Partible intended for the show's middle segment to be a form of "Johnny Bravo Meets...", a parody of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which would feature appearances from popular 1970s icons, but guest stars were used informally after the second season began. Many Hanna-Barbera characters had cameo appearances in the series, including the cast of Scooby-Doo, Speed Buggy, Jabberjaw, Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear, The Blue Falcon, Black Widow, and Huckleberry Hound.
Adult humor is a frequent presence. In one episode, when Suzy calls Johnny to ask if he wants to come over, Johnny nonchalantly tells her to "call back in 15 years when she a co-ed", and in another, when Johnny is hit by a tranquilizer dart and is informed he has only six seconds of consciousness left and to "use it wisely", he immediately pulls out a girlie magazine. In regard to the adult humor, Hartman stated that "being concerned with the content of the episodes wasn't our main focus", and creator Partible remembers: "No one was really watching Cartoon Network ... As far as content, they were pretty lenient on all the kind of things that were going on."
In the show's first and fourth seasons (when Van Partible was the showrunner), Johnny was a tad smarter and was not a complete doofus and was able to react with clever quips. For example, in the episode "Bearly Enough Time", Johnny was successfully able to cleverly trick Chronos the Time Bear. After Chronos told Johnny he had 20 minutes to put him to sleep, which Johnny was able to do with just a few seconds left, Chronos woke up a few seconds later because of the loud alarms and said that Johnny's time was up but when Johnny told the bear he still had 12 minutes left (pointing to the VCR), Chronos said that was just the VCR to which Johnny made his escape.
For the new short, Partible revised his main character from Mess O' Blues, renaming him "Johnny Bravo" and making him "this '50s iconic James Dean-looking character that talked like Elvis." He was also inspired by Michael Jackson's "impetus for using whip snaps and cracks" (like in Captain EO) for whenever Johnny striked a pose. Voice actor Jeff Bennett was cast as Johnny, based solely on his young, hyped Elvis impression. Partible, with a small team of animators, animated the short themselves in-house at Hanna-Barbera using digital ink and paint.
The short, titled Johnny Bravo, was aired on Cartoon Network's animation showcase, World Premiere Toons, on March 26, 1995. Two more shorts followed: Jungle Boy in "Mr. Monkeyman" in 1996 and Johnny Bravo and the Amazon Women in 1997.
The name Johnny Bravo derived from creator Van Partible's middle name, Giovanni Bravo, as well as from The Brady Bunch episode "Adios, Johnny Bravo", where Greg Brady changes his name to Johnny Bravo in order to sign a record deal.
It was Hanna-Barbera's first production after Turner Broadcasting System was purchased by WarnerMedia.
Johnny Bravo premiered on July 14, 1997, and the first season completed production in December of that year.
The series was put on hiatus once again until it was renewed for a fourth season in 2003, which aired in 2004. The final season of the series returned to the humor of the original shorts and first season of the series, with Van Partible returning and co-directing all of the fourth season episodes, although the Jungle Boy character from the first season never returned.
After the series ended in 2004, the No. 5 Kellogg's Chevrolet was given a special paint scheme with Johnny Bravo on the hood. It was driven by Kyle Busch in the 2005 Sharpie 500 NASCAR race.
On the long lasting impact of the show, writer/director Butch Hartman states:
The title character is considered "iconic", and his catchphrases are relatively common in popular culture.
The show's creative team went on to create many successful television series throughout the 1990s and 2000s, including writer Seth MacFarlane, creator of the popular animated series Family Guy. Shortly after the series' first season was completed, writer/director Butch Hartman left to work on Nickelodeon's Oh Yeah! Cartoons, from which those shorts spun off his own success, The Fairly OddParents. Steve Marmel, writer for Johnny Bravo, has been a producer and writer for The Fairly OddParents since its premiere in 2001, and is also the creator of the live-action sitcom Sonny with a Chance. In addition to Johnny Bravo, director John McIntyre directed episodes of several other Cartoon Cartoons, and more recently served as a supervising director on Cartoon Network's original series The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.
In 2023 Indian Entertainment Journal Pinkvilla named Johnny Bravo among the top 10 cartoon shows of the 1990s. They mentioned the running gag of Johnny Bravo chasing after women and getting beaten up by them while also featuring other action and comedic themes such as getting lost in distant places while attempting to travel to simple locations and his subsequent explorations and adventures as having great comedic influence in future cartoons.
After the series ended, a spin-off of JBVO named Toon FM was launched in Europe. The series had a few unique changes, such as Godzilla presenting the weather. The spin-off also had Brak from Space Ghost as the co-host.
There was also a similar spin-off of the JBVO concept itself entitled Viva Las Bravo, a summer block that aired from 2005 to 2006 on certain European variants of Cartoon Network. Every day Johnny would announce three cartoons, and the one getting the highest votes via email or on CartoonNetworkHQ.net would be shown for two hours the next day. He would also constantly appear in commercial breaks, cracking jokes or answering humorous emails and phone calls.
Characters from Johnny Bravo are featured in the Cartoon Network games , Cartoon Network Racing, Cartoon Network Speedway, , and .
A Region 1 release of the first season, with different cover art and new special features, was released by Warner Home Video on June 15, 2010. The release is first in an official release of several Cartoon Cartoons on DVD, under the "Cartoon Network Hall of Fame" name.
The PlayStation 2 version of the video game Cartoon Network Racing contains the episodes "Doommates" and "Johnny's Telethon" as unlockable extras.
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Archived from the original on October 21, 2016.)
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