Johnny Bravo
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Johnny Bravo is an American animated television series about the boorish, skirt-chasing title character who constantly searches for a woman willing to date him, but even when he seems to find one, something goes wrong.
A live-action movie based on the series has been announced, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as Johnny. The movie is still in preproduction, and little to no information is available as yet.
Plot
Johnny Bravo looks and sounds like Elvis Presley, except for having blonde hair and a Fonzie-ish appearance. He is incredibly narcissistic and dim-witted. He lives in the fictional town of Aron City (Aron being Elvis's middle name). The cartoon is shown on Cartoon Network and was created by Van Partible. Johnny Bravo originally appeared in two animated shorts created for Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons animation showcase (also known as What-A-Cartoon! and Cartoon Cartoon), and was one of several World Premiere Toon characters to be given an ongoing series. The earlier seasons were written and animated by Partible and a who's who of future animated comedy kingpins, including Butch Hartman and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, who would perfect many of his future jokes and occasional characters from that show in this series.
After the first season, Cartoon Network "retooled" the series, without Partible's involvement, and with new writers and character designs. Partible returned with the "final" episode of the series, a Christmas special; and, with the aid of some of his original writers, brought Bravo back for another special in 2004, but was not met with much critical applause. The series was eventually canceled. Directed by Robert Alvarez, Kent Butterworth, Russell Calabrese, Butch Hartman, John McIntyre, Van Partible, Rumen Petkov, Kirk Tingblad.
Characters
- Johnny Bravo (voiced by Jeff Bennett) - the title character, described above. He is also notable for the distinctive sound effects that accompany his often blindingly quick movements (usually done while trying to impress a woman) - the crack of a bullwhip being the most popular.
- Bunny Bravo (voiced by Brenda Vaccaro) - Johnny's mother - a rather atypical person - she seems to have a "flower power" past and sometimes reveals some surprising hidden talent or other. She's very dedicated to her son, although she's aware of his low intellect and womanizer attitude, so she sometimes doesn't treat him and his problems seriously.
- Little Suzy (voiced by Mae Whitman) - a little girl (8-year-old) from the neighborhood, very cunning and talkative. She seemed to have a crush on Johnny in earlier seasons.
- Carl Chryniszzswics (voiced by Tom Kenny) - local genius and geek, very interested in science, but somehow weird and timid. He seems to be Johnny's only friend, although Johnny often denies that. He sometimes uses Johnny as a guinea pig for his experiments' sake. He used to bully Johnny in high school, as he was much taller than Johnny.
- Pops (voiced by Larry Drake) - greedy owner of a local chili restaurant, could be considered as Johnny's substitute father. Alas, his tips and advice often turn out to be useless and provoke trouble for Johnny and the gang. Johnny's real father does not appear in the show;
- Donny Osmond (voiced by himself) - Often used as a minor, laughingly useless character in some key episodes, Donny is seen as cheery and extremely optimistic to the point of foolishness. This personality is a stark contrast to often very serious Johnny, thus causing tension between himself and Donny.
- Julie Herschbaum (voiced by Jennifer Hale) - the tuba-playing daughter of Bunny Bravo's next door neighbor. Johnny tries falling in love with this girl, but he fails...almost. She is in the episode "Johnny-O & Juliet".
- Debbie Nemo (voiced by Kath Soucie) - the female version of Captain Nemo of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, who once helped Johnny save the ocean...then he messed it up with his hair gel! She is in the episode "20,000 Leagues Over My Head".
- Sheila (voiced by Kath Soucie) - Johnny's long-lost romance in the episode "The Unsinkable Johnny Bravo".
- Gia Got a Nice Body (voiced by Grey Delisle) - the Italian movie star of the episode "Auteur! Auteur!"
- The Blue Falcon
- Don Knotts
- "Weird Al" Yankovic
- Adam West
- Dionne Warwick
- Richard Simmons
- Mr. T
- Mark Hamill
- Shaquille O'Neal
- Seth Green
- Scooby and the Gang
Trivia
- When Johnny enjoys something, usually something he tastes or sees, he often exclaims enjoyment by saying, "Mmm, (object)-y!" and laughs. For example, he would say "Mmm, lemony!" when tasting something with a lemon flavor. This gag started on the show Pee-wee's Playhouse and later used on The Simpsons by Homer Simpson.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic, Don Knotts, Mr. T, Donny Osmond, Mark Hamill, Adam West, Richard Simmons, Dionne Warwick, Shaquille O'Neal, and Seth Green have all appeared in the cartoon. They have said in some interviews, whenever their guest spot was on it was brought up, that they are fans of the cartoon. In particular, Adam West's appearances on Johnny Bravo as a ludicrously over-the-top version of himself was the precursor to his playing an even wackier self-parody as Catman on Fairly Oddparents and Mayor Adam West on Family Guy.
- Johnny appeared in the video game Backyard Baseball 2005 on a poster advertising "Channel 12". ("Channel 12" is probably a spoof of Cartoon Network.)
- When the series was retooled, the artwork style was adapted to resemble the Sam & Max underground comics of Steve Purcell.
- It is popularly believed that Johnny's name came from Greg Brady's stage name from an episode of The Brady Bunch, and it is possible that creator Van Partible was influenced by this source. However, in an interview that aired on Cartoon Network prior to the debut of Johnny Bravo as an ongoing series, Partible stated that "Johnny Bravo" was a derivation of his full given name, "Giovanni Bravissimo Partible".
- In the episode "Perfect Gift", a cow kicks over a lantern, starting a fire, which is a reference to The Great Chicago Fire
- In the episode "Aunt Katie's Farm," after destroying the set and ruining the show, Johnny jumps up and down and continues to yell, "Four legs good! Two legs bad!" over and over. This is an obvious reference to George Orwell's Animal Farm.
- Several episodes have spoofed The Twilight Zone, including Nightmare at 20,000 feet (with a clown instead of a gremlin), It's a Good Life (where Johnny has to babysit Timmy, an all-powerful six year-old who can actually make people go to the cornfield), and Living Doll (where Little Suzie gets a homicidal doll called Little Talky Tabitha). These episodes usually begin and end with a narrative similar to that of Rod Serling's, referring to "the zone where normal things don't happen very often."
- Some notable inclusions include Mark Twain and Scooby Doo and the gang. The episode with Twain was a reworking of The Prince and the Pauper and ended with Johnny, his duplicate, and Mark Twain in prison for doing another rendition of the story.
- In one episode, Suzie mentions a cat that loves lasagna from a book. This is a reference to Garfield comic books. The book was also orange with black stripes, Garfield's fur pattern.
- A live action film starring The Rock as Johnny Bravo is in production, and is set to be released in theatres in the US on November 21st, 2006. The Rock considers it to be a great honor to play Johnny Bravo.
- Some Hanna-Barbera characters have also made appearances on this show including The Flintstones and Huckleberry Hound.
- In one episode of Johnny Bravo, Johnny is invited to his next door neighboor's birthday party. A part of this episode features a teenager examining the presents of guests before they are allowed into the party. In the initial airing of this episode, when one of the present is examined and suspected to be a bomb, it is quickly disposed of. When the present is revealed to have actually been a clock, the respective child refers to the teenager as "Captain Spaz", this episode was later re-aired with the line "Captain Spaz" being changed to "Captain Stupid", it should be noted that this cover up was incredibly poorly done.
- The episode "Panic in Jerky Town" was a satire of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which also included a reference to the movie Soylent Green when Johnny believed Pops had been ground up into Jerky as Jerky Jake's secret ingredient, he yells "It's people! Jerky Jake's Beef Jerky is made of people!", an altered form of the famous quote from the climax of the movie.
References
External links
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