Inspired by radio serials and comics in the action-adventure genre, including Doc Savage, Tom Swift, The Adventures of Tintin and Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, the series featured more realistic art, characters, and stories than Hanna-Barbera's previous cartoon programs.

It was the first of several Hanna-Barbera action-based adventure shows, which would later include Space Ghost, The Herculoids, and Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, and ran on ABC in primetime on early Friday nights for one season from 1964 to 1965.

[1] After two decades in reruns, during which it appeared on all three major United States television networks of the time, new episodes were produced for syndication in 1986.

[citation needed] All three of these productions featured the voices of Don Messick and Granville Van Dusen as Dr. Quest and Race Bannon, respectively.

The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest premiered on all three major Turner Broadcasting System entertainment cable channels (Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT).

Characters Jonny, Hadji, and Jessie are now older teenagers, and Dr. Quest's compound has moved from TK[clarification needed] to a rocky island off the coast of Maine.

[2] Dr. Zin never appeared or was mentioned in Season 1, the series instead focusing on new recurring villains Jeremiah Surd and Ezekiel Rage mostly.

However, the creators felt this series failed to capture enough of the spirit of the original, so they brought Zin back[3] (second-season, episode "Nemesis"), revealing himself very much alive to Quest, as he holds a NASA station hostage amid the launching of a new satellite.

[2][4][7] Slated to begin production in mid-1995 with a screenplay written by Fred Dekker, and a screen test trailer video[8] was made as an audition for improving the interest but filming was pushed back to 1996 and ultimately never began.

[12][13][14] In July 2016, Forbes reported that the film would start a franchise with the script written by Rodriguez and Rossio and with either Joe Cornish, Justin Lin or Scott Derrickson as director.

The film will position Jonny as a "Harry Potter inside an Indiana Jones movie" and specifically set up the potential for spinoffs.

In 1993, Hollyware Entertainment published Jonny Quest: Curse of the Mayan Warriors, a licensed DOS title available only on 3.5" floppy disk.

[23] Powerglove covered the theme song to The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest on their album Saturday Morning Apocalypse.

The Reverend Horton Heat performed a version of the Jonny Quest theme music (paired with the tune "Stop That Pigeon") on Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, which is a tribute album of songs from Saturday morning children's television shows and cartoons (mostly) from the 1960s and 1970s, released in 1995 by MCA.

[24] The music group "The Swingtips" recorded a version of the original Jonny Quest series theme for their 2007 album Roswell.