Jonny Quest (The Real Adventures)

Jonathan Benton "Jonny" Quest is the main/title character of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. He is the teenage son of Dr. Benton Quest, and Jonny often accompanies him on his research trips.

Physical appearance
Jonny has blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. He is a teenage boy with a slim athletic build. At age 13, he's about 5' 2" and 112 lbs.

Jonny typically wears a black T-shirt, blue straight-legged jeans, and white sneakers.

Personality
Jonny is adventurous, impulsive, energetic, and curious. He enjoys the action side of his father's investigations rather than the studying side, but he is well-educated and clever. He rarely if ever obeys his father's wishes to stay put and avoid heroics, and he identifies with Race Bannon's man-of-action approach.

Jonny is good friends with his adoptive brother Hadji Singh and Race's daughter Jessie Bannon. Hadji and Jessie are both more cautious than Jonny, but Jonny is generally successful at inspiring them to adventure and risk-taking. He tackles tough situations with straight-on action, contrasted to Jessie's more cautious intelligence and Hadji's fatalistic approach.

Jonny is kind and has a strong moral compass. He doesn't like people who harm animals and has risked his life to stop poachers.

His favorite sayings are: "This is too weird/cool for school." and "Slammin'!"

Overview
Official character description from the style guide: "Jonny Quest is the quintessential teen-ager. With an indomitable spirit and insatiable curiosity, he is endowed with a keen sense of justice and the impulsiveness of youth. Resourceful and hungry for adventure, his heroic aspirations often send him crashing into dangerous situations in both the tangible reality and its virtual counterpart."

Official character description from the writer's bible, written by Peter Lawrence (season 1): "The new Jonny may wear a black T-shirt instead of his roll-neck and his jeans may be differently cut but his character is much as you remember him. He's aged around 12 or 13 and he still has some growing and maturing to do.

He's a little less strident. Somewhat cooler. He's more muscular, too -- not physically, but mentally. He's a tough kid with a straight ahead, right-on attitude.

He'll do whatever has to be done. At least, he'll try. He does, of course, remain a young boy. He will not be able to out-think a brilliant physicist, or physically overpower an athletic adult opponent. Under these circumstances, he must resort to wit and cunning; to go around the problem rather than confront it head on."

Official character description from the updated writer's bible, revised by Glenn Leopold (season 2): "The new Jonny may wear a black T-shirt instead of his roll-neck and his jeans may be differently cut but his character is much as you remember him. At age 13 he still has some growing and maturing to do.

He's a little less strident. Somewhat cooler. He's a tough kid with a straight-ahead, right-on attitude. But he's not a punk. He's got guts...and heart. He may be headstrong, but he always cares about others. After all, this is a kid who's saved the world (not to mention friends and relatives) dozens of times.

Jonny will do whatever has to be done. At least, he'll try. He does, of course, remain a young boy. He will not be able to out-think a brilliant physicist, or physically overpower an athletic adult opponent. But that doesn't mean he won't try. Failing the direct approach, Jonny resorts to wit and cunning; to go around the problem rather than confront it head on.

Jonny has a strong connection with his father. They like each other and Jonny admires and respects his dad. It's true that he will never be as smart - highly educated - as Dr. Quest, who approaches genius where Jonny is a B student; nor is Jonny driven by his father's desire to know more about all and everything...though Jonny is curious. Jonny is much more a Man-Of-Action in training (hence his great respect for Race) than an intellectual.

Deep down, maybe Jonny envies Jessie's relationship with Dr. Quest. She's so darn smart. And sometimes Jonny gets jealous of Jessie's relationship with Bandit. He's his dog. These tensions add spice to our drama. Remember, these are kids. Wouldn't you be a little miffed if a genius girl hung out with your Dad all the time?

Jonny does not dwell on the fact that he has no mother. That's the way it is and he gets on with his life. There's never any doubt of Dr. Quest's love for his son...though sometimes he might wish Jonny was a bit more like Jessie.

To Jonny, his life is a dream come true. He is super-enthused to be able to travel the world with his father, Race Bannon, and his friends Hadji and Jessie. His life is cool and he embraces it wholeheartedly."

History
At a young age, Jonny's mother Rachel died, which resulted in the government assigning agent Race Bannon to look after Jonny and Dr. Quest to ensure Dr. Quest would not be compromised should Jonny get taken.

Jonny often accompanies his father on his scientific projects and phenomenology investigations, for which Jonny shows intense curiosity, enthusiasm and tends to be sometimes reckless, to which his father warns him not to try any heroics, though Dr. Quest is very proud of him, when his son's actions are mainly for the well-being of another as seen in the episode The Darkness of the Moon.

Skills and abilities

 * Computer skills, such as programming games in Questworld
 * Fly an airplane
 * Drive a car, although he does not yet have a license
 * Steer a boat
 * Ride a hoverboard
 * Hand-to-hand combat
 * Various survivalist and adventurous skills, such as mountaineering and deep diving
 * Jonny possibly plays drums, as a drum set is shown in the Quest Compound in the Cover-Up At Roswell game.

Notes/trivia

 * Compared to his original continuity version, Jonny was aged up a few years and is skilled with computers. The creators of the new series wanted Jonny to be a character that modern (1996) kids could look up to.
 * Jonny again has blue eyes like the original 1964 series character; in the 1986 series and the telefilms, Jonny was depicted with brown eyes.