Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures

The Quest team is back! Yep, even Bandit.


Continuity Reboot of the wildly popular 1960s Hanna-Barbera animated show Jonny Quest. Covering the same basic idea, that of a teenage boy named Jonny Quest, who travels the world with his family, investigating mysterious phenomena they encounter along the way (sometimes said phenomena come find them at home, of course). Adventure plots ensue.

Cartoon Network spearheaded this re-imagining with the purpose of attracting a wider audience by aging the younger characters by a couple of years, making it Darker and Edgier, adding a strong female main character in Jessie Bannon (Race's daughter who was introduced in the 1990s Made for TV Movies, not to be confused with that other Jessie girl from the 1980s New Adventures series of dubious canonicity), and adding a tech element in Quest World, Dr. Quest's fully immersive virtual reality system, which was animated through 3D graphics that wowed the kiddies back in 1996.

The first season of the show focused mainly on these new aspects, and the second "season" was produced by a different team (including a completely different voice cast) with the aim of resembling the classic JQ series a little more closely. [1] Opinion differs on whether that made the show better.

The show was generally well received by fans and critics, even gathering a decent-sized Internet fandom within a new generation of teens and young adults who have now grown fully into adulthood and have raised it almost to cult status all on its own. However, the ratings and merchandise revenue were not high enough to warrant a renewal for a third season. Many feel that it was killed before its time.

Please note that all trope examples listed in this page should apply specifically to the 1990s series. Tropes that apply to the general premise of Jonny Quest better fit in the article for the original series.

Tropes used in Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures include:

Jonny: Gotta hand it to her, Hadj: She's pretty cool.

  • Against My Religion: Hadji spouts this excuse to the alligators that are attacking him in "Alligators and Okeechobee Vikings":

Hadji: Get back! It's against my religion to be eaten by reptiles!

  • Age Without Youth: One episode featured a man who was cursed with eternal life without eternal youth. And he still looks better than his former friend whose Deal with the Devil turned him into a soulless squid monster. Incidentally, it was his "friend" who cursed him in the first place.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Race Bannon had a somewhat darker complexion in the first season, bordering on Race Lift (heh). Doesn't help that he also liked using the term "Ponchita" to refer to Jessie.
  • Ancient Astronauts: The Moai.
  • Animal Wrongs Group: Every now and again, the enemies have eco-friendly agendas, but rarely fit the trope. The weirdest being a submarine crew that uses a fake giant squid arm to sink whaling ships.
    • They come through when Surd happens to enslave whales with the use of Quest World and a sonar.
  • Another Dimension: Complete with inhabitants that want to take over our dimension, in "Other Space."
  • Applied Phlebotinum: All the time. Dr. Quest and Hadji, especially, are fond of this trope.
  • Art Shift: The quest world segments used Medium Blending during the first season. For the second, the was replaced with a simple art shift on a few occasions.
    • Referenced in-show at one point. When Jonny and Dr. Quest log on to the afterlife, they find that while they're wearing the black jumpsuits Quest World normally gives them, they still look the same as they do offline, rather than their usual 3-D models. When Jonny wonders why they're not in the form of their online avatars, Dr. Quest explains that they are using Quest World to exist as minds or souls and are therefore "real", not inside the context of a computer program. Likewise, later on in the episode, Jonny cannot access his regular online weaponry because, where Quest World is sending them, it doesn't exist.
    • Noticeably between the first and second seasons in the non-CG animation, bordering on Off-Model for Race and Dr. Quest.
  • Badass: Race Bannon is the definition of this trope.
    • Badass in Distress: ...However, he does wind up captured or otherwise in trouble quite a few times. This is because the creative team meant to empower the kids a bit more than they were in classic JQ.
    • Badass Bookworm: Dr. Benton Quest sometimes shows Badass tendencies, particularly during his escape from the villain's headquarters in "General Winter" and his climactic fight with Big Bad Dr. Zin in "The Robot Spies."
      • In one episode, he explains that he picked up some fighting techniques from Race.
    • Badass Grandpa: "Amok" gives us Historical Domain Character Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate. "What is this, geriatric aikido?" Hellz yeah, it is. And it is awesome.
  • BFS: "Expedition to Khumbu" both subverts and lampshades this trope. While playing a game in Questworld, Jonny gets attacked by a scorpion-type monster. He immediately asks I.R.I.S. to equip him with a Gatling gun; the computer, however, gives him a shield and a fairly small sword instead, explaining that it's the only type of weapon permitted in that level. Jonny, of course, tells her she'd "better make it a BIG sword!" So I.R.I.S. makes it grow until it's longer than he is tall. Given that this is a computer game, you'd think they'd play the trope straight, but as Questworld was designed to be realistic, the sword is too heavy for him. As he stumbles with it, he goes "give me a break, I.R.I.S.!" and then he falls. The sword breaks in two, Jonny complains, and the computer quips "you requested a break." He still uses the broken sword to fight the scorpion monster, though.
  • Big Bad/Big Bad Ensemble: Mostly evenly shared by Dr. Zin, Jeremiah Surd and Ezekiel Rage. It's interesting to note that Dr. Zin was the Big Bad in classic JQ, while Surd and Rage were created for the re-imagining.
  • Big No: About a hair's breadth away from being overused. Usually immediately following the Say My Name examples.
  • Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The series had had Yeti who turned out to be Neanderthals in a Monastery (a knowing throwback to the original). It also featured Bigfoot which were revealed to be aliens in disguise (they couldn't survive in Earth's polluted atmosphere otherwise).
  • Bittersweet Ending: At the end of "Ndovu's Last Journey," they successfully keep the poachers away in order for Ndovu to reach the elephant graveyard... so he can die.
  • Bland-Name Product: One episode had Race breaking into a building using a Nisa (Visa) credit card.
  • Blank Book
  • Blob Monster: "DNA Doomsday" featured a shapeshifting blob-like bio computer who was given a test mission to launch a group of Nuclear Missiles, and failed to realize it was a simulation. For added Nightmare Fuel, it could change parts of its body into people it had come into contact with.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Jessie in "Thoughtscape." She almost destroyed half the Quest Compound!
  • Broken Pedestal: Race's old mentor (and boss) is revealed to have been working for Dr. Zin.
  • Burn the Witch: In "Ice Will Burn," the people from the underground caverns threaten to throw Jessie and Katrina to the smoldering lava as Human Sacrifices, thinking they are witches.
  • Canon Discontinuity: Lance Falk, one of the second season writers, has argued fervently against the canonicity of the 1980s series and movies.
    • It was official policy for the writers of the second season that nothing that came between them and the original series was canon.
  • Catch Phrase: Race's "Fur on a catfish!", Jonny's "Slammin'!"
  • The Cavalry: In "Trouble on the Colorado".

Julia: Let me guess: the cavalry to the rescue?
Native American man: No. Indians.

  • Chekhov's Skill: In "The Darkest Fathoms", Jonny is seen to be practicing how to escape from being tied up. Later in the episode, he's captured by pirates and uses this skill to get free (and save Jessie and his dad while he's at it).
    • In "Ezekiel Rage" Hadji is shown teaching Jonny breathing techniques. Later these help him survive when he's exposed to nerve gas.
    • In "General Winter", at the beginning of the episode, Hadji is seen reading a book on battle strategy and trying to lecture Jonny on the importance of it. Later on, this saves them after they escape from Vostok and Hadji frees his other prisoners who end up saving the rest of the team.
  • Claustrophobia: Jessie.
  • Climbing the Cliffs of Insanity: So overused.
  • Conspicuous CGI: The backgrounds of some of their outdoor adventures (especially cloudy skies or northern lights) tended to stand out from the regular 2D animation, mostly in season 1.
  • Cool Shades: One of the villains was a government agent who always wore sunglasses. Lampshaded by Race when he said that he "was one of them, until the shades became a part of the uniform".
  • Cyberspace: Quest World.
  • Descending Ceiling: Played deadly straight with a pair of scientists off-screen. Also, Dr. Quest manages to escape from one in "The Robot Spies."
  • Deus Ex Machina: The Secret of the Moai. Aliens arrive in the last moment, destroy all the evidence the quest team uncovered, erase everyone's memories, undo all damage and teleport Surd and his mooks into Peru. What.
  • Digitized Hacker: Jeremiah Surd, of course.
  • Disney Villain Death: Played straight a few times, though that doesn't make the deaths any less cringe-worthy.
    • In the episode "In the Realm of the Condor" the villain of the episode battles Jonny on a bridge and they both fall off. Jonny grabs onto the ledge and the villain grabs onto Jonny. As you would expect, she loses her hold and falls down into the gorge. However, we actually see her, screaming all the way down, as she is seconds away from being splattered onto the sharp rocks below. (At least they didn't show the actual landing...)
    • Happens twice in the second season episode "Bloodlines". First time is when a henchman ends up sucked out of an open hatch on the Quest Team's plane, and we see him get swept out and up until he disappears from view. The second comes when Hadji's evil cousin falls into a pit of cobras. The view cuts to Hadji before the impact, though we do see him flinch. And the sound of a body landing on hundreds of snakes is not pleasant.
  • The Dragon: Dr. Zin's twin daughters follow this trope. The other major villain, Dr. Jeremiah Surd, has Julia, his loyal assistant/lover/bodyguard and also Lorenzo.
  • Drives Like Crazy: Race falls into crazy driver mode when Jessie goes missing. Jonny as well, even without that excuse. But then again, he is only 14.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: The first season introduced several recurring villains. The second season crew, as part of their return to Classic JQ's themes and tropes, decreed that, just as in the original series, There Shall Be No Recurring Villains Besides Dr. Zin; all others must meet their Karmic Death by the end of the episode. As a result, season two dispatched the season one Rogues Gallery, one by one.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: A villainous example: Lorenzo is fairly competent and unflinchingly loyal, his only flaw is being Book Dumb. The Big Bad, Jeremiah Surd, and the Dark Action Girl, Julia, never give him the time of day. In one episode, after he saves Surd from cardiac arrest, Julia goes, "Jeremiah! Thank the stars that you're alive!" Lorenzo retorts, "The stars had nothing to do with it", but they ignore him.
  • Eat Me: In "DNA Doomsday", Jonny lets the Monster of the Week absorb him while he's in Quest World in order to short-circuit it.
  • Eenie Meenie Miny Moai: "The Secret of the Moai", of course.
  • Environment Specific Action Figure: The figure line for The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest didn't even have "regular" versions of the characters. You could get Race as a skydiver, Johnny as an astronaut or Jessie as a cape-wearing, catsuit-sporting Ninja, but good luck finding them in anything they actually wore on the show. The closest to being vaguely accurate were the Quest World figures, but these featured candy-colored paint jobs that were in stark contrast with the dark-colored suits on the show, and featured a toy of the motorcycle from one sequence with giant yellow training wheels.
  • Evil Cripple: Jeremiah Surd is a quadraplegic super-hacker and Mad Scientist.
  • The Faceless: The face of the abbot of the monastery in "Expedition to Khumbu" is never shown. Because he's a Yeti.
  • Family-Unfriendly Death: Even more noticeable than in classic JQ. A particularly nasty one is Von Romme, a nuclear arms dealer. He falls into a pile of purified uranium-235 slugs in shirtsleeves. Within seconds he has horrific burns but is not quite dead, and one of the heroes - whom he'd been trying to kill for half the episode - remarks that "I wouldn't wish that even on him."
  • Fatal Attractor: Oh, Hadji...
    • To clarify, his two main love interests over the run of the show were: a) a succubus-like monster who was using him to get to Jessie so it could consume her life force, and b) the daughter of his adoptive father's terrorist arch-enemy. Jessie herself lampshades it in "The Bangalore Falcon": "Boy, can you pick 'em!"
    • The one girl Jonny actively showed interest in was not evil by herself, but she was being haunted by a vengeful ghost of a sort.
    • One could argue that in Jessie's case, the one (outsider) man in whom she showed any interest was a Shallow Love Interest that turned out to be the bastard of the episode, who was at fault for all the weird happenings of the day.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Surd. He's trapped in his powerchair, even in Quest World, unable to move on his own.
  • Fiery Redhead: Jessie.
    • Belle Bonnet had red hair... and her ghost was quite literally on fire.
  • Five-Man Band: It varies, because not all five main characters appear in every episode.
  • Follow in My Footsteps: Averted/played with. Surd tries to trick Jonny using this argument in "Thoughtscape." He creates an illusion via Quest World where Dr. Quest tells Jonny how disappointed he is in him, and how Jessie is much more attuned to his own interests (namely science) than him. Jonny breaks down accordingly. Fortunately for everybody (except Surd), Dr. Quest really doesn't care what his son does so long as he's happy, and will always be proud of him, so the illusion is eventually broken.
    • It helped that the real Dr. Quest showed up and punched out the illusionary one.
  • Frank Welker: Jeremiah Surd, Bandit, and other additional voices.
  • Freudian Trio: Jonny, Jessie and Hadji, although which kind of power trio they are is hard to pinpoint.
    • One of the producers even described Jonny as "a young Captain Kirk" in a DVD extra feature. He does seem to embody The Kirk some of the time, although he's not as pragmatic and perhaps a little bit more emotion-driven than expected-- that's more of a The McCoy trait. In reality him, Jessie and Hadji shift between The Kirk, The Spock and The McCoy depending on the story. Hadji fits The Spock in that he is from a different culture and the thinker of the group, although he's certainly not emotionless. Jessie tends to be more emotional than Hadji, but she doesn't react as impulsively as Jonny and has shown that she can be cold and logical like The Spock.
    • Another way of seeing them is the Freudian way:
      • Hadji as a rare, not exactly unemotional Super-Ego.
      • Jonny as the impulsive, emotion-driven Id.
      • Jessie as the Ego, who has a lot of the emotions of the Id, balanced with much of the rationality of the Super-Ego.
  • The Full Name Adventures
  • Ghost Pirate: "The Darkest Fathoms"
  • Glorious Mother Russia: Vostok in general, and also his cronies in "General Winter."
  • Golem: Introduced, and manipulated by a villain into a weapon utterly impervious to normal human weapons in "Rock of Rages." The episode's writer, Lance Falk, later explained in an interview that the episode was, at least in part, a dig at the 1980s attempt at the series and its addition of a living statue called Hard Rock to the main cast.

Lance Falk: Actually, "Rock of Rages" with the Golem, was an attempt to sort of tweak the nose of Hard Rock. I wanted to show how downright frightening a 7-foot-tall rock creature is. A terrifying supernatural force, not a puppy dog.

  • Gory Discretion Shot: Surprisingly plentiful, but most prominent in "Ndovu's Last Journey." There is a fight in an elephant graveyard. A villain falls and we see (from his point of view, no less) him fall towards the business end of an elephant skeleton tusk. The view cuts away before impact, but we do hear a rather nasty sound effect and see other characters flinch.
  • Grand Theft Me: In "Cyberswitch," Jeremiah Surd, The Lawnmower Man--strength power in cyberspace and mostly immobile in the real world, switches bodies with Race. The switch is quickly discovered and reversed.
    • And then he tries to move to Jonny's body. Fortunately Jonny is better at fighting in Questworld than Race is.
  • Great Escape: Subverted in "Digital Doublecross." Before getting arrested, Surd left a safeguard in case he ever got caught: a sleeper virus in Questworld that would trap Jonny and/or Jessie when they played a game in the system. He's was the only one who knew the abort code, so he would be able to trade that for his freedom. Race takes down the guards and springs him from the high-security prison, but when Surd tells him the abort code, Race simply hands him back to prison with no consequence-- the prison authorities were in on the "escape attempt" from the beginning.
    • Cardboard Prison: And yet, in the very next episode ("Thoughtscape"), Surd is out of prison and wreaking havoc like always. So much for that "high security" prison.
  • Great White Hunter: The Main Villain of "N'Dovu's Last Journey".
    • There was another one in "Manhattan Maneater".
  • Hanna-Barbera
  • Heroes Want Redheads: Jessie Bannon.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: The phrase is almost used word for word in "The Darkest Fathoms."
  • Horny Devils: In "Eclipse", a succubus-like creature entices Hadji and tries to drain Jessie of her lifeforce.
  • Hot Amazon: Jesse's Hair Flip during the beginning credits (seen here at 0:40 )
  • Hot Mom: Estella Velasquez. Well, it's no wonder she landed Race Bannon: she's hot and knows how to handle a gun.
    • Also, Jezebel Jade, as she points out to Jessie in a What Could Have Been argument, that she was very close to being her stepmom.
  • I Know Mortal Kombat: In the episode Nemesis, Jonny and Hadji lose their jeep and acquire a tank. Hadji asks Jonny if he knows how to operate one, and Jonny replies "Tank Leader 2. Highest score ever recorded.".
  • I'm Taking Her Home with Me: A rather odd example, from Lorenzo of all people, in "Without a Trace." Surd and his minions have hijacked Air Force One and they plan to kill everybody in it with a deadly nerve gas. Jonny, Jessie and Hadji get themselves captured while trying to rescue the President. Bandit is also there. When Lorenzo points Bandit's presence out to Surd, the boss tells him to "throw him in, too." And Lorenzo goes: "But he's so cute! Can I keep him?" Surd, predictably, says no.
  • Implacable Man: Ezekiel Rage, an apocalyptic preacher who's supposedly been killed after each of his attempts to end humanity, only to return good as new. It took sending him back to prehistoric times with a nuke before he was finally considered dead.
  • Incredibly Lame Pun: Jonny makes a few fish & chips puns in "Village of the Doomed", but one in particular made Benton groan:

Jonny: We make a pretty good team, dad. Especially when the chips are down.

  • Inevitable Waterfall: In "Amok", among others. Given the amount of exotic locales these people visit, it's really no wonder this trope gets used a lot.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Although Race and Jonny have more of a father/son dynamic, Race does say in "Race Against Danger" that Jonny is his new best friend.
  • Jennifer Hale: Season two Jessie.
  • The Jersey Devil: In "The Spectre of the Pine Barrows" it at first appears to be part of a Scooby-Doo Hoax, but then turns out to be Real After All.
  • Just a Stupid Accent: Only ALL THE TIME.
    • To the point that the accented English actually becomes impossible to understand: See "Undersea Urgency".
    • To the point that all the guest characters have an accent and one forgets they're supposed to be different accents: See "Rock of Rages". It was only when Vostok inserted gratuitous-Russian "Do Svidaniya" that this troper was reminded he's NOT supposed to be Czech.
  • Killed Off for Real: While the show's other main villains tended to get the No One Could Survive That treatment in their last episodes — and since the show didn't get a third season, it's probably safe to say that they're gone for real — Ezekiel Rage had an established tendency to cheat death. Therefore, just to be sure, he got sent back to prehistoric times and blown up by a nuclear bomb, leaving his mask behind for good measure. Deader Than Dead? Deader than dead.
  • Kissing Under the Influence: Jonny and Jessie in "Ghost Quest." They get possessed by the ghosts of two lovers who murdered each other over a jealous spat. Hadji and another character convince the spirits to literally kiss and make up... while still in Jonny and Jessie's bodies. There's a brief awkward moment between the two after, but it passes fairly quickly (and neither of them acknowledges that the kiss continued for several seconds after the ghosts left their bodies). Jessie even teases Jonny about it later in the episode.
  • Koan: Hadji. All the time.

Jessie: You've been hanging around Hadji too long.

Hadji: Every great fiction held strongly in human belief is the mistaken image of some great truth.
Jessie: What the heck does that mean?
Hadji: To be completely honest, I'm not entirely certain. But you must admit it does sound profound!

  • Living Shadow: The Monster of the Week in "Diamonds and Jade".
  • Lost Colony: An interesting variation appears in "Ice Will Burn". The episode deals with a people descended from 17th/18th century Siberian Russians, whose ancestors had to fled their town and got trapped by accident in an unescapable deep gorge/icy cavern. They managed to survive and thrive thanks to the heat produced by a small local volcano (Truth in Television if it's supposed to be set somewhere in the Kamchatka peninsula).
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Or daughters in the case of Dr. Zin, although only Anaya actually fits the "falls in love with a hero" part of the trope.
  • Magic Skirt: Jeremiah Surd's female Dragon Julia regularly wore an extremely short skirt, and fought with a high-kicking kung-fu style. There was never an upskirt shot, ever.
  • Magical Native American: The Anasazi, although they're more like Alien Native Americans. The trope is hilariously subverted in "Trouble on the Colorado," though: Jonny and co. meet one old man who turns out to be completely ordinary person, who only knows Jonny's name because it's written on the dog's collar, and he only guessed that the enemy has a helicopter because he saw one recently, as opposed identifying the trail a helicopter would leave behind after taking off.
    • Of course that didn't stop him (nor his wife) from occasionally talking like stereotypical Indians in western movies, just for the kicks.
  • The Maze: In "Heroes," going with the Greek theme.
  • The Meddling Kids Are Useless: Averted, notably unlike TOS.
  • Medium Blending: Quest World.
  • Merchandise-Driven: The second creative team did Quest World episodes against their will because the series' virtual reality aspects were an important part of the merchandising.
    • Which is ironic because the second season features Quest World more frequently than the first.
  • Missing Mom: Jonny's and Hadji's. Jessie's mom is recurring.
    • Jonny's mom died — the cause is unknown. An episode fully explains Hadji's family. Short answer: He's actually a prince who was smuggled out of his homeland as an infant due to his traitorous uncle and cousin. Said cousin kills the uncle in a flashback, and said cousin gets his, allowing Hadji to take his birthright, which he shares with his mother.
    • The first of the two 1990s TV movies (Jonny's Golden Quest) that preceded TRA revealed that Dr. Zin killed Jonny's mom.
    • The exact details of what happened to Jonny's mom were supposed to be in the third season. Alas...
  • Missing Trailer Scene: The teasers for "To Bardo and Back" featured Jonny and Jessie fighting some kind of mechanized bull creature. Nothing remotely like this appears in the episode.
  • The Missus and the Ex: Race's ex-wife Estella, and his ex-girlfriend Jade, both make an appearance in "The Robot Spies." Save for a few tense moments, it's not as bad as one would expect.
  • Never Say "Die": Surprisingly averted for a 90's kid's show. Quite a number of people (though rarely major characters and never anyone on the main team) end up getting pretty blatantly killed off.
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Hadji's "latent" telekinetic abilities.
  • No Eye in Magic: Subverted in "Heroes." Jonny didn't use the Virtual File Finder disk to look at Medusa!Surd via reflection, he made Medusa!Surd see his own reflection in it so he would petrify himself.
  • No One Could Survive That: Usually given to the Villain of the Week in some variation. However, with Ezekiel Rage, one of his recurring tropes was his subverting it.
    • Race uses the phrase verbatim referring to his inspector friend, the one with 10 children, in "Diamonds and Jade." Predictably, he does survive that-- he would never miss Father's day!
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Ezekiel Rage.
  • One Steve Limit: An exception with two Estellas: Estella Scheele, a one-off antagonist seen in "In the Realm of the Condor," and Estella Velasquez, Jessie's mother. And they're both redheads, too.
    • Oddly, there are also two "Dr. Smallwoods." The first one is mentioned in "Ezekiel Rage" (a scientist who studies reptiles in the desert), and the second one is a central character in "Village of the Doomed" (the doctor who controls the personality chips that cause the town to go crazy).
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Race. In "Race against danger" he tells Jonny his real name, and Jonny's understandably flabbergasted. "Roger?!"
  • Our Werewolves Are Different: A genetic disorder that only affects men.
  • Panthera Awesome: Jonny, Jessie and Hadji are chased by a jaguar in "The Mummies of Malenque". Hadji tries to "calm its raging spirit"... it doesn't work.
  • Papa Wolf: Race. You do not touch his "Ponchita." Or Jonny and Hadji either.
    • Doctor Quest too. Not even an evil demon can keep him from saving Jonny.
  • Phlebotinum Killed the Dinosaurs: Via the nuke Ezekiel Rage took with him to the past in his last episode.
  • Pink Means Feminine: Jessie has a pink shirt, and when the team gets swim gear or parkas that are identical save for their colors, Jessie gets the pink ones.
  • A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: The fake ghost pirates in "The Darkest Fathoms".
  • Public Domain Artifact: The Philosopher's Stone in "The Alchemist."
  • Quinton Flynn: Season two Jonny.
  • Race Against the Clock: In "Escape to Questworld," the kids have to get Surd to deactivate the release of his nerve gas, because their parents' protective suits will lose their effectiveness in exactly 22 hours.
  • Real After All: In "Amok", the main characters ecounter a group of natives living in hiding, who protect something (this troper don't remember what was that exactly) by sending guy a dressed as legendary local monster Amok (looking like hybrid of gorilla, baboon and sloth) to scare the curious. Later everybody got caught by a bunch of terrorists (or something like that). Jonny escapes and, together with Amok-guy, manages to free everybody, but the villains' leader runs away. When Jonny thanks the guy in the Amok costume for help, he responds that he was with everybody else the whole time. And then we hear the leader's screams and a monstrous roar coming from the jungle. The same type of ending occurs in "The Spectre of the Pine Barrens."
    • They were protecting their hidden society and scaring off a group of drug dealers (the terrorists), if this troper recalls.
  • Redheaded Hero: Jessie.
  • Reflective Eyes: Ndovu's.
  • Religion of Evil: "So it is written... IN THE BOOK OF RAGE!!"
    • Prophecy Twist: The book from which he keeps quoting? No scripture, just a photo album of his dead wife and daughter.
      • With only one photo. In the middle of the book.
  • Reverse the Polarity: Hadji does it to destroy the DNA blob monster in "DNA Doomsday."
  • Rightful Sultan Returns: Hadji, of course. Specifically in "Bloodlines."
  • Rogues Gallery: Zin, Surd, Rage...
  • Roswell That Ends Well: The Roswell UFO crash appears in the prologue of one episode taking place in the Anasazi region of the U.S. Southwest.
  • Rule of Cool: Although it takes itself seriously for the most part, the show was known for using several less than realistic scenarios for a fun story. Overall it worked pretty well, although Your Mileage May Vary.
  • Say My Name: JONNNNNNNNNNNYYYYYYYYYYY! JESSIEEEE! DAAAAD! HADJIII! Oh yeah, they love it.
  • Scooby-Doo Hoax: Played (painfully) straight in "The Darkest Fathoms", featuring a pirate's "ghost" rampaging in the Bermuda area. Subverted in "East of Zanzibar" in the classic form of "monster destroys the fake monster" and again in "AMOK", "The Spectre of the Pine Barrens" and others.
  • Shangri La: Or rather Shamballa, in "The Bangalore Falcon."
  • Ship Tease: According to the Writer's Bible of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, the writers wanted to Ship Tease Jonny/Jessie in the first season. When a new head writer took over in season 2, Ship Tease was also planned for Hadji/Jessie while continuing the Jonny/Jessie teasing from the previous season, hinting at at possible Two Guys and a Girl Love Triangle. The Jonny/Jessie teasing culminated in the second season episode "Ghost Quest" where Jonny and Jessie kiss while possesed by the ghosts of two former lovers.
  • Shipper on Deck: Neela, Hadji's mother, ships her own son with Jessie; or so her comments in "The Bangalore Falcon" seem to imply.
  • Shout-Out: Surd in his introduction episode, "Escape to Questworld":

Surd: Do you know how many times they've interrupted Scooby Doo? And it wasn't even one I'd seen yet. I'm still very upset.

    • The reporter in "Manhattan Maneater," Vince Vance, looks like he was designed to resemble Captain Planet villain Looten Plunder.
    • Jonny in "Return of the Anasazi": "Hey, Jess? You're not going to like this. They're he-re!"
  • Sim Sim Salabim: Classic JQ was the Trope Namer. Just as we were thinking it wouldn't pop up in TRA... yep, it did.
    • Thanks to the second season production crew. The first season crew apparently took a lot of trouble to avoid that.
  • Sinister Geometry: In "The Secret of the Moai," the team visits the Easter Islands and uncover a circular pod. They are amazed by how perfect its dimensions are, and speculate that such a perfect sphere can only be created in zero gravity. This leads to them finding the information the pod's former owners had on genetic engineering, which causes Surd to hack in, which leads to stuff going very badly for Dr. Quest and Race. Very badly.
  • Skull for a Head: Ezekiel Rage usually gets the "Phantom of the Opera" motif, what with his face badly burned and him having to wear a white mask. His Questworld avatar, though (which we see in "The Edge of Yesterday"), actually has a skull for a head.
  • Spider Tank: Doctor Zin shows up, so of course his spidery robots do too.
  • Spot the Imposter: In "Digital Doublecross," while trapped in Quest World by Surd, Jesse has two Jonnies at gunpoint. One starts reeling off the details of their last race in Quest World, at which point the other counters that of course the impostor would know that, it's in the computer's memory banks; then brings up their real-life race immediately thereafter, at which point the double attacks him and gets zapped in about half a second.
  • Super Speed: In "Night of the Zinja." While in Japan, Jonny wears an experimental device on his ankle that grants him super speed. At his fastest, he's able to chase down a jet airplane as it's taking off. The downside is that it hyperaccelerates his metabolism; any scene in which Jonny is not running, he's eating a sizable amount of ramen.
  • Switched At Birth: Jonny and Jessie weren't, but the creative team behind the series intentionally characterized Jessie as a science-oriented person, much like Dr. Quest, while many of Jonny's characteristics, instincts and reactions are similar to Race's. Race even jokes about this trope in "Future Rage" after Jessie accurately describes the cause of the Northern Lights.
  • Take That: The golem was meant as a Take That to 80's JQ character Hard Rock.
    • Heck, the name of the show, the "Real Adventures", is likely a take-that against the "New Adventures" from the 80s.
    • A jab at classic JQ, from "Manhattan Maneater":

Hadji: Actually, sir, I charmed him [the tiger] with my flute, just like I do with snakes.

  • Taken for Granite: Race and Jessie in "Heroes." Also Jonny's right index finger, then his right fist and left foot. Fortunately it was only their virtual selves that got petrified, so there were no lasting effects once they were out of Questworld.
  • Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: Ezekiel Rage sees Jessie as his daughter, Carla.
  • Throw a Barrel At It: In one episode, Race distracts a rampaging bull at a rodeo by throwing a barrel. He even says, "Just let me throw a barrel at it," while he does it!
  • Time Bomb: Used several times, notably in "Escape to Questworld," and "Future Rage," in both of which cases Dr. Quest manages to stop the countdown with one second left.
  • Time Travel: In "The Edge of Yesterday." Going with Set Right What Once Went Wrong variant, Dr. Quest created a time machine program in Questworld after his wife died, which would allow him to travel back in time and see his wife again. When he finished it, he realized he wouldn't only be able to see his wife, he could also change the past to prevent her from dying. His ethics would not let him alter history for personal gain, so he sealed the program so it couldn't be used. Later on, Jonny and Jessie use the program to go back in time and prevent Ezekiel Rage from planting a bomb that could cause the tectonic plates to split, destroying the Earth.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Jonny himself was more of The Load in the original series, causing more problems than he actually solved, to the point that it was parodied in The Venture Brothers. In the reboot, he matured into a competent hero on his own right, more worthy of being the title character than he ever was in the original series.
  • Total Eclipse of the Plot: In the aptly-titled episode "Eclipse."
  • Tragic Keepsake: Ezekiel Rage's family photo.
  • Translation Convention: Used often. In "The Mummies of Malenque," for example, the bad guys talk to each other in English despite the fact that they're Colombian and there are no English-speakers around to hear them (that they know of). Well, they interject a few words in Spanish here and there to make it seem "realistic," but the trope stands. Heck, even the Malenque mummies speak in English when they're revived...
  • Translator Microbes: Dr. Quest's "Language Translator" device, which Jessie uses in "Ice Will Burn."
  • Trash Landing: In "Nemesis."

Hadji: Jonny, this was--
Jonny: ... A really rotten idea?

  • Trash the Set: Season Two seemed to be heading this way, blowing up the Dragonfly in Episode 2-23 and the Mansion 2-25.
  • Tyrannosaurus Rex: The one and only time-travelling episode of the show, "The Edge of Yesterday", featured Jonny and Jessie spending a short time in the late Cretaceous being chased by a T. rex, of course.
  • Uncanny Village: The small town of Wychford, in the aptly-titled episode "Village of the Doomed".
  • Underwater Base/Underwater City: Featured in "Undersea Urgency".
  • Visual Pun: In one of the Quest World shorts, Johnny runs an untested program, expecting a few bugs. Cut to the visual representation of the program, literally being pulled apart by CGI bugs.
  • We Will Meet Again: One of Zin's twin daughters says this to Hadji in pretty much every episode they're in.
  • Wild Wilderness: Many episodes feature remote areas (not counting the VR world) where the wilderness is full of adventure yet...no one else notices but the main characters.
  • Wire Dilemma: In "Escape to Questworld," the kids get Surd to tell them which wire to cut in order to deactivate the release of his nerve gas. He tells them it's the orange wire, and Jonny relies this information to his father. Right before he's about to snip the wire, Race interrupts, telling him to cut the blue wire instead. Benton does, and the day is saved. It's the one time Jonny's glad his father didn't listen to him.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Race has no qualms about knocking Julia out.

Race: Pop always said it's not nice to hit a lady. But then again, Miss Julia, you're no lady.

Jonny: Whoa! Iris, you never said anything about these things duplicating!
Iris: You never asked.

  • Your Worst Nightmare: Surd tries to stop Jonny and Benton from saving Jessie by trapping them in their own worst fears: Jonny's is being a disappointment to his father, and Benton's is his family dying because of him.
  1. ↑ Actually, each "season" was a completely different series. After production problems cropped up with the first series, HB commissioned an entirely separate show called "The New Jonny Quest." The show eventually aired as the second season of Real Adventures. They originally weren't even meant to share the same universe.
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