Jonny Quest 60th Anniversary Tribute

John “Dr. Quest” Stephenson’s son ROGER STEPHENSON and master animator NIK RANIERI (The Simpsons, Beauty and the Beast) celebrate the Hanna-Barbera classic.

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Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we love Head of our
Mirror. Welcome to the Fantastic World
of Hannah and Barbera, A celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe

(00:32):
Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Airbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony.
Welcome to the fantastic world. This is a exciting salute to one
of the most exciting shows ever on television.
The groundbreaking and pace setting much imitated to this

(00:56):
day. Johnny Quest.
It was 1964 when it premiered and it is 2024 as we speak now.
And I am welcoming to our program.
Two people connected in highly significant ways with the
program. First, Rodger Stevenson, who

(01:17):
will explain why his last name is Stevenson, if you haven't
figured that out already. And he's been on our show once
before. And then another guest, we're
welcoming back the animation director, acclaimed artist of
some of our greatest films, NickRaineri.
Welcome to our show back. Thanks for.
Having me. Let's start with Rodger.
Why the heck is your name Stevenson?
And tell us a little bit about yourself to remind everyone.

(01:39):
Well, my parents John and Jean Stevenson decided to adopt A kid
and I was one of the two that they adopted.
My sister Katie sadly passed away a couple years ago.
Born and raised in the lap of middle class luxury in Woodland
Hills. Great childhood, I had fantastic
parents and it was certainly funto have a dad that did what he

(02:04):
did for so many years. And Nick?
I am, like you said, animation director.
My connection, aside from being a fan to Johnny Quest, was that
I was given the, I would think, enviable task of putting
together the first Johnny Quest official soundtrack and I

(02:26):
enjoyed it immensely. It caused me to do a lot of
research about the show and all that, so that is my small
connection to the actual series.And it is the official real
soundtrack album, not a bootleg,but a crystalline soundtrack on
La La Land Records A2 disc soundtrack.

(02:48):
About nine years. Ago beautifully packaged notes
by John Burlingame, who is just on our program as well.
Tribute to the genius of Hoyt Curtain, Ted Nichols and Jack
D'amelo. You know, you have worked on
some of the greatest animated features, what they call the
Renaissance period of animation,but yet you grew up with Hanna

(03:09):
Barbera, even though you worked for Disney for quite a few years
and now you're on The Simpsons so.
Yeah, I spent most of my professional career at Disney,
25 years. This would be called the Silver
Age in the 90s. But as far as what I grew up
with, it was mostly Warner Brothers cartoons and Hanna

(03:30):
Barbera. I mean, we're talking about
Johnny Quest, but Flintstones, Top Cat, Jetsons, all those
early series, those, those primetime series, I was a huge fan of
them, but I still watch them today.
They're still fresh as far as I'm concerned.
The the the humour and and all that, those shows have a special

(03:50):
place in my heart. And for you, Roger, your dad was
voice on all of the early prime time shows from The Flintstones
all the way through Johnny Quest, and he had lead roles on
Top Cat. And you guys would be sitting
around the TV all the time and either seeing or hearing him.
Yeah, I was 4567 years old when those things were premiered on

(04:13):
prime time. I have very, very vague
recollections of the evening time on Fridays when the shows
were broadcast or whatever they were making it a family time.
But I certainly remembered the Saturday mornings a little bit
later as I got older, especiallypremiere week, which is I think
usually the Saturday after LaborDay, like when we go back to

(04:34):
school. Sadly, you also went all the new
shows would premiere. Those are great times to grow
up, that's for sure. So you'd go through each of the
shows and go there's Dad, there's Dad.
I think even as a kid living with the voice you can pick out
the slight changes accents. I very rarely miss them picking

(04:54):
out, oh, that's you. You know, just the driver saying
which way. I could still pick that voice
out. Still can't of the day this day.
Yeah, and then he also went on, I don't think I mentioned this
in the last show. He was in one of the best rank
and bass specials ever made, thefirst film adaptation of The
Hobbit. He was barred the hunter.
Yeah, yeah. I think he ended up probably

(05:15):
about four or five voices he didtotal.
Barth was, I think, probably theone that got the most script
time. Yeah, I still enjoy watching
that. I mean, not only because of him,
but I mean, just because of the different style of the
animation. And, you know, the way they
integrated it was it's, I want to say it was a musical, but
there's a lot of music involved in the production of that movie.

(05:36):
Yeah, that's also a great score.You know what I don't think we
got in our last episode? Discussing too is in the case of
Johnny Quest. Now your dad probably did more
leads, supporting roles and incidental roles like the cab
driver in Hanna Barbera cartoonsfor about 3 decades than any

(05:56):
other actor except maybe Frank Welker.
It is a magnificent amount of work, but for some reason one
Johnny Quest premiered for about5 episodes.
It was your dad and then suddenly it was Don Messick.
And you had some theories about why that was, or did you have
facts about it? I forget.
You know, I would say just anecdotally, things I heard over

(06:17):
the years, you know, we didn't sit down and discuss at the
dinner table or anything like that, but one was Joe Barbera
thought Doctor Quest and Race ban and sounded too much alike.
If you wanted to change that audio dynamic, I guess you'd
call it The other was he had other work he was doing about

(06:38):
the same time when they were doing all the recordings and Joe
Barbera wasn't in the mood to allow him to come and do just,
you know, get it in his voice. He wanted the whole cast to
record at the same time rather than do pick up recording
sessions. I mean, those two, I would say
they're close to 5050 as far as what might be the closest to the

(07:01):
fact. And then the third thing I
actually just not too long ago came up with when we're doing a
little research about that time in like 64 ish 65, my dad tore
the cartilage in his knee and was unable to even be driven to
Hanna Barbera for several weeks just because he couldn't get

(07:21):
into a car with his leg in a cast.
That possibly might have been, you know, a third reason why he
got replaced. Like I said, he did four or five
shows, He missed a couple, and then they brought him back for
one episode. I think it was like episode 8 or
9 of the show run. And then he never came back to
the show, to the best of my knowledge, even doing an

(07:41):
ancillary voice or two. Except for the record album.
The following year, in 65, he did record the record album with
Mike Road and Tim Matheson. That was like 20,000 leads under
the sea, I believe. Yes, yeah, I've heard it.
I think I might have a copy of it somewhere.
I remember listening to that andyeah, it's on a record now too.

(08:02):
Did you have a copy of it when it was new?
I believe so, yeah. I'm sure.
My sister and I probably shared it and I don't say sadly, but I
mean you can only listen to it so many times.
You know, it's not like Cage J top ten, you know, with Casey
case and or whatever. Have you heard the album Nick?
Oh yeah, yeah. I have a question.

(08:22):
Did your father do any on camerawork?
Oh, he did. You know, he came to Hollywood
in the late 40s and started in radio just as television was
starting one of the big jobs he had.
But she's the original Philip Morris spokesperson for the I
Love Lucy when it first premiered.
Yeah. One of the first time you saw
John Stevenson was smoking a Philip Morris cigarette in their

(08:45):
living room, extolling the virtues of how smooth it was.
Lucy O Baldacciana Show I Love Lucy.
Good evening and welcome. In a moment we'll look in on

(09:05):
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. But before we do, may I ask a
very personal question? Do you inhale?
Well, I do, and chances are you do too.
And because you inhale, you're better off smoking Philip
Morris. And for good reason.
You see, Philip Morris is the one cigarette proved definitely

(09:27):
less irritating, definitely milder than any other leading
brand. That's why you're better off
smoking Philip Morris right now.Why not light up a Philip Morris
and enjoy America's finest cigarette as we watch Lucille
Ball and Desi Arnaz in I Love Lucy?

(09:50):
You'd be watching these shows and actors would start talking
and you'd go, wait a second. I've heard that voice before.
I think I saw Mike Rode on an episode of Beverly Hillbillies
or something like that's like, oh, is that what that guy looks
like? I was wondering what that guy
looks like, you know so. And of course, I Love Lucy had
Hannah and Barbara animation in those titles too, so there was a

(10:12):
connection nobody knew at the time.
He did Donna Reed show and I think he did 3 Beverly
Hillbillies, Real Mccoys. He did 7 or 8 Clovens Heroes
personally. He was a very good friend of
Eddie Feldman who was the executive producer.
So I think every season he got aguest appearance on Hogan's
Heroes as a courtesy. He was a Co star on the People's

(10:33):
Choice with Jackie Cooper. His character was Rodger
Crutcher and that's where they thought they got my name from
that. Lo and behold, I found out Rayce
Bannon's first name is Rodger, but I was already born and he
didn't ring. And then he did quite a bit of
on camera commercials or out of state markets.
Very few of them were ever shownin the LA market.

(10:56):
And then when he was in Herbie rides again.
When Mr. Hawke calls all these lawyers into his office, he's
the one who says, just a moment,Mr. Hawke, do you have the
necessary permits? I always wait for that part.
Oh, and Mike rode. One of his appearances that I
found most memorable was on I Dream of Jeannie.

(11:17):
Jeannie wanted to make Major Nelson jealous, so she was
making up sort of like George Glass on The Brady Bunch.
Well. Perhaps I should find a master
who appreciates me more. Oh.
You couldn't. Oh yes, I could.
In fact, I think I have met him already.
Yes, I met him this morning whenI went shopping at the

(11:37):
supermarket. Good for you.
He's very handsome, good for him, and tall and strong.
Yeah. What's the name of this tall,
strong stranger? His name?
Tony. Tony Millionaire, you.
Gotta do better than that. You do not believe.
Me, Jeannie. I'm just not the jealous type,

(11:59):
that's all. And wonder who they could be.
Hi, it's Jeannie here. I'm Tony Millionaire.
Love that episode and also a Screen Gems presentation just

(12:21):
like Johnny Quest was. Rodger, did you keep watching
Johnny Quest even though it wasn't your dad anymore?
Was there any feeling about? That I was, like I said, 7-8
year old at the time. I, I was enthralled with the
show. The music was a great lead and
they got you excited about the next episode immediately.
And then just the robots and thespaceships and the pterodactyls

(12:44):
and hit just about every button that a kid about my age would
love. You know, probably going up to
early teen years, 6465, you know, we're just getting into
the space program and talking about ray guns and flying
saucers and I mean, all that stuff.
And it seemed to almost be the pulse of what was going on in

(13:05):
the 60s was transformed into theJohnny Quest episode, James
Bond. It started, you know, the spy
movies and secret agents, and itintegrated all that kind of
stuff that was going on into a fun cartoon.
There was nothing else like thatin animation, with probably the
possible exceptions of clutch Cargo, which is sort of on a

(13:28):
class by itself, and the plus your Superman cartoons, which we
didn't see as much in the 60s and 70s.
They didn't get shown as often. I mean, at least where I lived,
but this kind of show, especially in animation, is so
popular now that it's hard to believe that this really was the
first. I don't think even ABC knew what

(13:49):
they had. Probably not, unless some kid
wrote to ABC or Johnny Quest at Hanna Barbera, 3400 Kwanga Blvd.
You know, I like this episode. Or no one knew.
Probably how popular or how ingrained it became as we got
older, because it certainly was with me.
Nick, as an animation artist, talk a little bit about the look

(14:11):
and that opening. You know, a lot of that was the
sales pitch to that scene that was done with the multiplaying
and all from your standpoint as an animated show.
Let's talk about that. Well, I have a little bit more
appreciation for it lately because I'm working on a
television series myself, so I know the time and budget

(14:34):
restraints. And in my case now, you know, a
lot of the stuff goes overseas. But at the time it was all in
house and you can see that they struggled to get that thing out
because it was a challenge to a lot of the artists.
In fact, you can see elements within the series where they
were desperate to get certain things animated and they would

(14:56):
give it to some of their less able artists and some of the
animation and some of the the drawing came off as a little bit
more cartoony than what they would have liked, but they had
to get the episode out. So as far as the look of it, I
think it looked great. But yeah, I completely

(15:17):
understand the limitations that were put upon it.
Well, just to keep that line consistency that Doug Wildy
wanted, that who'd help develop a show, wanted that comic book
look, and to keep that kind of line consistency, that's really
hard. Smurfs had that too.
Well, it's not just the lying assistant.
I mean it's all the negative space and the shadows and the

(15:40):
the creases and all that stuff. When you're dealing with that
stuff, it's actually hard to move those type of characters.
When you have just a simple lineoutline of a character, it's a
lot easier to move them around because none of that stuff has
to follow. That's why characters are pretty
much frozen and except an arm ismoving or something like that,

(16:00):
because they had such intricate ink work on the rest of the body
that they didn't want to drive Inbetweeners insane by trying to
in between all those creases andthings like that.
They kept it pretty limited justto support the style and keep it
visually consistent. But in a way, they reached so
high that they had to keep that consistent look, and it was a

(16:23):
very expensive show. Apparently ABC, when they were
talking about canceling it, Hannah suggested a lower budget
and they just couldn't see it. Like I said, they could get away
with a much cheaper show and getthe same ad revenue.
But I think if they'd given it time, we were moving into, as
you could see with Space Ghost, Shazan and Herculoids and

(16:45):
Superman, we were heading into that era and that it was two
years early. They didn't know because they'd
kept it on. I'll bet it would have been on
for five, 6-7 years perhaps. I'm just saying, who knows?
I mean, there was also the backlash about violence.
But this was a prime time show, and there's no telling what may
or may not. Just going back to, you know, we

(17:05):
were talking about the animation, the backgrounds that
they use, you know, you didn't have just a blue sky and some
ground and a tree. The background painters did an
amazing job of not only consistency but filling up the
screen with something other thanjust like a piece of dirt and
the sky almost movie like or on location like because they made

(17:28):
it as real looking as a cartoon could be given the technology at
the time which was a paintbrush and piece of paper.
On the way it was like a movie, a Hanna Barbera or a television
animation movie. Because nowadays when they do a
direct to video, even the Disneyones could be a Scooby, but it
could also be the various Aladdin movies or the Pooh

(17:48):
movies. You have incredible animation in
some sequences and TV type animation and others.
Because they did some stuff domestically, they did some
stuff overseas, They tried to bevery ambitious and sometimes
time and money doesn't give you that.
True, yeah. I also think that within a
artist group, you always have those that you go to for certain

(18:13):
movements or the way they handlethings.
I mean, a lot of the artists they went even for the series
itself, were old MGM guys from the Tom and Jerry days, You
know, Ken Muse and people like that.
They had a lot of top talent, but they also had a lot of
people who weren't as good and everybody had to keep working.

(18:33):
So they used the top talent where it would do the most good.
Well it was also artists that were used to working with funny
animals and funny looking character.
You know the Flintstones were not life drawings, but this was
life drawing. I was just watching an episode
where race was doing judo. It doesn't look rotoscoped.
It looks like someone drew it. Maybe use some reference, but

(18:56):
you can tell when it's a rotoscope and he does this judo
move and I don't know why I never noticed it before, but it
isn't awkward at all. It's fluid and that had to been
someone who had that kind of training and not everybody did.
When I talked about the look of it, I was thinking of one
specific, I think it was the theepisode The Abominable Snowman,

(19:18):
right, where a bunch of them arechasing at the end and they kind
of look like, you know, gossamerfrom the Warner Brothers
cartoons as opposed to the monstrous ones that they set up
originally. So you got the cycle of them
running in it. You could tell that they were
very off model because it was hard to draw that type of
character like that and they needed to get it out.

(19:41):
So every now and then you'll see, OK, that could have been
done better, but it's easy to becritical when you're you're not
involved in it. Well, and that's the thing with
Hanna Barbera is it's very easy to say, well, this doesn't move
like a theatrical feature. Well, you give somebody 3-4
years and couple of 1,000,000 bucks and there you go.

(20:01):
Yeah, and I didn't even mention it.
John Stevenson was maybe not thefirst, because Mr. Slate took on
a lot of different forms at first.
Actors played him, but he was the Mr. Slate we all knew all
through the 70s and through the latter part of the original run.
The. Best, Mr. Slate?
The best. Yeah.
Flintstone, you know. Roger, when your dad would call

(20:25):
you when you were in trouble, did it sound like that?
A little bit, but he was very, very quiet.
Like I said, I was a good kid. So yeah, I don't think he had
too many opportunities to fire me as his son, you know?
That other kids know your dad was on these cool shows.
My best friend who lived around the corner, absolutely.
He was probably the one friend Ihad that, you know, my dad would

(20:48):
do a voice or two every once in a while and share it with with
Michael. Other than that, I was just at
school. Every once in a while he would
mention something, oh, like my dad's could be on TV Saturday
morning and they go, what? What does he look like?
Well, it's just his voice. Very few of my friends, or my
sister's friends for that matter, had exclusive audience
with my dad doing a voice or three for him.

(21:10):
But he would do it every once ina while.
But you'd have to beg him prettymuch to do it.
So he didn't do things like, youknow, answering machines.
This is Mr. Slate. The Stevens is horrible.
He wanted to stay so under the radar people just didn't know
him in person. All you'd have to say is, And I
would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling
kids. Yeah.

(21:32):
He was also a fine impressionist.
One of my favorite episodes of The Flintstones is the rock
quarry story where he does this great Gary Cooper.
And he says they don't know who I am.
And then later, I miss the adulation.
I quote that all the time. He did a Joe Flynn voice for
Hair Bare Bunch. Originally Joe Flynn was hired,

(21:53):
but Joe Flynn had trouble playing Joe Flynn.
Just like according to Janet Waldo, Paul Lind originally
needed Barbera to sort of train him to do the Paul Lind persona
as a cartoon and then he got great at it.
Well, there was a lot of dialogue on Hair Bear Bunch.
And if you watch The Rescuers, Mr. Snoops doesn't have a lot of

(22:13):
dialogue, but Joe Flynn, just like on Anthony Aardvark, you
know, where they had Jackie Mason originally and then you
said just go with this guy and have John Biner do it.
Same thing with Hair Bear Bunch.Your dad ended up being Mr.
Peevely, but then like on GalaxyGoof Up, he did that Flynn voice
so well. He did and that was probably the
one sit around the house. He would do that voice for some

(22:38):
reason more than probably Mr. Slate.
He he would do it is Joe Flynn and he did a very good Paul Lynn
too, by the way, you know, mildew wolf and.
On Laugh Olympics he was mildew wolf and doggy daddy I believe.
Yeah, he, he did a lot of Doggy daddies and some of the
compilation shows. And like he said, the Laugh
Olympics and there's some other Christmas or Thanksgiving show

(23:01):
where Doggy Gaggy and Oggy Doggyshow up.
And he did that voice, too. You know, your dad was a very
dignified sort of he, he had this sort of executive persona,
maybe because I keep thinking ofthe Herbie rides again, where
he's the lawyer. You went to Sessions.
What did it look like when your dad would go into these silly
voices? Did he act silly?

(23:22):
He he would, his face would change.
Yeah. He would manifest or adopt that
character, using me sometimes a storyboard as a way to mimic the
action that they wanted on that in particular series of lines or
whatever. But he would change his face
when he was doing voices. Maybe that was just his way of

(23:43):
queuing up in his mind, the consistent voice of a character
from episode to episode. They would all have fun.
And back in the early glory days, everybody would show up in
a coat and a tie, a sweater and a tie, all the actors.
And yeah, they would respect Hanna Barbera and the job that
they were doing. I think it's a way of showing

(24:06):
respect too. Do you know Ron Diaz?
I don't know if you, you probably knew Ron, didn't you,
Nick? Briefly during Mermaid, yeah.
He told me one of the most fun shows he ever got to work on
with Hanna Barbera was Johnny Quest.
Because he did a lot of the effects animation and he said we

(24:26):
could just go nuts because it's not always the same puff of
smoke, the same explosion. There were a lot of different
things shooting rays, he said. That was so much fun because it
was different every time. Did you ever do anything like
that, Nick? Did you ever do Starbursts or
anything like that? Every now and then I would do my

(24:46):
own effects and things like that.
Mostly it was things that affected the character, like I'm
Beauty and the Beast, Lumiere and the feather duster were
behind a curtain, so I animated the curtain and things like
that. But we had an effects
department, so I didn't have to do a lot of that stuff.
But sometimes I wanted to make sure that the action, the

(25:07):
inanimate objects that affected the characters, would work
right. What I was thinking in my head
for things like, you know, Hades, we had a whole hair
department that would basically just do Hades's hair for the
entire show. And all I did was.
Indicate the hairline and they would do the rest.
Mermaid was really one of those productions where they're just

(25:31):
starting to cast people for certain characters.
Oliver and company in it, and inthat era they were starting to
cast. It wasn't until Beauty and the
Beast, the rescuers in it, that they just really started to cast
people for that and then get animating assistance to help out
and things like that. Petey's was a special thing
because it was fire and had to keep moving constantly and

(25:54):
things like that. So I can do effects, but I
didn't have the time to do it there and I would rather leave
it to people who know more what they're doing than I do in that
element. As for the Panama Baris stuff, I
mean didn't they have like stockthings that they?
Would use. Yeah, but some of the stock

(26:14):
stuff, they could plug it in, but some of them are specific
things were things that they didn't have and that would have
to be created. And that was the the fun part.
Yeah. And that's a challenge with
television animation too, is that you want to bring in things
into the script and then the boards that you might be able to
reuse. So they have the writers keep
that in mind. But in the case of Johnny Quest,

(26:36):
they didn't have any precedence for an awful lot of that, so it
a lot of it was from scratch. You mentioned the feather duster
and Lumiere. When one animator is doing
another character and another isdoing the other one, how do you
make them intertwine? Basically, if you're working on
a character with another animator, there are elements in

(26:58):
the scene. If it's a long scene, you have a
passive and an aggressive and ifthere's a character who is
performing and another one is reacting, we would pass it off
basically, depending on basically it's like take Beauty
and the Beast. If I was working on a scene with
Cogsworth, you know, Cosworth starts the scene and Lumiere

(27:21):
enters and maybe dusts the snow off of his head.
And in the bridge of Be Our Guest, the animator, in this
case, Will Finn, would draw Cogsworth and do his movement
like you know, and then give thescene to me and I would come in
and do Lumiere's part until Cogsworth reacts physically to

(27:42):
what Lumiere is doing. And then it would go back to
Will it just work back and forth.
And then when it went to clean up, they would make sure that it
all matched up and everything worked cleanly.
Roger, one of the things I wanted to know before we did
this, I asked each of you, do you have a favorite episode?
That's the obvious question, buta lot of people do have

(28:02):
favorites. Yeah, I didn't watch all 26
shows in the last few days, but I went back and rewatched Toro.
The The Terrible was certainly one and then the other one with
the Spider. The robot Spy.
Robot Spy and I said those two, you know, I still enjoyed
watching those robot spaceships and dinosaurs.

(28:24):
I mean, how can you go wrong? You know, I made a note just to
to emphasize it. To me, Bandit was the most
annoying character ever in HannaBarbera's history.
Bandit interrupted the flow. As far as I'm concerned, he
wasn't the Comic Relief, so that's just my opinion.
That's not only yours. It was Doug Wildy's opinion

(28:45):
because it was Joe Barbera's wish to add a dog so kids would
have Comic Relief. And there would be.
He loved adding a dog to everything when we were kids.
We kind of like Bandit because he he was there to sort of break
the tension. But yeah, I would imagine he did
kind of get in the way of the story, something he had no real
purpose except to be cute, you know?

(29:06):
Growing up our first dog was a pug, which is Bandit adjacent in
real life and I'm so glad our pug was not like Bandit.
Yeah, because also he could get into trouble and they'd have to
rescue him and that's a whole other thing there.
But yeah, those are two great, great classic.

(29:26):
I mean, Robot Spy is right up there with great 50 science
fiction. It's done just like Day of the
Earth Stood Still and all those you know and them and then Tour
of the Terrible is. It's got a pretty shocking
ending actually, too. I won't give it away if anybody
hasn't seen it, but those are two great ones.
How about you, Nick? I think I can't remember the

(29:48):
actual title so forgive me. The gaseous cloud.
The invisible. Yes, the invisible monster.
Yes. Yes, that one, I want to save
the mummy because that's pretty much always So what people go
to. But I think the invisible
monster, I I really, I kind of liked it just because of the way
it was structured. It had a sort of an unknown

(30:12):
element to it that sort of following it.
It wasn't like a typical monster.
I thought that was the good aspect of that episode that I
like. That's considered by a lot of
people to be the scariest one, especially for kids.
Oh yeah. We talked about some of the
voice actors and they brought inpeople who had not worked with
them on previous things. Like Henry Cordon was relatively

(30:35):
new to HB at the time. I personally think he must have
impressed them with how much doubling he could do.
He was very versatile. So he got a lot of work after
that. But they also had Sam Edwards
and Jay Pat O'Malley, who probably was there doing hey
there, it's Yogi Bear. Because a lot of times it's like
who's in the building, you know?And I want to talk about Jade

(30:58):
because. Just thinking about her.
I mean, in animation to have a character like that and to have
this sort of what's their relationship and and the great
Kathy Lewis, who really didn't do a lot of animation, but did a
ton of radio. And for those who don't know the
name, if you love old time radio.
She was the Co star of my friendIrma.

(31:19):
She would go my friend. In each one.
She was Hazel's annoying, snobbynemesis, Mr. B's sister Deidre.
She'd always get her come up andsit at the end and have to
apologize to Hazel. And then the next time you saw
her, she didn't learn the thing.Oh, hi, Miss Johnson.
Hello, Hazel. Wipe off your feet and come on
in. I'll tell Mister B you're here.

(31:43):
Mr. B? Yoohoo.
Your sister's here. He's in the dense.
Really. The way you announced me, I
thought he might be down in the South. 40 don't go.
You ain't kidding. We don't need nowhere to come in
this house. Not with my lungs.
My pup says I must have been born in a highwind.
I don't imagine it was the otherway around.
Got a light? Anytime you want 1 jade.

(32:07):
You don't seem surprised to see me.
You can't surprise me, Jade, I know you too well.
Race. Listen.
I came to warn you. Word has reached me that you're
in danger. Please be.
Careful. Thanks, Jade.
I will. Well, good night then.
Good night. Jade.
You have nothing more to say to me.

(32:28):
In the past you have been more talkative.
Why talk? Better.
Oh yes, much better. Great, great actor.
And then you got doctors in, youknow, that was Victoria Perrin,
the voice of The Outer Limits. There is nothing wrong with your

(32:49):
television set. Do not attempt to adjust the
picture. We are controlling transmission
for the next hour. Sit quietly and we will control
all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in
a great adventure. You are about to experience the
awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer

(33:11):
limits. Ah, good evening, Doctor Quest.
Zin. Bite, right?
You like my secret agent? What is it?
Since you have no way of stopping it, I will tell you
it's my very latest invention, an electronic spy.
Once inside your laboratory, it gathers information through

(33:34):
these antenna and stores it in amemory bank and brings it back
to me. Nothing can stop it.
Recurring villain in Doctors in.I think he did what, 6 or 7
episodes probably. Did you come in contact with
some of these voice people throughout your child?
Yeah, I mean, let's say I'm trying to do time frame wise.

(33:57):
I think I probably started goingto the studio when I was 13.
So I'd be like early 70s. Pretty much anything that was
recorded from early to mid 70s, I was a regular feature in the
studio, you know, watching my dad during summer break from
school. And then I, I worked there for a
couple summers and a couple of Christmas breaks when I was in

(34:19):
college. Meet actors or reunite with
people I had met when I was a 13year old.
And they go, what are you doing here?
And I, oh, I work here now. And then my Co workers were
amazed that all these actors knew my name and I was just a
guy that worked in the warehouse.
And then I had to explain well, because my dad's been here since
61 doing voices and I, I've got to know a lot of these actors.

(34:44):
You mentioned Paul Winchell. Were there certain voice actors
that he liked to spend time with?
He loves Statman Brothers. Oh yeah, yeah.
They golf together, Mel, Daws, Dom Messy.
They either live far away or they just didn't have similar
entrance. They're a little bit older than
my dad. I work with Daws Butler's son,
Charles, I believe his name was.Yeah, at at the studio with a

(35:06):
couple summers. I think he had the summer job
there too and I remember workingwith him a little bit.
Must have been cool getting the check that says Hanna Barbera
Productions on it. It saved one more money than
working at the gas station. It was a lot more fun working
there, that's for sure. Hard work.
What did you do? You said you worked in the
warehouse. What did they store?
Started down in the basement punching cells on a punch and

(35:30):
putting Sparklet bottles on coolers.
And we had to work Saturdays doing the bathroom maintenance,
doing anything. And then I got promoted to the
warehouse and we did a lot of a lot of carpentry.
We built the animation desks andwhen they did a big expansion in
the late 70s, they had a couple of satellite locations in

(35:53):
Burbank near the airport. Yeah, it was just a room full of
Inbetweeners and animators and painters.
We did all the desk building andfurniture moving and everything
like that. So it's good solid work.
Yeah, well, I would imagine thatyour dad had a great worth work
ethic because he was such a great utility man.
Apparently, from what I've heard, he would make himself

(36:15):
available. It was almost like he was a
doctor. If they needed him, he would get
there and do the voice. Oh yeah, back in the day, you
could drive from Woodland Hills to the studio in less than 1/2
an hour, unlike now. But you know, they could call
him at 10 and he'd be there at one for something.
Obviously as an employer you appreciate that kind of
employee. Nick, if you could get into a

(36:38):
time machine and go back to the early 60s, what character,
episode or show or all three would you wish you were
animating? I honestly think I probably
wouldn't be one of the ones thatDoug Wiley would pick for me.
It would I would have loved to have worked on the Flintstones.

(36:58):
I I mean, I would practice thosecharacters when I was, you know,
in school and things like that. And I could recognize certain
artists and which Fred they did and which ones I think was more
appealing and all that. And, and I, you know, I love the
voices. I One of the things I like about
working on The Simpsons is that the quality of performance is so

(37:22):
strong that there's a lot of them pretty much animate
themselves. And that would be the same way
back then, the quality of voice talent.
And if I were to work on The Flintstones, it would have to be
the original series because I think Henry Gordon is a great
voice, but he's not Fred. I'm sorry.
He wouldn't want to animate Fredand Barney doing a soft shoe

(37:43):
with the thing from the Fantastic Four.
Yes, they really did do that. What was that?
Fred and Barney meet the schmoo and then they had Fred and
Barney meet the thing and they and that was the interstitial
stuff. They would just do any old thing
in the interstitial stuff. I didn't think that would come

(38:06):
up. I didn't think Fred and Barney
meet the schmoo would come up during a Johnny Quest.
But again, the difference is, isthat Henry Corden is trying to
get as close to Alan Reed as possible when he's doing Fred.
And it's like I can't just. But you bring up an interesting

(38:27):
point and Henry Corden admitted that.
He said at first he was doing Alan Reed more and eventually he
brought his own voice eventuallyinto it.
One of the things Alan Reed brought to prime time animation
and the television animation wasn't basically natural voice.
That's the way he did this audition.
They weren't sure at first, he said, but this isn't his

(38:49):
biography. But that's the way he thought
they should be playing. They would add a little bit of
character, but for the most part, for a 30 minute sitcom, if
you're going to get to know the characters, it's their natural
voices. And that is what The Simpsons
does, because even though they're accentuating their tone,
and of course, you know, Dan Castellana doesn't sound like

(39:09):
Homer, but he's still playing him as a straight character
comedically, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah. Yeah.
And then on Top Cat, they did that.
On The Jetsons, they did that. And then on Johnny Quest it was
even more. Even though they were highly
dramatic and a little bit of melodramatic, what your dad did
was closest to his natural voice.
Yes, I mean that was Doctor Quest.

(39:30):
He was not playing Joe Flynn there and Mike Rd. was Mike
Road. And that was an innovation that
is taken for granted now. You had Doctor Benton Quest just
walking around the house all thetime saying, you know, I'd like.
Dad, can I go out? I don't know, Roger.
I just go. Johnny and Haji were probably

(39:51):
the first homeschool kids on television, basically.
Race was their tutor, yeah. Yeah, and you know, it's
interesting. I was just, you're talking about
Jade a little while ago and thatwas one of the most awkward
episodes, I think is because they're on the border of being a
little bit, you know, cavalier alittle bit.
So racy. No pun intended with the whole I

(40:15):
know race, a woman knows, you know, that type of thing.
But I know, I know. But it's so on the edge that
they can't really go for it because they know that kids are
watching this, so they have to elude to it and so.
This is an era where on CBS, on Lost in Space, they could not

(40:36):
allow Maureen and John Robinson to kiss because it was the
family show. They couldn't allow Judy and Don
to do anything. At first they were sort of
suggesting there were a couple, but then they played that down.
There was a lot of safeguards. So for a cartoon to come that

(40:56):
close, you know, and that's whatit's.
Worth I I get what you're saying, but you know, there's so
much contradictions in the 60s thing, you know, it's like Rob
and Laura slept in separate bedsuntil 1966, but Samantha and
Darren were sleeping in the samebed in 1964 and you've got Fred
and Wilmer in the same bed and other things.

(41:17):
Later seasons they're in two separate beds.
I think that's because they didn't want to animate her
blanket when Fred got out. So it's a, you know, it's
something that has to do with the budget, but still, it's like
there's all these different things.
Oh, they didn't want them to kiss and lost in space because
kids, but kids are watching Gilligan's Island.
And there's Ginger, you know, yeah, you know, seducing

(41:38):
Gilligan on every. For a piece of rope, remember.
Yeah, you know. Any piece of rope.
Yeah, it depends on the production I guess, what notes
they get from the network and. I'll give you another one, A Man
from Atlantis, which was sort ofa Hanna Barbera production.
It was under the Herbert Solo banner, but it was basically he

(42:00):
was in the building because the Hanna Barbera name had become
known for cartoons and they weredeveloping shows for TV and that
was a pilot that sold well. I'm not bringing it up for that
reason. Bring it up because Patrick
Duffy in some interview said that they weren't sure if he had
an 8 O clock physique or a nine O clock or A10 O clock physique.
And he says I have no idea what that means.
They had the cast and based on those parameters, standards and

(42:23):
practices and arbitrary rules and non arbitrary rules and it's
zany. And there's a great paperback
book called The Martian. Wouldn't say that.
That is all of the notes, you know, from my favorite Martian
and all the notes from differentpeople that are the most
outrageous ones. And Lord knows, I think we've
all heard them. Oh, oh, yeah.
I mean, I got 3 volumes. This guy wrote the Star Trek,

(42:44):
These are the Voyages. Tons of these notes from network
people and things like that and all the stuff I had to do just
to get around it, you know? So yeah, it's it's amazing.
Not the quality of show they got.
It is. It's remarkable that they came
out at all, much less however they did.
I mean, if they have any foresight, they would know that

(43:06):
maybe it'd be worth it to do a second season of Johnny Quest
because it'll just sell better in syndication.
Don't get me started. So, Roger, how many years you
were on the Los Angeles police force?
I wasn't on LAPD. I work for Elsinet.
For El Segundo, I'm sorry I didn't get that you.
El Segundo is literally a 5 1/2 square mile city just South of

(43:27):
Belly International. And you were a uniformed
policeman for how many years? 29 1/2.
Wow. So how often did Mr. Slate or
Johnny Quest ever come up in anyof those days?
There's a few people that knew and it was always a talking
point on introduction. Hey, do you know who his dad is?
People in that would work there or just in conversation at car

(43:50):
shows or some social event that we were at, you know, Chamber of
Commerce things. A couple of the guys would all
say, hey, do you know who his dad is?
And then I have to give him the 92nd tour of who my dad was.
Impressed. They were.
They were impressed. That's pretty cool.
They were more impressed with the fact that he did the tag in
on Dragnet 6768 because they do that by heart.

(44:21):
On September 15th, trial was held in Department 180, Superior
Court of the State of Californiain and for the County of Los
Angeles. The suspects were found guilty
on two counts of armed robbery. Robbery in the first degree is
punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for not less
than five years. That was the most impressive

(44:43):
thing I think for them. Roger, I don't know if you've
heard this, but the two discs set Johnny Quest Original
Television soundtrack. Nick, how did that miracle come
upon us? It was a series of just sort of

(45:04):
happenstances. I was good friends with
Burlingame and Taylor White, whowere good friends with the guys
at La La Land, and there was some talk about putting together
ACD set. They got the permission, I guess
of Warner Brothers at the time to go ahead with this.
There was some old dats that were taken right from the master

(45:27):
reels that were sort of floatingaround there.
They were able to get a hold of those and digitize them further,
digitize them because, and then they asked me if I'd be willing
to put the thing together, put the track listing together.
And I knew how much of A libraryshow it was.
The only way to do it and the only way to figure out what

(45:48):
would go best with what is to figure out what of the library
was on each episode. They gave me queue sheets, but
the queue sheets were a mess. They were doubled up.
In some cases. They weren't from the episode
that they said they were from. They didn't match.
So I said, OK, I can't rely on these.

(46:09):
So basically what I did is I putthem aside and I went through
each episode and did my own queue sheet.
That would mean I have to go through and listen to each
track, say the track was like a minute long and they would use 5
seconds of it. I'd have to find the track and
try to remember where that 5 seconds was and say, OK, that's

(46:31):
the track that went here. It took me about two months to
go through all 26 episodes, and then I was able to find what
cues were from Jetsons. Usually a lot of bandit stuff at
the Jetsons, music attached to it.
There were things that were written for a certain
characters, which is interesting.

(46:52):
They wrote a theme for Jay, theywrote a theme for Pasha, but
they were never used. They're on the CD, but they're
bonus tracks. Yeah, I went through all that
and then I figured out how many times AQ was used in an episode,
and if it was used a lot, I would place that within that

(47:13):
episode. So eventually I went through
them all and I said, OK, well this one cue is only in this
episode that was never used again in the series, so it has
to go in here if it's going to go anywhere.
So I had to go through and do all that research and and then
try to piece them together so that they have sort of a
coherent sound. And once I did that, Doug

(47:35):
Schwartz did the compositing andall that.
The sound quality is all his. I gave him a list of the queues
and in what order they were in and all that and due to his
experience he'd be able to put them together in a in a really
coherent way and he did. It was a beautiful job.
There is one mistake, a fan saidhey you have one queue that's

(47:59):
repeated and I checked my notes and it's not my mistake.
Hopefully if they ever release it again re release it that will
be fixed. Well, let's hope they do,
because it's important. It's a very important score.
Well, not only that, but the bigfrustrating thing is, is that
there is stuff that's missing and there are reels that we just

(48:20):
didn't have. Like the first episode has music
from probably the Magilla Gorilla era.
A lot of that stuff, so that's before had music written for it.
So a lot of it is earlier Panna Barbera music stuff at the end
where it would be great to get some of those reels, if they

(48:41):
even exist. So I hope they do.
And if you look at the CD, it ends at Terror Island because I
didn't have the reels for the last couple of episodes, the
music that I had ended. So, and this is pretty packed.
Both CD's are full. So I would say if there wasn't a
reissue with more of the music from the show, they would have

(49:04):
to be in A3 CD release. I don't know if they're going to
do that well. You know, it's a sort of stuff
there is La La Land, there's Mondo, there's a few
independents out there that there's Record Store Day.
It's not out of the realm of possibility and it should
happen, you know, and now with me TV Tunes, they can sell it on
their Me TV mall. So there's a.
Play. I mean, I would Flintstones, all

(49:27):
that stuff, all that white curtain stuff, all that Ted
Nichols stuff. I know there's certain people
who really want the Ted Nichols stuff from the mid 60s, all the
space ghosts and the, you know, Frankenstein Junior and all that
stuff. There's some great stuff that
would go up, but again, it has to do with bureaucracy and
lawyers and and all that stuff. Someday there will be the

(49:48):
blessing of a champion, a personwithin an organization who says,
I wonder if we could do something with this stuff, you
know, wouldn't cost too much andit would be gravy money.
That would be good business sense.
That's why I never say never. That could happen.
When this this came out, I didn't believe it could happen.
So there you go. Yeah, or somebody with like you
said, outside of the with pull like a Frank Marshall who goes

(50:11):
hey, I want my dad's music out there.
So yeah, I will use my influenceto get law and the ability to
put out a monster CD or whateverthat type of thing.
The other thing is, is that the next generation, because my
kids, they grew up on this stuff, Johnny Quest and all that

(50:31):
stuff. So I can play these pieces and
they know exactly what it's from.
And it's that, you know, you pass this stuff with the DVD
collections. So they know these voices, they
know this music, they know theseshows.
And as long as you show them to your kids, and the good thing is
you can show them to your kids, that's the good thing.

(50:53):
Rodger, does your dad's legacy live on?
And your children. My one daughter's 31,
ironically, she's working at Disney World right now.
She understood what Grandpa did,and she can pick his voice out
anywhere, anytime, you know if she hears it.
But for her generation, all thisstuff was old by then.

(51:13):
I was talking to a bartender at the local pub and I said, I'm
going to do a podcast tomorrow. And she's on what?
And I go Johnny Quest. And this is a glazed look.
Yeah, she's in her early 30s. And I said from cartoon.
Oh, OK. It's interesting you said that
your daughter is working for Disney World and you live in
California, right? But she grew up here.

(51:35):
She's living in Florida now. Right, so I'm living in Florida
and my daughter's working at Disneyland.
So you're talking about what young people say in reaction to
this subject matter. And what would you say, each of
you, if they said Johnny Quest, what is that and why should I

(51:55):
watch it? How would you respond to that?
Well, yeah, why watch anything? I mean, quality television is
quality. I I would say a lot of these
things still hold up. It depends on who you're talking
to. I mean, nowadays everything is
about race, gender, but it's like that's one of the earliest
shows where they actually had a main character who, you know,

(52:19):
wasn't all white people. And you know, you can say just
as a breaking new grounds, watchit on that basis, you know.
And what kid didn't want to haveHaji as a best friend?
He was cool. Yeah, exactly, Exactly.
I think it was, you know, ahead of its time in that ground.
That was pretty amazing. So and I just watch it because

(52:41):
it's a quality show. And how about you, Rodger, When
people say Johnny who he was on what show?
I don't know what that is. I don't know what the age cut
off would be to when Hanna Barbera stuff or quality stuff
ended. They actually sit down and watch
and there was a storyline. They'd have to bring it to their

(53:02):
attention. It's like there's a real story
here, you know, and it's not as graphic as graphic novels.
And that's the other thing you have to compete with.
My daughter got me a couple of Johnny Quest graphic novel type
stuff and I I was pretty shockedand I don't see it's R rated but
there's a heavy PG13 level of violence in the thing.
Whereas yes, Johnny and Haji shoot guns and Doctor Quest

(53:25):
smokes a pipe and. So in general, you're just
saying it was a show with a great story and great
characters. It was, yeah.
If a parent uses a building block, you know, where is the
Amazon River? Where's Thailand?
Where's Egypt? In theory, a parent could build
on the storyline if the kid askswhere are the pyramids?

(53:46):
Well, can you still see him typestuff?
And it was travel log, almost. To a certain extent.
He could have used that, I said,as a building block to teach a
kid a little bit more than they might have gotten in school,
even. I know in my case, I didn't care
if something was old when I was a kid.
If I saw something I thought wascool, I would go and find more

(54:07):
movies and shows like that, evenif it was made before I was
born. I don't know that kids today
will or will not do that, but I think there's more than we
expect. At least I hope so.
Yeah, Yeah, I would. I would hope to easy to Google
that stuff now obviously or YouTube it if they want to see
something else or. I also think there's an element

(54:28):
of cynicism. Depends on how old you are too.
You know, usually if you grew upwith something, you have a
little bit more of a nostalgia aspect to it.
I mean, my kids, I run those shows all the time.
My son loved that series. So now when they watch it, they
go, I remember, that's cool, this is great.
But if you watch it for the first time, your cynicism

(54:51):
starts, bro, what's wrong with this?
You know, I've even seen that inmy own kids on certain things
where they haven't seen stuff that was really great at the
day. And they've gone through the
cynical period where they run everything through the lens of
the current attitudes and they start picking it apart and
things like that. So there's a lot of ifs, a lot

(55:14):
of conditions as to how I would react.
It depends on who's saying that.Why should I watch this?
You have to think of the person too.
But it's likely to live on, don't you think?
Oh, definitely. I would hope so.
Going back to the Flintstones really quick, you know, they had
all the guest stars, you know, Ann Marg Rock and and kids have
no idea who Ann Margaret is. That would be something you'd

(55:38):
have to kind of transition, you know, whatever Tony Curtis's
name was, you know, some seriousresearch.
A kid would wouldn't correlate, you know, Ann Margaret with Ann
Margaret necessarily anymore. No, but if they were saying,
Gee, this is cool, who is this person?
And then they Googled it or theylooked at YouTube or they looked

(56:00):
at IMDb and said, oh, there's a movie on TCM, you know, or I can
rent this or I can buy it. You know, she was interesting.
What else did Stoney Curtis do? What else?
Looking further is how you learnand how you expand your
horizons. So it's a.
It's a good thing. And some of them are probably
really frustrating because they can't find who Rock Quarry is.

(56:25):
I am so Rock quarry. Well, you know what, it's been
such a joy to have you both hereat the same time, sharing your
your memories and your history and all of that and tribute to
such a great program. So thank you very, very much for
being with us. It was a pleasure and nice
meeting you, Nick. Well, nice to meet you too,

(56:46):
Roger. And thank you so much, Greg for
this. I appreciate including me in on
this. I thank you again and I thank
you all for listening, thank youfor all the nice things that you
say on all of the various platforms and hope you'll be
with us the next time. But until then, bye bye.
We hope you enjoyed the fantastic world of Hannah and
Barbera with Greg Airborne. Please join us again and Many

(57:10):
thanks for listening.