Johnny Bravo

Johnny Bravo is an American animated television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network.

The series was originally part of a series of shorts on Cartoon Network's animation showcase series World Premiere Toons (also known as What a Cartoon!). The popularity of the shorts led to the network commissioning a full series, which premiered on July 7, 1997. The series was renewed for multiple following seasons and finally ended its official run on August 27, 2004. The series was the second to be spun off from World Premiere Toons, and is the second series under the Cartoon Cartoons label (a collective name for early Cartoon Network original series). A spin-off of the series, JBVO, was unsuccessful and ran for only one season.

Some of the writers and directors on the series went on to become famous for their own projects including writer Seth MacFarlane for Fox's Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show and writer/director Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon's The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom and T.U.F.F. Puppy).

A television film titled Johnny Bravo Goes to Bollywood was made and aired in India in 2009, and in August 2010 in the United Kingdom. A 70-minute movie with the same title aired in Australia on November 20, 2011.

As of March 30, 2012, this series has returned to Cartoon Network in reruns on the revived block, Cartoon Planet. It also currently airs on Boomerang.

Plot
The series stars a muscular beefcake man named Johnny Bravo who dons a pompadour hairstyle and an Elvis Presley-like voice and has a forward, woman-chasing personality. Plots typically revolve around him trying to get a woman that he has targeted throughout the episode to fall in love with him. He is often beaten up or stunned by his target or companions, or is ditched by them in the end.

Characters
Johnathon "Johnny" Bravo (voiced by Jeff Bennett) — Johnny Bravo is the muscular main protagonist of the series. He is narcissistic and although possessing native cunning, is intellectually challenged. A prominent feature of the show is his inability to attract women, and secure dates or relationships with them. He claims to dislike his "best friend", Carl Chryniszzswics. However, despite his boorish and dim nature, he does have a soft side; in spite of that, he typically gets assaulted in some way or another by the women he approaches. His apparent stupidity has been known to save the day from time to time, but at some cases, only made them a lot worse. The inspiration for Johnny may be as a male representation of the "dumb blonde", being as he usually is the clueless butt-of-the-joke, with the notable exception during the 1st 13th Annual Fancy Anvil Awards Show Program Special: Live in Stereo, during which Johnny served as the host and was very witty and suave. The character is memorable for his incredibly quick movements (usually done while trying to impress women), which were accompanied by the loud crack of a whip sound effect. Johnny's catch phrases are "She wants me!" and "Wooaahh Mama!" and "Yeah Whatever" after women beat him up for refusing to leave them alone. He dresses in a skin tight black t-shirt and blue jeans. Three running gags are his trademark sunglasses, which he always wears, never revealing his eyes; breaking the fourth wall and Johnny being beaten up by women, who reject him. The name "Johnny Bravo" dates back to an episode of The Cheyenne Show, and was also Greg Brady's would-be stage name in an episode of The Brady Bunch. However, Van Partible stated in an interview for Cartoon Network that he also derived the name from his full given name, "Efrem Giovanni Bravo Partible." It has also been said that his birthday is on Valentine's Day and he likes Kung-Fu chick shows. When voicing Johnny Bravo, Jeff Bennett made his voice sound like that of Elvis Presley.

Bunny "Momma" Bravo (voiced by Brenda Vaccaro) — Bunny Bravo is Johnny's mother. She has had a lively past and sometimes reveals a surprising hidden talent. The show's original format portrays her as a calm, nurturing woman, but was made into a louder, more extroverted character once the show was retooled. She's very dedicated to her son, but as a result of her awareness of his low intellect and womanizer attitude, does not always treat him and his problems seriously. Her husband is never seen or mentioned. Like Johnny, Bunny has her own trademark sunglasses which always cover her eyes. Bunny hopes that Johnny will find that special someone he's been looking for. Bunny is mostly referred in the show as "Momma" by Johnny, who pronounces it in an Elvis-esque manner.

Little Suzy (voiced by Mae Whitman as a child and Pat Musick as an adult) — Suzy is a little red-haired, intelligent girl from the neighborhood (often called "Little Neighbor girl" by Johnny), who is very cunning and talkative. In many episodes, Suzy is shown to have a major crush on Johnny (although the feeling is not mutual). Her parents were never shown, but she is often shown to be related to big time celebrities. For example, it was revealed in an episode during her birthday that Farrah Fawcett is her cousin. She also has a crush on an 8-year-old country music singer named Lonnie Dash. In the early episodes, Suzy was more of a cute-type character with a round head, while in the retooled series, she is thin-looking and more grown up. Her appearance went back to its original design in season 4. Suzy has many interests (such as selling lemonade and participating in the Buttercup Scouts) and has proven to be very successful in most of those interests. It is very obvious that Johnny finds Suzy annoying as he won't even go to her birthday parties or school dances.

Carl Chryniszzswics (voiced by Tom Kenny) — Carl Chryniszzswics is a local nerd, considered by many (especially Johnny) to be extremely annoying. He is Johnny's "best friend". He is a local genius and geek, who is very intelligent, but somewhat eccentric and timid. He was introduced after the show's retooling following the end of the first season, and seems to be Johnny's only friend, although Johnny often denies that he is his friend. Carl sometimes uses Johnny as a test subject for his experiments. Carl really likes Johnny and he continues to hang out with him, even after all of the mean things that Johnny does and says about him. Carl remained in the show after the return to the original style, but was relegated to smaller roles.

Pops (voiced by Larry Drake) — Pops is the owner of a local diner in town. He often gives tips and advice to Johnny; however, his advice often turns out to be useless, sometimes causing trouble for Johnny. His diner's chili is made from rather suspicious ingredients and he serves food made from many animals, such as possums, pandas, cougars, seals, horses, and bald eagles. Like Carl, Pops was introduced in season two after the show's retooling and remained after the return to the original format, although he was relegated to brief cameo roles.

Master Hamma (voiced by Brian Tochi) — Master Hamma is Johnny's Japanese martial arts instructor. Johnny has taken, and failed, several of his martial arts classes and frequently ruins Hamma's life trying to learn his lessons. Like Carl and Pops, Master Hamma was introduced after the series was retooled. His rival is another martial arts instructor named Panteen Claw who has a daughter named Ting.

Jungle Boy (voiced by Cody Dorkin) — Jungle Boy is a little boy with incredible strength, who lives in the jungle with animals similar to Tarzan. He shares a bitter rivalry with King Raymond voiced by Mark Hamill, similar to Kerchak. His appearances on the series were short-lived and he and the other animals were removed from the show after Season 1.

History
The series takes its roots from a senior thesis project creator Van Partible did for Loyola Marymount University, about an Elvis Presley impersonator. Mess O' Blues (1993) was shown by Partible's animation professor at the college to a friend working for Hanna-Barbera at the time. The studio loved the film and asked him to develop it into a pitch for a seven-minute short. Partible sold the project to Hanna-Barbera shortly afterward. The short would be aired on Cartoon Network's new animation showcase, World Premiere Toons. Also known as What a Cartoon!, the series' short cartoons mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each film being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist/creator.

Partible initially roomed with fellow Hanna-Barbera employees Craig McCracken (creator of The Powerpuff Girls), Paul Rudish (a designer on a handful of other Hanna-Barbera/Cartoon Network series) and Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Dexter's Laboratory). Partible changed his character from Mess O' Blues around so that "he would be more of a '50s iconic James Dean-looking character that talked like Elvis". Partible picked voice actor Jeff Bennett to play Johnny Bravo solely based on his young, hyped Elvis impression.

The short, Johnny Bravo, premiered on World Premiere Toons on March 26, 1995, and involved Johnny trying to score with a zookeeper girl by capturing a runaway talking gorilla. Partible, with a small team of animators, animated the short themselves in-house at Hanna-Barbera using digital ink and paint (the latter shorts and seasons 1 and early season 2 of the series would instead use the traditional ink and paint and film camera). Two more shorts on the program followed (Jungle Boy in "Mr. Monkeyman", and Johnny Bravo and the Amazon Women) and the shorts were so popular that Cartoon Network commissioned a series based around Johnny Bravo.

The crew of the first season of Johnny Bravo consisted of several writers, animators, and directors from World Premiere Toons, including Seth MacFarlane, Butch Hartman, Steve Marmel, and John McIntyre. Veteran cartoonist and animation legend Joseph Barbera was also a creative consultant and a mentor for the first season of the series. Partible stated in a 1997 interview that the goal of the series was to have "animation reminiscent of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons".

The series premiered on July 7, 1997, and the first season completed in December of that year. Partible left after the first season for unknown reasons. The series was put on hiatus, until it was picked up for an unexpected second season in 1999. During that season, the show undertook a major creative re-tooling, in which new characters were introduced, re-designs of characters with new personalities were prevalent, and the tone and humor of the show changed considerably. Some of the changes the show experienced during the re-tooling were the heavy emphasis on Johnny's stupidity, the removal of the Jungle Boy characters and new catchphrases. The show kept this format until the series' third season ended in 2002. The series sat in limbo once again until it was renewed for a fourth season in 2003, which aired in 2004. Van Partible returned for the fourth season and the series returned to the humor of the original shorts and first season of the series (although the Jungle Boy characters from the first season never returned). The show was officially ended in late 2004.

Episodes
Johnny Bravo has a total of 67 episodes spread over 4 seasons that were produced from July 1997 to August 2004. Each half-hour episode contains 2-3 Johnny Bravo segments. In two episodes of the first season instead of three Johnny Bravo segments, one of the three segments was a Jungle Boy segment.

JBVO
JBVO: Your All Request Cartoon Show is a short-lived programming block that aired Sundays on Cartoon Network from April 2, 2000, to May 21, 2001. It was hosted by Johnny Bravo, along with some infrequent guest stars such as Chicken (from Cow and Chicken). Callers would write into the show via mail or through the Cartoon Network website to call the show and request a cartoon from Cartoon Network's cartoon library, which would then be played, with an exception of half-hour- shows. Notably, one caller of the show requested an episode of Dragon Ball Z. Being that it was a half-hour long, Johnny regretfully had to fast-forward through the entire episode with Johnny providing only expositional commentary. Afterward, Johnny apologized to the caller for the inconvenience.

There was also a similar spin-off of the JBVO concept itself entitled Viva Las Bravo, a summer block that aired in 2005 and 2006 in certain European variants of Cartoon Network. Every day Johnny would announce three cartoons, with the one getting the highest votes via email or on CartoonNetworkHQ.net airing for two hours the next day. He would also constantly appear in commercial breaks, cracking jokes or answering humorous emails and phone calls.