Jonny Quest Versus the Cyber Insects (TV)

Jonny Quest vs. The Cyber Insects is a animated made-for-television film made by Hanna-Barbera. It premiered at 7:00pm on November 19, 1995 on TNT, and was the final iteration of classic Quest. The film was a follow-up to the series The New Adventures of Jonny Quest (1986) and the earlier TV-movie Jonny's Golden Quest (1993), with the same actors voicing Dr. Quest (Don Messick) and Race Bannon (Granville Van Dusen), and was made as part of a "Year of Jonny Quest" campaign. Jonny's original voice actor, Tim Matheson, returned as the voice of 4-DAC. When the movie began, the alternate title was called Jonny's Global Impact. The plot featured "creepy cyberbugs, techno-speak and computer-assisted info wars, all amidst good old-fashioned melodramatic evil," with a teleplay by David Bennett Carren and J. Larry Canol. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution declared Jessie to be "no 'icky girl'...Not only does she save Jonny's life when disturbingly large fire ants attack, but she also teaches him patience." A test screening of Cyber Insects to 30-35 year old males revealed that though some questioned her addition, most "understood that just like the [original] series, [the update] is a reflection of its times." The Hollywood Reporter's critic enjoyed some sparkling moments of dialogue in the teleplay, but criticized the film's pacing and the repetitiveness of the "overwrought emotional atmosphere" created by the threatened destruction of civilization. The reviewer remarked that Héctor Elizondo and Jeffrey Tambor stole the show with "inimitable style" in voice acting, while animation directors Marlene May and Ron Myrick "brilliantly created two visually intense worlds" with "fantastic" animation.