Hey Baberella.
That's a pretty eensy weensy teeny weeny polka dot
thingy you got going there.
Want to do the monkey with me?
This is Johnny Bravo.
And this show was made for nine-year-olds.
Ow.
What?
Everybody's doing it.
Johnny Bravo first aired in 1995 on Cartoon Network,
whose target demographic was and still is 6 to 12-year-olds.
Johnny Bravo had talking animals and slapstick comedy galore,
just like most of the other shows on Cartoon Network,
but with one big difference.
The main character's one and only goal
was to get a date, and then some.
Oh, Johnny.
You are so swell.
Tell me about it.
No, I mean really, tell me more about it.
If you grew up watching Johnny Bravo,
you might tell someone that he's a big, blonde ladies man
and a womanizer.
You might even say that he's misogynistic, outdated,
or downright offensive.
Don't you know when you're being insulted.
How about you and me go find an island somewhere
and make fishy lips?
But looking back, although women were both Johnny's quest
and his downfall, the way they were written
makes it seem like this show might have been ahead
of its time, a little misunderstood,
and would definitely never be allowed today.
Say, you smell kind of pretty.
Want to smell me?
But before we get into today's episode, be sure to like
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can continue to make videos for you guys.
Johnny Bravo is an animated sitcom
about a muscular sunglasses clad guy in his 20s
living with his mom and being determined to get a date.
However, his attempts at wooing women always end in disaster.
Hey baby!
Whoa!
The show was created by Van Partible
and picked up by Hanna-Barbera Productions, who
were eventually bought by Cartoon Network.
A typical episode of Johnny Bravo
consisted of two to three smaller vignettes where Johnny
starts off with a task, which may or may not
be related to dating, but inevitably
is thrown off course by meeting someone beautiful
and doing everything he can to win her
over before getting rejected.
The show was made in the '90s, heavily influenced by the '70s,
and yet keeps hanging around in the cultural memory.
It was created by nostalgic adults
and perhaps was always intended for nostalgic adults.
I am your second cousin.
No!
[LAUGHTER]
Johnny Bravo started out as a dark haired, meat eating, woman
obsessed Elvis impersonator when Van Partible created him
for a short film in college.
After someone sent his short film to Hanna-Barbera,
Partible began to develop the character further,
but kept the Elvis inspired voice and town name, Aron City,
as a nod to his original short film.
Partible was obsessed with all things '70s.
His office at Hanna-Barbera was covered in posters
from '70s children's magazine Dynamite.
You can see Partible's love of the '70s in Johnny Bravo's
animation style, which was inspired by cartoons like Josie
and the Pussycats, Star Trek The Animated Series,
and Scooby-Doo Where Are You.
The '70s limited animation style had relatively plain watercolor
backgrounds, simpler art, and thick lines
that could be made quickly and be clear enough to balance
the often grainy '70s TV.
Don't worry, I don't bite.
Does she?
Cartoon Network was going through an experimental period
at the time.
Courage the Cowardly Dog's general aesthetic
was bizarre and frightening, but kids
could relate to being in their grandparents' spooky house,
being scared of the unknown, and learning
that their fears might not be as scary as they once seemed.
They could also obviously relate to the voice cracking
jawbreaker pursuing rebellious teens Ed, Edd n Eddy.
You're trying to fool everyone into thinking it's still
summer, aren't--
The experimentation wasn't that far out of the box.
These shows might have had divergent art styles,
but they still were about kids and funny animals.
Johnny Bravo rejected the '90s popular art style trends
and hearkened back to a simpler animation
style like the classical limited animation shows
that Hanna-Barbera were known for.
Bravo also rejected the story themes popular at the time,
focusing on storylines that were more relatable to teenagers,
or more realistically, young adults.
Actually, episodes were ripe with adult content
like Johnny looking at centerfolds
or denying being a virgin before his failed virgin sacrifice.
Remember, intended to be a kid's show.
Justice is served.
Hey, Judge Gorgeous.
May I please the court?
It played in the same Cartoon Network block
as Dexter's Lab, Powerpuff Girls, and Ed, Edd n Eddy.
So where did these adult jokes come from?
Well, maybe not so surprisingly, Seth MacFarlane
of Family Guy fame was a writer on Johnny Bravo.
Creator Van Partible hired MacFarlane
after seeing his final project in school,
which was one of the first iterations of what
is now Family Guy.
Partible said he was the only funny person in class
and hired him to be a writer on Johnny Bravo immediately.
Just more evidence that Johnny Bravo was meant for adults
like all of MacFarlane's future endeavors.
Surely, children did not understand the show's constant
references to the '70s, like Donny Osmond as the main
villain--
Why don't you jump in the balls?
Why don't you jump in the river?
--or '70s icon Farrah Fawcett with a knowing
laugh remembering the last time she was blindfolded.
[LAUGHTER] Oops.
It is difficult to see how this could have been ever marketed
as a kid show.
In many ways, Johnny Bravo should
have been marketed in the same way as The Simpsons:
full of cultural references, satirical elements,
and sexual innuendo.
So why wasn't it marketed that way?
It seems Johnny Bravo may have been misunderstood.
Johnny isn't the big buff womanizing hero.
He's the lovable loser.
He's a narcissist and an idiot, but he's also
determined and the butt of every joke,
making the audience root for him.
Johnny always fails, and he never learns from his mistakes.
Further showing how Johnny is misunderstood by audiences
quick to call him a womanizer, in the episode in your dreams,
Johnny lets it slip that he has never actually
been on a date, which means he's not the ladies
man the audience thinks he is.
The satire of the show has been lost, if we actually
think Johnny is cool.
It would be like watching The Simpsons at face value
and admiring Homer for strangling his son,
sleeping at his job, and consuming copious amounts
of donuts and beer.
The real message of the show is to make
a constant fool of Johnny.
The audience should learn from his mistakes
and ultimately reject him like the women in his world.
While this message seems progressive for the time,
Johnny Bravo would never work today for one simple reason.
Johnny never changes.
Do you honestly think women are attracted
to that kind of macho attitude?
I honestly do, Sugar Beets.
And there's a glimmer of hope for change in the episode
Johnny's Guardian Angel, when Johnny realizes and owns
that everyone would be better off if he had never been born.
But ultimately, he doesn't learn or change.
The format of Johnny Bravo doesn't
allow for much of a series arc for its characters,
which many kids shows today do.
Shows like Gravity Falls are marketed towards children
with lessons focusing on sibling teamwork
but also offering something special, wacky, and colorful.
The entire story across both seasons
is connected from start to finish in a serialized fashion
while also having an episodic lesson that
is taught through uncovering a mystery plaguing the town.
Johnny Bravo wouldn't be made today
for many reasons, one of them being his non-stop harassment
of women, but also its resistance
to the main character's growth.
Some of this is a plot device.
If Johnny learns and grows, then the show
would inevitably have to end.
As soon as the main character reaches their goal,
the story is over.
So Johnny can never get a girl.
Hey, baby.
I know what you're thinking.
How did the statue get off its pedestal?
[IMPACT]
But is there any merit lurking in its slapstick and repetitive
nature?
When looking at the writing of Johnny's attempted conquests,
we see women being portrayed as intelligent, driven, and goal
oriented.
Many of his romantic or sexual pursuits
were women in glass ceiling shattering careers: scientists,
doctors, computer programmers, sea captains, spies,
and other male dominated roles.
If we listen to the messaging consistently,
we see that although women are the antagonists to Johnny's
quest, it's because Johnny was blocking
the goals of brilliant woman after brilliant woman.
The show was a commentary on how not to treat women.
Just like in the episode The Sensitive Male,
where a man attempts to teach Johnny about sensitivity
and depth being the key to a woman's heart
through a '70s Schoolhouse Rock esque song.
It's making fun of guys who act like Johnny
and how they're missing out on interesting women
by whittling them down to nothing but their appearance.
It'll get that girl out of your dreams and into your car.
Try it Johnny.
Fans of Johnny Bravo will lament,
I wish he could have gotten the girl for once.
Are they missing the point?
Or have the writers just truly created the most
lovable loser of all time?
Van Partible jokes that since he came up with Johnny Bravo while
on a silent retreat, that maybe he really
is God's gift to women like Johnny believes himself to be.
But maybe the actual gift is watching smart women stand up
for themselves and reject uncomfortable and unwanted
advances with the slapstick humor of slapping
around a delusional buffoon.
So sure, the character of Johnny Bravo
can be stupid, misogynistic, and downright offensive.
A lady doctor?
Has science come that far?
But the show Johnny Bravo might be teaching us
a lesson about showing those beauty pageant contestants,
those doctors, and those submarine
captains a little sensitivity.
Whoa, mama, indeed.
And well, that's all we have this week.
What do you think about Johnny Bravo?
Is there anything we missed?
Let us know in the comments below.
And as always, please subscribe in order
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Later.