Johnny Test
| Johnny Test | |
|---|---|
| File:Johnny Test.jpg Series logo | |
| Genre | Comic science fiction Action/Adventure |
| Created by | Scott Fellows |
| Directed by | Scott Fellows Matthew Grazyson Larry Jacobs Gammy McGarfield Paul Riley Chris Savino Joseph Sherman Mark Writtenfield |
| Starring | James Arnold Taylor Louis Chirillo Brittney Wilson Ashleigh Ball Maryke Hendrikse Ian James Corlett Kathleen Barr Lee Tockar Andrew Francis |
| Theme music composer | Kevin Manthei (Season 1) Ian LeFeuvre (Season 2-present) |
| Composers | Kevin Manthei (Season 1) Ian LeFeuvre (Season 2-present) Ari Posner (Season 2-present) |
| Country of origin |  United States Canada |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 92 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Scott Fellows (Season 2-present) Louis Kramer Lunsford Sander Schwartz (Season 1) Pamela Slavin (Season 2-present) Michael Hirsh (Season 4) Toper Taylor (Season 4) |
| Producers | Scott Fellows Chris Savino (Season 1) Dave Beatty (Season 2-present) |
| Running time | 11 minutes |
| Production companies | Coliseum Productions Teletoon Productions Warner Bros. Animation (season 1) Cookie Jar Entertainment (season 2-present) |
| Original release | |
| Network | The WB (2005-2006) The CW (2006-2008) Cartoon Network (2008-present) Teletoon (2006-present) |
| Release | September 17, 2005 – present |
Johnny Test is an American/Canadian animated television series. It premiered on Kids' WB, on The WB Television Network, on September 17, 2005. Five months later, it was introduced to Cartoon Network UK in January 12, 2006, first, as a sneak preview on Saturdays, and then on June 5, 2006, added to its daily lineup. Despite the merger of the UPN and that programming block's parent channel into The CW Television Network, the show still continued to air on Kids' WB, on The CW, with its second and third seasons, through October 28, 2006 to until March 1, 2008. The series currently airs in the United States on Cartoon Network, as of January 7, 2008, and in Canada on Teletoon, as of October 28, 2006. International airings include Teletoon in Canada, Nick Germany, Disney Channel Spain and on Cartoon Network in Latin America, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. The show was produced by Warner Bros. Animation for the first season, and later by Cookie Jar Entertainment for the second, third and fourth seasons.
A fourth season of the show debuted on Teletoon on September 10, 2009, and on Cartoon Network in the U.S. on November 9, 2009. The show is to be continued with a fifth season renewal, as revealed and announced on August 24, 2010.
Production history
Origin and development
On February 15, 2005[1], The WB Television Network announced Kids' WB's new Fall schedule for the 2005-2006 television season, featuring its returning series Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, The Batman and Xiaolin Showdown, with the inclusion of four new series introduced and to be added to its weekly Fall lineup. Among the former three shows, Loonatics Unleashed, Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island and Transformers: Cybertron, was none other than Johnny Test. The aforementioned schedule was announced by The WB/Kids' WB Entertainment President David Janollari, Kids' WB Senior Vice President and General Manager Betsy McGowen, speaking to advertisers and media during the Kids’ WB upfront sales presentation in New York. Johnny Test was created and executively produced by Scott Fellows, the creator of the two Nickelodeon live-action series Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide and Big Time Rush, and the head writer for The Fairly OddParents. The show premiered on September 17, 2005 on Kids' WB's Saturday morning lineup, alongside Loonatics Unleashed and Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island.
The series was developed for television by Aaron Simpson, with a brief, slightly longer pre-existing pilot short produced by Simpson as well, before the show was picked up as a full series by Kids' WB. Based on Episode 1A "Johnny to the Center of the Earth", the pilot episode was animated roughly in Adobe Flash, but retaining the same plot, and used the same, similar color schemes as the aforementioned episode, and was recorded with an American voice cast (retaining James Arnold Taylor, as the voice of Johnny Test) instead. The original production design (including character designs, prop designs and background designs) was created, provided and contributed by Matt Danner[2], and then later worked upon by producer Chris Savino and art director Paul Stec. Fellows, the creator of the series who had interested the network to the series' premise, based the titular character on himself when he was a young boy, with Johnny's twin sisters, Susan and Mary, being based on his own two sisters, also named Susan and Mary. In the original pilot and early promotional material of the show, Dukey was referred to as "Poochie".
James Arnold Taylor said that he was not Fellows' original choice for the role of Johnny Test, he had previously voiced the lead character in the initial test pilot. After the show got pick up by the WB network as a series, he was initially going to replaced by a different voice actor, with a Canadian voice cast instead. But of course, the studio had trouble finding Johnny's initial voice convincing for the first six episodes, so they gave Taylor back the role to redub his dialog for the rest of the first season, and managed to keep him on the cast for the rest of the series. Aaron Simpson, who had developed the series and produced the pilot, was the creator and executive producer's first choice to serve as the producer of the show, before he turned it down.
Main background
The remainder of the first season was produced in-house by Warner Bros. Animation, but since this show was a utilized U.S./Canada co-production, some of the animation production service work was outsourced by Canadian animation studios Studio B Productions and Top Draw Animation, and as well as South Korean animation production company Digital eMation, which also provided the original main title animation opening, storyboarding of some of the episodes was done by Atomic Cartoons; Voice recording was provided by Voicebox Productions, Inc., with voice direction by Terry Klassen; however, the merger of UPN and The WB into The CW Television Network had resulted in many budget cuts for the show, and resulted in hiatus. Cookie Jar Entertainment, another Canada-based entertainment company, decided to take control of the series' production. Due to this change, the writers, storyboarders, and art crew who worked on the first season were let go, resulting in an entirely new crew managing the show. In addition, the budget of the show dropped dramatically, leading seasons two and three of the show being animated in Adobe Flash by Collideascope Digital Productions.
The show's opening theme was later changed to the second season and laterly to the third season and the entire latter remainder of the series, with the opening being made of recycled episode footage. It is now regarded as part of Teletoon's original series catalogue. On March 1, 2008, the episode pair, Johnny X: A New Beginning and Johnny X: The Final Ending, aired. It was intended as the series finale; however, James Arnold Taylor had announced that it was renewed for a fourth season. The fourth season was animated at Atomic Cartoons with animation assistance from Seventoon Inc. and Philippine Animators Group Inc., which are both located in the Philippines. It finally premiered in high-definition on Teletoon on September 10, 2009, and on Cartoon Network in the U.S. on November 9, 2009. Later on August 24, 2010, it was announced that Johnny Test was renewed for a fifth season. Like the fourth season before it, it will still have another full set of 26 episodes, with plus a bonus 27th episode added to the end, henching that the renewal will bring the series total to 92 episodes.[3]
Broadcast countries
Boomerang (Australian TV channel)
Super 7
Plot
Johnny Test concerns the adventures of Johnny Test, an average 11-year-old boy who lives in Porkbelly. Johnny is the troublesome, narcissistic, spoiled, hated and widely disrespected member of the Test family, which consists of his super-genius 13-year-old twin sisters, Susan and Mary, his talking (and talkative) companion dog, Dukey, and his over-the-top parents, his mother Lila, who is a full-blown workaholic businesswoman, and his father Hugh, who is a obsessive-compulsive househusband who likes total hygiene and meatloaf. The Test twins use their younger brother as a guinea pig for their various experiments (thus their surname of Test) in their secret laboratory, with which they try to impress Gil Nexdor, their pretty boy next-door neighbor. Sometimes throughout the series, Johnny often messes with his sisters' inventions, causing trouble and mayhem, but just as often proves himself to be extremely clever such as by frequently tricking his genius sisters into giving him gadgets or superpowers in order to use them in combat and other situations, or saving the day from whatever danger happens to show up, like reluctantly battling evil villains found in Porkbelly and/or anywhere else in the process. At times Johnny will try his worse to tackle many problems, often using his sisters' inventions to do so and often putting himself and/or others in danger as a result, and then try to undo the disasters and messes that he has created. His main arch-nemesis is Bling-Bling Boy (Real name: Eugene Hamilton,) a fellow arch-rival of the Test sisters and friendly pal and enemy of Johnny and Dukey, who has a big crush on Susan, who doesn't reciprocate his feelings, and often resorts to try and force her to be his girlfriend. On the other hand, Johnny's crush, Sissy Blakely, fellow bully Bumper and the General, from the army base Area 51.1, and Mr. Black and Mr. White, two federal agents from the Super Secret Government Agency (SSGA), sometimes help, distract, or annoy, the Test kids on most occasions.
Episodes
Characters
Cast
- James Arnold Taylor as Johnny Test, Hank Anchorman, The Principal, Mr. Mittens, Bee Keeper, Dark Vegan
- Louis Chirillo as Dukey, Mr. Henry Teacherman
- Maryke Hendrikse as Susan Test, Jillian
- Brittney Wilson as Mary Test, Sissy Blakely, Miss X and Miss Z (Season 1 only)
- Ashleigh Ball as Mary Test, Sissy Blakely, Missy (Season 2-present only)
- Ian James Corlett as Hugh Test
- Kathleen Barr as Lila Test, Janet Nelson Jr., Blast Ketchup
- Bill Mondy as Mr. Black, Brain Freezer
- Scott McNeil as Mr. White, Zizrar, Bumper Randalls
- Andrew Francis as Gil Nexdor
- Lee Tockar as Eugene "Bling-Bling Boy" Hamilton, General, Mayor Howard, Mr. Wacko
- Richard Newman as Professor Slopsink
Media
Episode compliation DVDs and complete first season set
The series has five DVDs released by NCircle Entertainment. Johnny Test: Johnny & Dukey and Johnny vs. Bling Bling Boy were released on December 23, 2008[4][5]. Johnny X and Super Pooch was released on August 11, 2009[6], Extreme Johnny was released on December 1, 2009[7] and Game Time was released on May 4, 2010[8]. The U.K. also saw the release of the first season of Johnny Test ultimately in its entirely on a two-disc Region 2 DVD set by Liberation Entertainment, under Johnny Test: Complete Season One, on February 21, 2008[9].
Video games
On January 21, 2010, Cookie Jar Entertainment emerged a new partnership between the company itself the mobile application developer Jirbo, and together they made two Johnny Test video games available to download from iTunes, for free and $0.99, for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The first game, Johnny Test: Clone Zapper, finds Johnny Test and Dukey engaged to destroy an army of clones they accidentally created of them from a clone machine, with the help of two special laser zapper guns as their only weapons to defeat them, and the second game, Johnny Test: Bot Drop, sees Johnny and Dukey, with the help from the Test twins, forced to stop a legion of robots with an aid of a super bomb-drop plane filled with a load of robot bombs [10].
Awards
Like most animated series, Johnny Test had its fair share of awards. In 2006, the first season of the series was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing - Live Action and Animation at the 33rd Daytime Emmy Awards and a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Television Animation (for the episode pair, Deep Sea Johnny and Johnny and the Amazing Turbo Action Backpack) at Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA. In 2007, the second season of the show won a Gemini Award for Best Direction in a Children's or Youth Program or Series (for the episode pair, Saturday Night's Alright for Johnny and Johnny's Mint Chip) and in 2008, the third season was nominated for another Gemini Award, this time for Best Original Music Score for an Animated Program or Series (for the episode pair, Johnny vs. Bling-Bling 3 and Stinkin' Johnny)[11].
References
- ^ Kids’ WB! Upfront 2005-2006 Announcement
- ^ Johnny Test Logo | aaaron.com - The Home of Aaron Simpson
- ^ "Cynopsis: Kids! 8/24/10". Cynopsis Media. August 24, 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ^ Amazon.com: Johnny Test & Dukey: Johnny Test: Movies & TV
- ^ Amazon.com: Johnny Test Vs. Bling-Bling Boy: Johnny Test: Movies & TV
- ^ Amazon.com: Johnny X and Super Pooch: Johnny Test: Movies & TV
- ^ Amazon.com: Extreme Johnny: Johnny Test: Movies & TV
- ^ Amazon.com: Game Time: Johnny Test: Movies & TV
- ^ Johnny Test Complete Series One (DVD): Amazon.co.uk: (DVD)
- ^ KidScreen - Cookie Jar gets in the game with Johnny Test
- ^ "Johnny Test" (2005) - Awards