Johnny Bravo (series)/Season 2

The second season of Johnny Bravo premiered on July 2, 1999, on Cartoon Network's Cartoon Cartoon Fridays block. The season ended on January 28, 2000.

Previous:First Season

Next:Third Season

History

In 1997, creator Van Partible and writer Seth MacFarlane wrote a series bible for the second season of Johnny Bravo. Unlike the previous season, there were plans to make a few changes, most notably the introduction of more characters to Johnny's world.

The first four characters were taken from previous episodes and now given more defined roles in Johnny's life. The Man With No Name was to be the mysterious nameless con man from "Jumbo Johnny" who constantly sells him sketchy products, Miss Babe was Little Suzy's "flighty" teacher (and the leader of her Buttercup scout troop) introduced in "Super Duped", Jim Dandy was to be a more original, fleshed-out character based on Donny Osmond who is determined to be Johnny's best friend, while The Mayor was to be the dishonest man from "The Sensitive Male!" after making his way into politics and becoming the Aron City mayor. Holly O'Hair, on the other hand, was to be an entirely new character who sees Johnny as arm candy. The local soda shoppe was also said to be a "perennial favorite" of Johnny's, especially to pick up girls.

All of these ideas eventually got shelved and the Warner Bros. takeover of Hanna-Barbera and Turner Broadcasting occurred. This led to Van Partible getting fired, allegedly due to his lack of experience and management skills, after Warner Bros. had heard that there had been "trouble" on the show (possibly referring to the first season's lower ratings.) The series was then handed over to Warner Bros. producer Gary Hartle and director Kirk Tingblad, whom previously worked on projects such as Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, to "see how it [would go.]" With this, the series underwent its first retool. The Man With No Name was retooled into Pops, the mysterious, fatherly, and greedy owner of Johnny's favorite local diner. The character of Jim Dandy was retooled into Carl Chryniszzswics, Johnny's overly positive and geeky best friend. The two characters and Bobo were created by head writer Jed Spingarn. Pops was designed by Hartle and Carl was designed by Tingblad. As a result, Tom Kenny and Larry Drake joined the main voice cast.

According to Tingblad, Hartle and background artist Drew Graybeal were told by Cartoon Network to "make the show how they felt it should look." Hartle decided that the character designs would be more based on shapes and weight than Season 1, redesigning Johnny, Bunny, and Suzy. The humor and tone of the show was also changed to involve more slapstick and snark. This season, produced when Cartoon Network was growing in popularity, had less severe adult humor than the first in order to appeal to censors. However, this did not stop the crew from trying to push those limits and aiming more towards a slightly older audience. The second season also introduced darker elements and implications in certain episodes, such as "Johnny's Inferno", "Johnny's Guardian Angel", and "Brave New Johnny".

Johnny's world was completely redesigned and reworked, seemingly with its own separate continuity from the first season. Two exceptions to this are the use of Suzy's Buttercup Scouts troop in "Den Mother Johnny" and a likely nod to "Bravo Dooby-Doo" in "Good Knight Johnny." There are little references to classic Hanna-Barbera properties as a result, with "crossover" gags (notably in the following season) being brief and reserved for the other Cartoon Cartoons. Although promotional material occasionally refers to the Hartle seasons taking place in Aron City, it is never mentioned by name in any episode and certain comic books refer to it as Anytown.

The second season received notable backlash by fans of Season 1, namely on fan-sites dedicated to the series back in 1999 and cartoon message boards, such as the ToonZone forums (now named Anime Superhero) during the early 2000s. The most common criticism regarded the addition of new characters and the change in art style, along with complaints about Johnny's lack of intelligence. However, there are claims that the show's new, retooled format reached a wider audience and its ratings were much higher as a result.

Before Van Partible pitched Season 4 to Cartoon Network, his dislike of said retool was well-known by fans, who claimed to have learned of it online or from an interview. In 2016, Partible was clear about his opinion in an article he wrote for LMU Magazine, saying he could only compare the situation to "being forced to put your child up for adoption and watching it go to parents who were making choices you didn't agree with." As a guest on the What's In My Head Podcast, Partible reiterated this and how he would have rewritten things, that "[the retooled version of Johnny] was not the character [he] created," and "[that wasn't] the world [Johnny] would get involved in." He also spoke openly about how he coped with the situation through prayer and therapy, although he has since "[learned] to live with it." Despite the hardship, Partible said, "I don't fault anyone who likes [the retool] or fault the producers, [they] did a great job— They made a show that people really loved, but I can't take credit for that version of it. [...] It's like someone complimenting you on something you didn't do. [...] It's a multi-layered thing."

Season 2 was animated traditionally up until "Galaxy Boy", where the series permanently switched to digital ink and paint. It is also the longest of all 4 seasons, with 22 episodes and 66 total segments. Due to this, the iTunes release of the series separates it into two different volumes, claiming there to be 5 total seasons of the show. This is a complicated matter, as according to Kirk Tingblad, "El Bravo Magnifico" was the last of the first order the crew worked on (which may also imply the two shorts following it were produced beforehand). With the fate of the show unknown, said episode was boarded by four storyboard artists (six according to Tingblad, but only four seem to be credited) in order to keep everyone on staff as long as possible. A day or so before the creative team was about to be laid off, Johnny Bravo was renewed for a third season. This implies this season was originally 13 episodes long, and the remaining 9 were actually produced as part of Season 3.

Episodes

This is a list of shorts (or segments) in Season 2:

1. Bikini Space Planet!
2. Moby Jerk
3. A Gel For Johnny
4. Johnny, Get Your Tutu
5. Johnny's Inferno
6. Forest Chump
7. Karma Krisis
8. A Star Is Bruised
9. The Prince And The Pinhead
10. Claws!
11. To Helga And Back
12. Cover Boy
13. Endless Bummer
14. Jailbird Johnny
15. Bravo 13
16. Doomates
17. Johnny's Telethon
18. Johnny's Guardian Angel
19. I, Fly
20. Shnook Of The North
21. Charm School Johnny
22. Johnny And The Beanstalk
23. A Boy And His Bird
24. Ape Is Enough
25. Panic In Jerky Town!
26. Alien Confidential
27. Mama's New Boyfriend
28. Welcome Back, Bravo
29. The Man With The Golden Gut
30. Aunt Katie's Farm
31. A League Of His Own
32. Johnny Goes To Camp
33. Buffoon Lagoon
34. Brave New Johnny
35. Witless
36. Carl Be Not Proud
37. El Bravo Magnifico
38. Johnny-O And Juliet
39. Clan Of The Cave Boob
40. Galaxy Boy
41. Damien's Day Out
42. Noir Johnny
43. Hail To The Chump
44. A Fool For Sister Sara
45. Days Of Blunder
46. Pop Art Johnny
47. Dude Ranch Doofus
48. A Cake Too Far
49. Look Who's Drooling
50. Law And Disorder
51. Tooth Or Consequences
52. The Unsinkable Johnny Bravo
53. Rashomoron
54. Free Pookey
55. Good Knight Johnny
56. Balloon Platoon
57. The Clueless Kid
58. Yukon Yutz
59. Prep School Johnny
60. Send In The Clones
61. Loch Ness Johnny
62. Den Mother Johnny
63. Quo Doofus
64. As I Lay Hiccupping
65. Marine Maroon
66. Thunder God Johnny

Trivia

• Certain concepts were scrapped from the retooled version of the series bible, as evidenced by the Cartoon Network: Name That Toon trivia book and other merchandise. Most notably, Carl was planned to have been Johnny's high school best friend and the diner was to be Pop's Soda Shoppe.
• According to Kirk Tingblad, the show had a small budget. He and Gary Hartle directed with the understanding that the staging of the characters and action would be more left and right based. To make the cheaper animation look more expensive than it actually was, "as many visual tricks as possible" were used.
• The art style change is sometimes compared to the redesigns of The Powerpuff Girls (during the original series) and Dexter's Laboratory, although it should be noted Johnny's world was redesigned before the switch to digital ink and paint animation.
  • The style also develops over time, and characters such as Little Suzy get updated redesigns by the end of the season, making them appear more cutesy than earlier episodes such as "Bikini Space Planet!".
  • Some promotional images of the characters are more awkward-looking and off-model than the series (i.e. Carl's legs are much longer).
• This is the last season to use traditional cel animation, ending with "Clan Of The Cave Boob".
• This is the first season to use digital ink and paint, starting with "Galaxy Boy".
• Both the second and third seasons feature episode title cards designed by Gary Hartle.