Vote for why you think it jumped
Never Jumped
Pops and Karl
Johnny gets stupid
Recycling (same stories)
Shorts vs. Series
Shark Bytes
This is one of the best Cartoon Network Series to exist. The Episode where Donny Osmond is Johnny's nanny is pure gold. The Scooby Doo crossover was one of the funniest things ive seen, and the Episode where Johnny has a witche's spell put on him, and he becomes a Woman himself! The later episodes where okay, 'Johnny turned into a Stupid Jerk' was the only flaw, (and the animation change), but this show never jumped. Oh, and how were Pops and Karl bad? Sure Karl did get all of Johnny's Girlfriends in the end, but he was funny. And Pop's was funny as well, (even though he seemed like Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob).
Johnny Bravo definitely JTS when the original producers stopped writing it, and so they sold out the character by letting some idiot take it over who not only screwed up the animation, but who didn't understand the series at all and just imposed his own simplistic take on it-- just like with Dexter's Lab and other shows. There's nothing funny about JB becoming an overly-stereotyped "male chauvinist pig" and complete moron who and getting beat up by some hottie over and over, after he makes a stupid come-on; this wasn't the original character at all, but rather JB was originally a very proper southern gentleman and ladies' man. I think the series must have been taken over by a politically-correct douche bag who's threatened of good-looking aggressive male figures, and who wants to believe that women "really" go after ugly geeks instead, because every episode seemed to make Johnny into a target for this obvious hostility-- and every episode ends with something bad happening to him for it, in a most unfunny way, with Johnny becoming the villain rather than the hero. Every male figure on television has become a target, so there's nothing new about JB joining the club-- and it's NEVER funny anyway, so much as HATEFUL. Ok, WE GET IT-- men are stupid unless they embrace their feminist side: it's the implied walking message of all modern media. Not exactly new or funny. Just offensive and boring.
This Show never jumped the shark! It is hilarious, if your 7 or 65 the jokes hit every age group imaginable. I love the episode where they spoofed off Scooby Doo and the episode where they spoofed off Schoolhouse rock in telling Johnny how to get a date.
I've always been attached to it, in spite of some jokes wearing pretty thin, and in spite of the fact that I hate 99% of all Elvis jokes. But on Johnny Bravo,to me that's really just the voice, except those times he says "Thank you very much" (I never got "Aron City" til it was pointed out here). And besides, to me he's more of a general Southern-character-who-thinks-he's-suave, (sort of a stock character), pretty far from an Elvis joke in other words. And the jokes with the girls almost never really wear thin. Maybe I'm saying the obvious, but the best thing about them beating him up is that, if it's meant to be "political correctness", at least that's usually allowed to speak for itself, with slapstick comedy. There is one moment I hate, though. In the cartoon where he accidentally became a superhero, there was a scene where he prevented a plane from crashing, by grabbing it with one hand. With the other hand, he reached into the plane and grabbed the bags of peanuts, then let go and let it crash. This might've been a clever enough joke in a dark way, and I know it's "just a cartoon", but it went completely against the idea of Johnny as someone who causes all sorts of trouble without realizing it, so it really left a bad taste in my mouth. Apart from that, I've always thought it was great. One in particular is "Brave New Johnny", the futuristic one. Every time I see the disembodied head of "Pops", it makes me wish that Futurama had used only one of those head jokes, once in a great while.
Though Johnny Bravo's steam was petering out towards the end of the first season (how far could the concept of an egotistical womanizer be taken and still remain kid-friendly?), the addition of Pops and Karl hurt the show more than anything else I'm aware of. Though the first time I saw P&K, I was amused by them (it was the episode in which Johnny is beamed to a planet of women and is "rescued" by Pops's mad scientist/NASA contraption. I liked the mad science bit, but it was a one-time-only joke), but the characters are pretty much altered to the writers' whims just so they can exist in a given episode. Also, Suzie's new look has got to go. Yeachh! So in summation, Pops and Karl represent the time Johnny Bravo jumped the shark.
The show used to be great, with Johnny being a womanizer. Then they made him a complete moron. However, I feel that Pops and Karl screwed things up, by taking his attention away from the important things: chicks, babes, and more chicks
Still a funny show. Especially like the Scooby Doo and Donnie Osmond episodes (those guest stars worked).
When the show started out, Johnny was just slightly stupid, blinded by his ego. The show jumped when they made Johnny a moron, incapable of doing normal tasks, relying on the little girl to be his brains.
Hadn't jumped yet, but it is getting close. I think the funniest episodes have to be the ones with Michael Dorn when they parodied the Twilight Zone, they were classics. On whether Johnny has become more like Homer Simpson, I don't think so, it's just that they needed different situations so they weren't constantly going over the same ground. Johnny's still a self obsessed womanizer, but he's also an idiot, and thats what makes him funny. An interesting side point is that Jeff used to work on an excellent cartoon called 'Earth Worm Jim' With Dan "Homer Simpson" Castellaneta, a show which definitely DID NOT jump the shark in any way shape or form, and im willing to fight to the death on that point (or at least till one of us is limp!)
Johnny Bravo and Home Movies are currently the only reasons I watch Cartoon Network (well...those and Looney Tunes, of course). I love Johnny's Elvis-stereotype voice and the pop-art animation. Johnny Bravo has always carried a witty, subtle brand of humor with a little nuttiness thrown in, and as long as it keeps that up, it'll stay well away from the shark.
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