Johnny Quasar: Boy Genius | Original Jimmy Neutron Concept Shorts

# This is the theme song, for Johnny Quasar! #

Before everybody's favorite Boy Genius James Isaac Neutron was 'Jimmy Neutron', he was called 'Johnny Quasar'! Check out two demos featuring early concept designs for 'Johnny Quasar' from 1995 and 1997, respectively, in which Johnny Quasar introduces himself and his dog Goddard, uploaded by voice actor Hilal H., the original voice of Johnny Quasar/Jimmy Neutron, onto their official YouTube channel, below!:





John A. Davis, the creator of Jimmy Neutron, came up with the idea for Johnny Quasar sometime during the 1980s and wrote a script titled "Runaway Rocketboy" (later the name of the second pilot and the plot for the movie) which was later abandoned. While moving to a new house in the early 1990s he stumbled upon the script and re-worked it as a short film titled The Adventures of Johnny Quasar and presented it in SIGGRAPH where he met Steve Oedekerk and worked on a television series as well as the movie.

In the pilot episode, "Runaway Rocketboy!", Jimmy rides around on his self-made rocket and crashes onto the roof of his house. Naturally, his parents aren’t pleased, comically ignoring the fact that their 8-year-old son built a rocket that actually worked.

Consequently, the unaired pilot consisted of a kid genius “who gets grounded for testing his rocket engines without permission,” Davis told MTV News. Upset, he flies away in his rocket and encounters the Yolkians — the alien race we later meet in the movie — and realizes he loves being on Earth with his family, returning home right before his parents discover he was ever missing.

Johnny Quasar was a name pulled straight from Davis’s childhood. During high school and college, Davis worked for his dad’s company and was given good-natured hell as the boss’s kid. “I was always into geeky nerdy stuff, and so they started calling [me] Johnny Quasar, 'cause my name is John and my dad called me Johnny, and they’d go, ‘Johnny Quasar, space cadet!’” Davis recalled. Davis liked the name and eventually transferred it to his cartoon creation.

The name didn’t stick, however, because Davis ran into legal issues, thanks to two other characters with similar names: Captain Quasar and Jonny Quest. So he was asked to tweak the name — and only had 24 hours to come up with a new moniker for his future franchise. (No pressure or anything.) Davis and his wife, Kim, took their Dog (who was not named Goddard) for a walk and started toying with different names. “Proton” was tossed around, but eventually the duo came up with “Jimmy Neutron.”

As well as a major name change, Johnny Quasar/Jimmy Neutron went through a few of visual changes throughout the years, most notably, his forehead being much bigger and emphasized than in the hit Nickelodeon Movie and animated television series.



Like Jimmy, his best friend Sheen also underwent a major change during development. Davis originally envisioned Ultra Lord’s biggest fanboy as a Japanese character. In fact, he’s named after a Japanese man who worked for Davis. They had a hard time finding a Japanese actor who fit all the criteria, however, so they opened up the role and ended up with Jeff Garcia, who went on to voice Sheen, now Aztecan, all throughout the series, as well as on the spin-off series Planet Sheen.

A screenshot of Johnny Quasar's original family can be found in the Nicktoons book, "Not Just Cartoons We're Nicktoons". A maquette of Johnny Quasar was also on display at Nickelodeon Animation's "Happy Happy Joy Joy" art exhibit to celebrate 25 years of Nicktoons.

More Nick: How "Jimmy Neutron" Went From A Childhood Nickname To A Major Franchise!

H/T: ToonZone Forums @ToonJay723 ; Additional sources: Jimmy Neutron Wiki, Wikipedia.

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