Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos (1984 TV series)

Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos is an American animated television series produced by Toonation based on Clover's toy line Warriors of Chronos. After the success of Captain Galaxy, Toonation's first production, Clover partnered with the production company to create a show based on their most popular toy line, Warriors of Chronos.

The show made its television debut in September 1984 on the American Network and ran until 1986, consisting of two seasons of 65 episodes each. As soon as the final episode of the show aired, Toonation bought the rights to air the show on their new broadcast television network, Toontopia and they aired the two seasons of the show on the channel until 1990. A third season was in production with the intention to air it on Toonation's own network, but Clover cancelled the project since Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos became one of their least popular franchise.

Since it stopped airing, the series gain a cult following, encouraging Clover to reboot the franchise. In 2011, along with the new Warriors of Chronos toy line, a reboot of the series, The Warriors of Chronos (2011), aired on Toontopia for 2 seasons.

Synopsis
The show takes place on the planet Chronos, a place where magic meets science. Its lead character is Johnny, a young boy from Earth, who discovers he is the son of Merlin when he must help the Warriors of Chronos, lead by Prince Marcus, the son of King Arthur, to battle against the evil samurai warlord Shang-Tsei and his goons, Raptor and Ragnar. Members of the Warriors of Chronos includes Johnny, Prince Marcus, Princess Leana, Sergeant Cyborg, and siblings Fangs and Felina. Luna, Robyn and Dusk also join the Warriors of Chronos later in the show.

Characters
Main article: List of Warriors of Chronos characters

Episodes
Main article: List of Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos episodes

Production history
The Clover company released the original Warriors of Chronos toy line in 1983; the story of the franchise was developed by Zaid Campbell who also wrote the Warriors of Chronos comics with City Comics. The comics were sold alongside the toy line in order to market the franchise, and the toys and the comics were both moderately successful. In order to compete with Captain Galaxy toys, the most popular toy franchise since the comic book character was adapted into a cartoon a year prior, Clover pitched the idea of a cartoon based on the Warriors of Chronos to Toonation, the same production company who produced the Captain Galaxy cartoon.

After accepting to work with Clover to produce a Warriors of Chronos series, Toonation started to search for the best way to market the franchise to children and made a few changes to the already established universe of the comic series. First of all, characters were added to the cast to attract a broader audience: the character of Johnny, a young boy from Earth, was added so the show could have characters kids could relate to. Johnny's friends from Earth, Mika and Josie, and the characters of Fangs, Felina and Luna were also added for the same reason. Teenage characters Robyn the Elf, Princess Delphina of Atlantis and Dracula's son Dusk were also created only to contrast from the more adult, more serious characters of the Warriors.

The first episode of Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos aired on September 8th, 1984 and was a huge success; the show was the most watched animated series of 1984 and 1985, beating Captain Galaxy. Even so, Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos' popularity came not only from fans, but also from controversy: advertising to children was controversial during this period, and since Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos was associated with a line of toys, the show gain a lot negativity. However, since marketing toy lines with cartoons became a trend in the late 80s, criticism faded away for it was now considered ordinary and even standard to have a toy line associated with an animated series.

In November 1984, City Comics released a comic book ongoing series also titled Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos based on the animated series. Since the series' second season ended in 1986, City Comics released various spin-off titles including The Warriors of Chronos, King Arthur and the Knights of Chronos, Princess Leana and the Amazons, Shang-Tsei vs Sinistra and Tales From Chronos.

For the two seasons of Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos, Jamie-Leigh Gale, writer from Toonation who worked on Captain Galaxy episodes, teamed up with Zaid Campbell who created the franchise's story in order to write the episodes. The first episode is the only one where they both wrote the script together, and it was directed by Kurt Turnbull who worked on various shows, including Captain Galaxy.

A few months after the first episode aired, Ishaaq Cabrera who supervised the production of the show on behalf of Clover realized that girls were also enjoying the show because of the character Princess Leana. Looking to reach out to an even broader audience, he requested for the show to be as enjoyable for girls and for boys. Ana Olson, from Toonation, who worked as the show's producer, decided to hire Jennifer Dodd, a writer from the infamous Legendary Pals cartoon, a franchise known to have an equal amount of girl and boy fans. With Jamie-Leigh Gale, Jennifer Dodd produced x episodes, and they proved to be so popular that Toonation ordered three additional episodes past the middle of the season.

While writing the episodes for the first season, Jamie-Leigh Gale and his close friend Morris Reilly, writer and director of sci-fi classics "Synthetica" and "The Tourist" trilogy, had the idea to produce a sci-fi episode of Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos together. Very enthusiast to write and direct a cartoon episode, Morris Reilly made the designs for the Collectors really quickly, and they both came out for a script together in less than a month. Because the designs for the Collectors and other aliens in the episode were more elaborate than the usual character designs, the episode took two months to make, which was way longer than usual episode who took around a week to make. It turned into a two-part episode named "The Collectors" and featured Johnny and other main characters being abducted by aliens and trapped in the alien equivalent of a zoo. Those two episodes weren't popular among children, mainly because of the more serious tone of the episodes and some of the aliens' designs that were a bit too scary. Nonetheless, it remains a cult classic among Warriors of Chronos and Morris Reilly fans alike.

Cast

 * Hannah Franklin as Johnny, Luna, Raptor, Kryll, Dusk and Mika
 * Kiri Sheldon as Prince Marcus, Fangs, Robyn and Lord Ruthlan
 * Devon Glenn as Sergeant Cyborg, King Arthur and Redbeard
 * Elisabeth Farmer as Princess Leana, Princess Delphina, Queen Talitta and Sinistra
 * Ida Gomez as Kira and Josie
 * Amanpreet Trujillo as King Neptune, Blackfur, Shang-Tsei, Ragnar, Shadow Thief and King Akituus
 * Matt Steele as Merlin, Count Dracula and Zym
 * Joan Rose as Felina
 * Phillip Newman as Dr. Rodent
 * Lara Young as Ruby
 * James McCain as Billy Outlaw

Reception
Despite criticism for Johnny and the Warriors of Chronos being designed to advertise a line of toys, the show was the most watched animated series of 1984 and 1985, and on Toonation's own channel, Toontopia, episodes of Johnny and the Warriors Chronos still air on special occasions.