The Adventures of Johnny Quasar (found prototype "Jimmy Neutron" animated shorts; 1995-1997)

The first screenshot showing Johnny Quasar.

Status: Partially lost

Johnny Quasar, also known as The Adventures of Johnny Quasar is 40 second demo that is a precursor for Jimmy Neutron. It was created sometime in 1994-1995 by John Davis and his partner Keith Alcorn in LightWave 3D based on an idea Davis had in mind since the 1980s. The demo was first shown publicly at the 1995 SIGGRAPH conference, and won two Wavey Awards there- Best in Character Animation and Best in Show.

A man named Steve Oedekerk who had connections in the television industry, impressed with their work, partnered with DNA Productions, which lead to the production of a new, 13 minute pilot based loosely on the original demo. The new pilot was titled Runaway Rocketboy marked the first appearance of Jimmy Neutron.

Despite how notable it was at the time, the only known footage of this 40 second demo to this day are two pieces of a clip where Johnny Quasar introduces himself and Goddard. The first 3 seconds lack audio, and were found on a VHS demo reel for LightWave, followed by another 7 second clip that came from the old DNA Productions website, which is in low resolution.

In addition, several stills featuring Johnny Quasar, also from the DNA Productions website are often presumed to be part of the original demo animation, it is currently unknown if these were actually featured in the original demo, or if they were mockups made just for the web page. As with the 7 second clip, these are in an extremely low resolution as well.

Since then, several magazine articles have been discovered talking about this animation to varying degrees of detail, sometimes accompanied by images from the demo.

For a time, it was thought the media might've been on a rare CD-ROM from the SIGGRAPH 95 conference, but it has since come out that this is- in fact, false- however several stills from it were present in the

The most recent development: Youtube User LSuperSonicQ has apparently made contact with co-creator Keith Alcorn, who believes the original demo is in a large file storage area that he'll look in when he has the chance.

Footage and screenshots

3 seconds of footage at 1:10 (without the original audio.)

8 seconds of footage following the 3 second clip.(with the original audio.)

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  Screenshot 2

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  Screenshot 3

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  Screenshot 4

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  Screenshot 5

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  Production art with early versions of Sheen, Nick, Cindy, and Carl. Note that Johnny Quasar looks more like Jimmy Neutron, his final version, but still has the old name.

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  Pages 46 and 47 from a 1995 issue of Video Toaster, an article about the Wavey Awards, of which Johnny Quasar is prominently featured. Scan courtesy of computerarchive.org.

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  Pages 48 and 49 from a 1995 issue of Video Toaster, the rest of that article showing John Davis accepting his award that Johnny Quasar won. Scan courtsey of computerarchive.org.

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  Pages 52 of a 1996 issue of Computer Graphics World, showing some high quality images from the demo. Scan courtesy of reddit user /u/siliconclassics.

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  Page 11 of NewTekniques Issue 17 featuring an article on how DNA productions came to creating The Adventures of Johnny Quasar, and how it evolved into what we know today as Jimmy Neutron. Scan courtesy of computerarchive.org.