Johnny’s cartoon is chosen to get a complete makeover from The Cartoon Makeover team: Don Knotts, The Blue Falcon, and “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Writer: Adam Pava
Cast: Jeff Bennett, Brenda Vaccaro, Tom Kenny, Don Knotts, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Gary Owens, Mary Partible, Grey Delisle, Tara Strong, Sebastian Bach
The idea for the show came from the fact that my wife, Mary, loves makeover shows. I knew this was going to be the last episode of the series, so I wanted to go out with the biggest mash-up of pop culture I could conjure up. I think having the Blue Falcon, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and Don Knotts as a makeover team did the job. In the opening credits, I was even able to stick in Frankenstein Jr. and Yogi Bear, even sticking in a classic scene from one of Yogi’s old cartoons. Our writer, Adam Pava, threw in dozens of pop culture references ranging from Three’s Company to Full House all the way to the Simpsons. For the JBX theme song, we even got Sebastian Bach to do the vocals. Best of all, I was able to get my wife, Mary, to perform the line that started it all, “I love makeovers!”
Johnny becomes Shaquille O’Neal’s good luck charm after Shaq finds that great things are thrust upon him when he’s touching Johnny.
Writer: Van Partible
Cast: Jeff Bennett, Shaquille O’Neal, Seth Green, Roger Rose, Tom Kenny, Mike Kenyon, Tara Strong, Tia Carrere, Cree Summer, James Arnold Taylor
I don’t know how this idea came to be, but somehow we thought it would be funny if Johnny were to be strapped on Shaq’s back as his good luck charm and helped him with his free throws. Plus, somewhere Shaq would have to play one-on-one with an actor of “considerably smaller” who used Huckleberry Hound as his good luck charm. The show would never have come to pass if it weren’t for our celebrity guest casting director, Hadley Gwin. She followed up on every call and every lead to get Shaq’s people to commit to do the show. She did this for months on end until finally, they agreed. I remember having to perform Shaq’s rap in front of him as a guide to what we were looking for. Of course, I was horrible, to which Shaq retorted, “Thanks Tupac.”