If you go to the gym nowadays, you’ll see a lot of dudes, usually older, who think that Johnny Bravo’s approach was charming. Let’s be honest here: Johnny Bravo was what influencers are nowadays. He was an alpha-male-cult-guru before alpha-male-cult-gurus. Johnny Bravo was a pickup-artist-gone-wrong meets gym-bro-tips guy. But all of that was what made this show fun and interesting – and why we watched it so much.
Analysis and breakdown of Johhny Bravo show [1997-2004]
The show was set in a world that many guys who didn’t have much luck with girls could learn from. This puts mostly female characters from Cartoon Network as protagonists, and Johnny Bravo is the main antagonist. If you think about it, he’s the one who comes on too strong to a girl in every possible situation. Johnny doesn’t have any respect for women in any given situation. He’ll approach a pizza girl, a girl working in an office, and even girls who are in the middle of work. He’s like a caveman, hugging the girl first without giving her any personal space. After that, he tells a lame pickup line like, “Gosh, you smell pretty. Wanna smell me? Anybody ever tell you I’m pretty?” and automatically tries to kiss a girl.
Other than Johnny’s obsession with girls and looks, he’s acting like a baby to some extent. First of all, he’s broke, living with his mom, and he doesn’t seem to work anywhere or study anything. This was a clear message to the audience that you should do everything opposite of him. Johnny, in the end, doesn’t seem to be bad, just mistreated by his close friends and classmates. Stinky Brownstein is one of the characters from Cartoon Network who was really tough to watch. She was so fake, irritating, and mean towards poor Johnny that I felt the pain through every prank and wedgie that she performed on him. In another episode titled “A Fool For Sister Sara,” nurse (sister) Sara tries to make a nice guy out of Johnny and tries to fall in love with him. In the end, she ends up beating him up as she couldn’t change him. It’s funny how when a girl tries to change a guy, it’s called giving him a chance, and when it’s the other way around, it’s called manipulation.
Memorable characters from Johhny Bravo
Good Guys: Bunny Bravo, Little Suzy, Carl Chryniszzswics, Pops, Master Hamma, The Jungle Boy, Farrah Fawcett, The Sensitive Male
Bad Guys: King Raymond, Chronos, Stinky Brownstein, Pantene Claw, Fishy Momma, Talky Tabitha, Femme, The Evil Clown, Moby Jerk
Does Johnny Bravo need a reboot, a sequel, or none?
I would love to see a reboot of this show for two reasons. The first reason is that I’d like to see if it would even be possible to do a show like this. I mean, probably the show would air on Adult Swim, and it would be fun to see if the jokes would still be doable in modern times. The second reason for Johnny Bravo’s reboot is to see how unique and beautiful characters from Cartoon Network would be changed or destroyed in the reboot or remake process. With this being said, I’d dare CN or any other network to create a show similar to this one.
Johnny Bravo probably inherited the hairstyle and behavior of a subculture from the ’50s called Greasers. He was the omen of what was about to happen to the male population. People born in the mid-’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s saw a lot of regular guys turning into Johnny Bravos. Nowadays with TikTok and similar media formats, we see Johnny Bravos everywhere around us; just some small portion of these guys at least learned to never skip leg day. I hope that this message will get future generations to rewatch Johnny Bravo and try not to use cheap pickup lines and their biceps to try and impress girls. Instead of mistreating ladies and being broke, living with your mom, try doing something else. But you know, this is a cartoon and should be watched like that – although it’s a mixture of all the wrong things about masculinity, it’s still a fun watch to see all that on screen.
Image Credits: Cartoon Network Studios