ANIDOM BEYOND EXCLUSIVE Interview: Host Andy Richter On Why JOHNNY QUEST Is His Favorite Cartoon

Fox has been a home to many different animated series over the decades, and that hasn't changed at all today. The current Sunday night line-up is called the Animation Domination programming block and it features The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, Family Guy, and Duncanville.

Since these shows are all animated, the current quarantine crisis hasn't had as much of an effect on them as it has on many live action shows. Fox has taken the opportunity and adapted to the lockdown by setting up a recap show which will cover their cartoons hosted by Andy Richter from his own home.

Last week we had the fun opportunity of chatting with Andy for a while, and since Anidom Beyond is about animation, we asked him what his favorite cartoon was growing up. We discovered that he actually has two answers with the more recognizable being Johnny Quest. Check out what he had to say below!

Joe: As a kid, what was your favorite cartoon?

Andy Richter: I have such a hard time with what’s your favorite fill in the blank. There’s so many different reasons and especially when you’re a kid you watch everything. And when you’re a kid in that era there isn’t that much programming as there is now and nothing is on demand.

You had to watch something for kids when it was on. There wasn’t even a VCR when I was a little kid. After school Channel 32 in Chicago would play Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family and as a kid you think well this is programming for me so I’m gonna watch this.

And it was the same thing with cartoons. The cartoons I saw the most were Looney Toons. They were cheap and they were accessible and were on all of the time. One of my favorite shows as a kid was The Wonderful World of Disney whenever they showed something it was a real treat that was on Sunday nights.

But I also loved the shitty Marvel cartoons. Spider-Man, Thor, and all of those shows that have a still figure passing through the screen. Do you know what I’m talking about? This wasn’t even CGI. They would do whole scenes of drawn figures sort of like moving. It was not like they had multiple drawings of Spider-Man swinging through the frame, they just had one drawing that swung through the frame. Really rudimentary and really cheap.

But I do have to say my favorite from when I was a kid was Johnny Quest. This amazing female-less world.

Joe: What was the dog’s name?

Andy Richter: Bandit! It kind of looked like a pug with a black eye. That adventure spoke to the fantasy of what if there wasn’t a mom telling you what to do? There was just dad and his handsome friend that you don’t ask about. And traveling to the jungles of India to fight ape warriors and stuff like that.

And then the other weird one that I liked was Clutch Cargo. I’m not sure if you’ve ever seen that. That one is very unique and again was a female-less world. It was very similar to Johnny Quest. I think it was two men and two boys and they had a dog too, kind of like a dachshund.

It's actually a magical story. It was created by a man whose son is deaf and so he wanted to make a cartoon that his son could lip read. So they are basically green-screened in actual lips doing the talking with exaggerated enunciation. It was sort of a slugged in human mouth.

Joe: I’m sure that’s not as creepy as it sounds.

Andy Richter: No, it's pretty weird because I think that they put lipstick on the mouth to make them really pop. It’s worth looking up, look on Youtube. And it was actually an inspiration to the early days of the Conan Show.

We used to do a bit where we would interview "celebrities" like Bill Clinton. And a mouth would be green screened in over the mouth of a photo of someone like Bill Clinton or Boris Yeltzen. And there would just be someone over on the other side of the studio with just their mouth on camera doing all the words.

And that was inspired by Clutch Cargo, the cartoon. Because that was a Chicago staple and a lot of our early writers on the show were from Chicago.

Joe: Is there anything else you would like to share with your fans about the show or any of your other projects?

Andy Richter: I just hope people check it out if they are a fan of Animation Domination. Right after the shows are done at 7 pm PST and 10 pm EST. Get on Caffiene.tv and learn a little bit more about what went into the shows. If you care about animation and are interested then it will be a worthwhile conversation for you to eavesdrop on and actually participate in.

What do you think of Richter's comments? Let us know if you'll be checking out Anidom Beyond in the comments!