Many people who grew up in the 90s or 2000s will be familiar with the famousCartoon Networkcartoons of that era, not least of which wasJohnny Bravo. It was also an era of television were shows often has cross-overs, or referenced one another. One old episode ofJohnny Bravothat has been unearthed on the internet last week didn’t reference another American Cartoon Network show, but rather a famous anime that was airing at the same time -Dragon Ball Z.The episode was found by internet archivists last week, who also helpfully uploaded it ontothe Internet Archiveso everyone can watch it. The news was shared by YouTuber LSuperSonicQ via hisTwitter, whose specialty is rediscovering lost episodes of old cartoons and analyzing them. The lost episode in question was not from the originalJohnny Bravoshow, but from a spin-off series calledJBVO: Your All Request Cartoon Show, which aired originally on May 5th, 2000.RELATED:Pokemon Scarlet and Violet Fan Art Imagines Quaxly as Johnny BravoJBVOwas a fourth-wall breaking show on Cartoon Network where the character of Johnny would take call-in requests to air and add commentary to other cartoons. Usually, the featured episodes were other shows with crossovers in which Johnny appeared, and he could talk about his “experience” on that show in his characteristic style. This particular episode began with aJohnny BravoxScooby-Dooepisode, when a request came for a viewer’s favorite episode of none-other-thanDragon Ball Z.
At the time,Dragon Ball Zwas also airing on Cartoon Network in America, the same channel thatJohnny Bravo andJBVOwere also on. So, in Johnny’s world, if he “knew” othercharacters like Scooby-Doofrom the same channel, by extension he would also “know” the characters fromDragon Ball Z! Without enough time to air the whole episode, though, Johnny resorted to airing an extremely sped-up version of episode 103, “Pathos of Freiza.”
After watching the super fast playback, Johnny told the caller, whose name was Jennifer, “There you go. Kinda loses something when you fast-forward something, doesn’t it Jennifer. Well I’m sorry, little lady. I love that show and I love you, so I wanted to play it for ya because this isYour All Request Cartoon Show. Thank ya, pretty momma.”
Considering “Pathos of Freiza” is part of a20-episode long battlebetween Goku and Freiza, perhaps watching one episode of it on fast-forward really is not the worst - Johnny made the right call. While other shonen anime were also airing on Cartoon Network in the early 2000s as well, this is the only one that seems to have been featured onJBVO, makingDragon Ball Za canon piece of theJohnny Bravouniverse - a sentence we never thought we would be typing out 20 years ago.
