If you’ve been following the entertainment stories that I write (not a lot, given I’m typically on the tech and EV beat), you know that I’m an animation tragic. Arcane, Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and The Legend of Korra all rank among my favourite TV shows ever because I just love how pretty, fluid, and expressive they are. A lot of my love for these things is because I’m a video game tragic, but also I was raised on great shows… Like Jackie Chan Adventures.
Over on Gizmodo Australia’s sister brand spankin’ new TV channel, PEDESTRIAN TELEVISION, Jackie Chan Adventures is streaming this month, and I just wanted to give the show some love because it’s worth celebrating.
It doesn’t push the envelope too far in any regard – compared to the earlier mentioned shows, the colouring isn’t terrific and the characters can often look quite ugly in the wrong scenes, but it has that late 90s, early 00s charm to it that you just can’t get anywhere today.
It’s also scattered with references to Jackie Chan’s acting career and reference to Asian mythology, making it unique among many animated shows of the day. It also featured snippets of the real-life Jackie Chan talking about the real-world influences and philosophies of the episode. Though this wasn’t something unique to Jackie Chan Adventures – the earlier, and much uglier, Back to the Future TV show featured inserts of Christopher Lloyd in character, talking about science experiments.
Truly the best thing about the show was its fight scenes. The fight scenes in the show were fluid and had a lot of weight to them. They were low stakes, given the lighthearted tone of the show, but there was a lot of movement to the characters as they went hand-to-hand. Seriously, look at some of these.
If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, Jackie Chan is an archeologist in the show – and overarching the show’s five seasons is a desperate need to keep mystical lost power-granting talismans safe.
Do you think I was just going to skip over the talismans? Buddy, I had the red one growing up. You know I was at the newsagent with my dad telling him to buy me more, as they were tied to magazines as collectibles. Looking at the top comment of the below-linked Reddit post, I’m finding comfort that I wasn’t the only kid doing this.
Anyway, this was just a scattershot appreciation for Jackie Chan Adventures, to sound off that it’s streaming live and on-demand on PEDESTRIAN TELEVISION channel this month via the 9Now app.
Small buzzkill though that has now ruined me: Jackie Chan didn’t actually voice his own character in the show.
Image: Warner Bros.
Need more entertainment? Pedestrian Television has launched on 9Now where you can watch iconic TV series like Just Shoot Me, cult classic movies like Fright Night, and homegrown content like Eternal Family. Watch all that and more for free, 24/7 on 9Now.