How Jackie Chan Adventures Introduced a Generation to the Martial Arts Legend

Here’s a look back at Jackie Chan Adventures, the cartoon that introduced young audiences to the eponymous Hong Kong action film legend in the early 2000s.

Jackie Chan is undeniably one of the most recognizable names in all of entertainment. Hailing from Hong Kong, Chan’s on-screen career dates back to his childhood in the early 1960s. The actor/martial artist really hit it big in his homeland in the late 1970s through ’80s, and started taking Hollywood by storm by the mid-to-late ’90s, with his mainstream success across the world continuing to this very day. However, if you were a kid growing up in the early 2000s, quite possibly your first real exposure to Chan was his popular animated series Jackie Chan Adventures.

Jackie Chan Adventures was created by John Rogers, Duane Capizzi and Jeff Kline, with Jackie Chan and his longtime manager Willie Chan serving as executive producers and comic book artist Jeff Matsuda (Team Youngblood, X-Factor) serving as the lead character designer. The series premiered on Kids’ WB on Sept. 9, 2000. It ran for a total of 95 episodes across five seasons, concluding on July 8, 2005, with reruns often airing on Cartoon Network and Toon Disney’s Jetix block.

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The show stars a fictionalized version of Chan, voiced by James Sie. In addition to being involved behind the scenes, the real-life Jackie Chan appeared in an on-screen capacity as well. He is featured in the opening title sequence and would appear in brief live-action sequences at the end of each episode, in which he would answer questions that were ostensibly sent in by young fans. What’s more, the show features numerous references to Chan’s actual life and career, such as his time as a member of the Seven Little Fortunes performance troupe.

Sie’s animated version of Chan is not only a skilled martial artist, but also a respected archaeologist who moved from Hong Kong to San Francisco at a young age to live with his uncle (voiced by Sab Shimono), the owner of a local antique shop. In the pilot episode, the Chan household gets a new member in the form of Jackie’s adventure-loving niece, Jade Chan (Stacie Chan), who — much like Jackie — moved to the United States from Hong Kong.

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When the pilot episode opens, Jackie is employed at a university, going on Indiana Jones-esque journeys to historical sites. His life takes a sharp turn when he discovers the first of 12 magical talismans, and is recruited by his old friend Captain Augustus Black (Clancy Brown) — leader of a covert organization known as Section 13 — to find the remaining 11.

The Chan family and Section 13 embark on a globetrotting race to recover the talismans before they can fall into the hands of Valmont (Julian Sands in Seasons 1 and 2, Andrew Ableson in Seasons 3 and 4). Valmont is the leader of a criminal organization known as the Dark Hand, and needs all 12 talismans in order to unleash his master, the demon sorcerer Shendu, upon the world.

Valmont is flanked by his enforcers, the biggest and baddest of them all being Tohru (Noah Nelson), whom the real-life Jackie Chan tries to punch in the original title sequence, hurting his hand in the process. Throughout the show, however, Tohru begins to second-guess his allegiance to Valmont and the Dark Hand before finally turning himself into Section 13 and becoming Uncle’s apprentice. That isn’t the only status quo change, as while the talismans’ influence can be felt throughout the entire series, later seasons do shift the focus to other magical artifacts, such as the mystical Oni masks in Season 4.

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Jackie Chan Adventures was fairly popular during its original run, getting merchandise like toys, a series of children’s books, a comic book/manga series courtesy of Tokyopop and even a magazine that ran for 80 issues from 2003 to 2006. The show also got two tie-in video games, the first of which, Jackie Chan Adventures: Legend of the Dark Hand, released on the Game Boy Advance in North America and Europe in November of 2001. The second game, simply titled Jackie Chan Adventures, released for the PlayStation 2 in Europe on Oct. 1, 2004. Hip Games was set to publish the game in North America in 2005, and even showed it off at E3 that year, though plans for a stateside release fell through following Hip’s bankruptcy.

While Jackie Chan Adventures came to an end in the mid-2000s and hasn’t really been seen since, the man behind the show’s namesake has ventured into the animated realm multiple times since. The action star produced another cartoon, Jackie Chan’s Fantasia, which aired in China in 2009, with an English version airing on Sonic-Nickelodeon in India. Then, 2017 saw the Chinese premiere of All New Jackie Chan Adventures. Despite its name, however, this more recent series has no connection to Kids’ WB’s. Still, it just goes to show that for all of his adult-oriented action flicks, Chan’s appeal to younger audiences has endured since the debut of his first cartoon premiered two decades ago.

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About The Author Noah Dominguez (1907 Articles Published)

Noah E. Dominguez is a jr. news editor at Comic Book Resources who joined the site as a writer in the summer of 2018. He has also written for sites like WhatCulture and Gaming Access Weekly (formerly Gamer Assault Weekly), and holds a degree in mass communication. What will he do next? Stay tuned. You can follow him on Twitter at @NoahDominguez_

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