The Dark Mountain

The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest
"The Dark Mountain"
Episode no.	H00616-94008
Airdate	December 17, 1996
Chief locations	Mount Washington, New Hampshire 71.66W, 44.21N (128 miles)
Vehicle(s)	Quest Chinook Questcat Snow Caterpillar
Writer(s)	Glenn Leopold
Guest roles	Jennifer Hale (Female Voice) Frank Welker (Wama / Alien Guard) Michael Dorn (Tala) Phil Hayes (Deke) Peter Renaday (Kane)
Episode sequence	Race Against Danger <--> Cyberswitch
Other episodes

Is Bigfoot on the loose in the Quest compound? More importantly, why is he stealing electronic components? The Quest team has to find the answers before two big-game hunters bag their most exotic trophy.

Plot Summary

Teaser

Race finds Bigfoot

In the Quest Compound's sporting room, Jonny Quest and Jessie Bannon play ping-pong while Hadji Singh and Bandit watch. A clattering on the window is revealed to be a curious raccoon, and Bandit chases him outside in the snow. The four return to the compound as Race looks on approvingly from a second-storey window. As he lies down to sleep, Iris informs him that there's a disturbance in the engineering room—and inside, something resembling Bigfoot is lumbering around. Race Bannon discovers him, and Bigfoot throws him against a wall and exits. Jonny comes to Race's side, then dons a coat and goes out in pursuit of the creature. Two hunters, Deke and Kane, see Bigfoot flee and shoot at him with laser-sighted rifles. As they try for a better shot, they catch sight of Jonny and fire upon him.

Act One

Jonny and Jessie find the child

Race dives to take down Jonny in evasion of the bullets. Dr. Quest and the others arrive and interrogate the men, who are experienced and globetrotting big game hunters. The Quests return their rifles and send them away; Jessie discovers the Bigfoot tracks, and Dr. Quest finds that Bigfoot had stolen his prototype stabilizer, designed to screen out electromagnetic interference for deep space probes' navigational systems. The Quests review the surveillance tape of the room, and Dr. Quest mentions that the prototype had a tracking device in it. The next day, the team set out in the Quest Chinook for Mt. Washington, but abort an aerial search due to high winds.

They land and take out the Questcat, but hunters Deke and Kain are nearby, aware of their presence. Jonny and Jessie are told to stay behind in the chinook, but soon take to snow machines with Bandit, who jumps out of Jonny's arms after catching wind of something. Jonny and Jessie follow and find a child Bigfoot creature caught in a bear trap. They free it, as meanwhile Dr. Quest finds the homing device, removed from the protoype; Race realizes the Bigfoot creatures used it for bait as three of them approach. The hunters find Jonny, Jessie, and the Bigfoot child, and begin firing; Jonny makes them crash with heroic maneuvers. Deke withdraws an elephant gun from his sack and shoots at the child to Kane's objection; the sound causes an avalanche, and the Bigfoots retreat from Dr. Quest, Race, and Hadji nearby on the mountain.

Act Two

The ship inside the mountain

Jessie and Jonny notice that the child's pointing to a solid rock wall, and then disappears through it; they follow through the holographic cliff and discover a large cave. Inside, an alien-like creature attacks their snow machine with a staff weapon, but the Bigfoot child explains in alien language that Jonny and Jessie are friends. Nearby on the mountain, the Questcat is precipitously hanging on the edge of a cliff. Bigfoot creatures pull it back, then abduct Dr. Quest as Race and Hadji helplessly look on. Back in the cave, the child stands on a strange pad to deactivate his cloak as a Bigfoot creature, then unmasks an alien ship beneath holographic rocks. Jonny and Jessie find Dr. Quest aboard, and the alien Tala explains that he and the other aliens were explorers who crash-landed on earth a century prior. Unable to repair their circuitry, they were forced to wait until humanity had developed technology that they could use. They tried to ask humanity for help, but pollution and ozone layer depletion forced them to genetically mutate themselves into Bigfoot creatures with fur whenever leaving the mountain. Dr. Quest is happy to repair the ship, but Deke and Kane arrive with weapons to capture the aliens, who are forced to surrender. As the hunters march the Quests and aliens out of the cave, Hadji and Race arrive, and Bandit bites Deke's arm. The aliens and Quests overpower the hunters in the scuffle, and Dr. Quest fixes their ship, allowing them to depart.

Notes

Quotes

The aliens depart

• Jonny - "Race, are you hurt?"
• Race - "Just my pride."

~

• Kane - "Hunter's instinct. It led me to the last red rhino in Africa."
• Jessie - "And thanks to you, it's extinct."
• Kane - "I beg to differ, young lady. It still exists—in my trophy room."

~

• Hadji - "Legends often have a factual basis, Jonny."

~

• Race - "My daughter, the brain."

~

• Jessie - "You're such a hot dog, Jonny Quest!"

~

• Dr. Quest - "As I tried to explain, you can't judge all humans by the actions of a misguided few."

~

• Tala - "Our guard would have stopped you."
• Deke - "Heh, couple of darts stopped him!"

~

• Jessie - "See? You should have been shooting video instead of guns."

Trivia

• Granville van Dusen voices Race in this episode.
• This episode's Quest Byte features the deletion of a Surd virus.

From: Episodes