Danger Island is a live-action adventure

Adventure

An adventure is defined as an exciting or unusual experience; it may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome. The term is often used to refer to activities with some potential for physical danger, such as skydiving, mountain climbing and or participating in extreme sports...

 serial

Serial (radio and television)

Serials are series of television programs and radio programs that rely on a continuing plot that unfolds in a sequential episode by episode fashion. Serials typically follow main story arcs that span entire television seasons or even the full run of the series, which distinguishes them from...

 produced by Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera

Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. was an American animation studio that dominated North American television animation during the second half of the 20th century...

 and originally broadcast in 1968 as a segment on the Banana Splits Adventure Hour

Banana Splits

The Banana Splits were four comedic animal characters who featured in a late 1960s children's variety show made for television. The costumed hosts of the show were Fleegle , Bingo , Drooper and Snork .The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was an hour-long, packaged television program that featured both...

. It was directed by future Superman, Goonies, and Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon is a 1987 American buddy cop action film and the first in a series of films, all directed by Richard Donner and starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as a mismatched pair of LAPD detectives, and Gary Busey as their primary adversary...

director Richard Donner

Richard Donner

Richard Donner is an American film director, film producer, and comic book writer.The production company The Donners' Company is owned by Donner and his wife, producer Lauren Shuler Donner. After directing the horror film The Omen, Donner became famous for the hailed creation of the first modern...

 and featured Jan-Michael Vincent

Jan-Michael Vincent

Jan-Michael Vincent is an American actor best known for his role as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the 1980s U.S. television series Airwolf .-Early life:...

 as Lincoln 'Link' Simmons.

The series comprises a 3-hour adventure yarn broken down into 36 short chapters. Each chapter is roughly five minutes long and includes a suspenseful cliffhanger

Cliffhanger

A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...

 ending that is resolved in the next installment.

Plot

Intended as a live-action version of the animated Hanna-Barbera series Jonny Quest

Jonny Quest (TV series)

Jonny Quest – often casually referred to as The Adventures of Jonny Quest – is an American science fiction/adventure animated television series about a boy who accompanies his father on extraordinary adventures...

, Danger Island centered around the adventures of a trio of explorers in an unnamed tropical island group. Prof. Irwin Hayden, an archaeologist; Lincoln "Link" Simmons, the professor's youthful assistant; and Leslie, the professor's daughter, who serves as both a love interest for Link and the series' token damsel-in-distress.

Several years earlier, the professor's brother (also an archaeologist) disappeared in the same island chain while searching for the mythical lost city of Tobanya. They are joined on their quest by Morgan, a shipwrecked merchant mariner, and his teenage sidekick Chongo, who speaks only in a series of monkey-like chatters and birdcalls. Pursued by both a group of bumbling, but heavily armed modern-day pirates led by the murderous Captain Mu-Tan, as well as cannibalistic natives known as the Skeleton Men. The show spawned the popular catchphrase "Uh-oh, Chongo!" among children of that time.

Main characters

Prof. Irwin Hayden - Frank Aletter

Frank Aletter

Frank Aletter was an American stage, film, and television actor.During the 1950s Aletter appeared on Broadway in Bells Are Ringing, Time Limit, and Wish You Were Here. He soon moved on to a prolific television career, appearing as a guest on numerous shows between 1956 and 1988.Aletter starred in...

Lincoln 'Link' Simmons - Jan-Michael Vincent

Jan-Michael Vincent

Jan-Michael Vincent is an American actor best known for his role as helicopter pilot Stringfellow Hawke on the 1980s U.S. television series Airwolf .-Early life:...

 (as Michael Vincent)

Leslie Hayden - Ronne Troup

Ronne Troup

Ronne Troup is an American actress best known for her 1970–72 role as "Polly Williams Douglas" on the long-running sitcom My Three Sons.-Biography:Ronne is the daughter of musician/actor Bobby Troup, and his first wife, Cynthia Hare...

Elihu Morgan - Rockne Tarkington

Chongo - Kim Kahana (as Kahana)

Villains

Captain Mu-Tan - Victor Eberg

Chu - Rodrigo Arrendondo