Jonathan Long

Jonathan Long
Created By:	Jeff Goode
Voiced By:	Jeff Bennett
Gender:	Male
Date of Birth	1969
Age	37
Hair and Eyes Color	Brunette Black
Occupation	Financial planner Jake and Haley's father Susan's husband
First Appearance	Old School Training
Family/Friends	Jake Long (son) Haley Long (daughter) Susan Long (wife) Luong Lao Shi (father-in-law) Trixie Carter Arthur Spudinski Patchouli Long
Enemies	Huntsman Dark Dragon Shade Demon Jersey Devil

Jonathan Long is the father of Jake and Haley Long and the husband of Susan Long. He is a normal human being who had not the slightest clue about his family's magical background, so he was unaware that their mother came from a family of dragons. Jonathan Long works as a financial planner.

Biography

Early Life

Not much is known about Jonathan's early life. He grew up with his sister, Patchouli, and at some unknown point, became a Cougar Scout and even kept the uniform until his adult years. Jonathan and his father would annually go to Rockaway Beach as a father-son tradition that Jonathan would continue with his future son, Jake. During his adolescence, Jonathan performed actions that he had expressed guilt over. Such as in sixth grade, he spent the money he made from Trick-or-Treating on an arcade instead for the less fortunate like he planned. When he was seventh grade, he drove the lawnmower over his sister's inflatable pool and blamed it on rats. In tenth grade, he filled his teacher's trunk with three-bean salad.

Fillmore High School

Jonathan attended Fillmore High School and during his junior year, he began to date Susan Luong. In June 27, 1986, on their graduation day, Susan had written a letter and planned to tell Jonathan the truth about her family—that she came from a family of dragons. She chickened out and never gave him the letter thus Jonathan would go about not knowing Susan's secret. That was until his future son, Jake and his animal guardian, Fu Dog, time-traveled to the past to give Jonathan the letter. Without Susan's knowledge, Jake had snatched the letter from her binder and slipped it inside Jonathan's locker certain that his father would be accepting toward the family secret. Due to Jake's meddling with the past, Jonathan broke up with Susan and was put in danger when the Huntsclan kidnapped him for information on the dragons. Jake convinced Susan's father, Luong Lao Shi who disliked Jonathan for being human, to help rescue him. Jonathan displayed nobility when he stood up for Susan after she was called a "monster" and even saved Susan from the falling Huntsman. He was then knocked out by a piece of concrete. When he woke up, he was in Jones Beach and was told the whole event was an illusion. Jake returned back to the present and both Jonathan and Susan spent the rest of the night at Jones Beach.

History

Jake went back to 1986 and revealed his family's secret to his dad. When he found out at first, he was frightened, but demonstrated nobility when he refused to reveal Susan's identity to the Huntsclan. However, Jonathan was told it was all a dream and still did not know about the existence of magical creatures. Jake's reckless time-traveling was responsible for the only occasion in the series where Jonathan and the Huntsman ever met. According to Lao Shi, Jonathan, although a bit odd, is a role model the Dragon Council felt Jake should follow because he was kind, honest and courageous.

He proved this when, after Jake was hurt, he attacked the Strigoi. He was unable to defeat them, but he distracted them long enough for Jake to destroy them. He also showed his bravery when he saved Jake from a bear. What he didn't know was that the "bear" was actually the Jersey Devil, and that by defeating him, he also saved a village of sprites who erected a statue to homage him.

Eventually, he discovered the existence of magical creatures and learned the secret about his family when he accidentally walked in on Haley in dragon form, forcing everyone to explain the truth to him, which he accepted without reservations. He then showed courage by helping Jake defeat the Shade Demons during his battle with the Dark Dragon by discovering their weakness: light and using it to destroy them all in one go. Jake later asked him why he was so okay with all of this and he admitted that he always thought that their was something magical about his family. Presumably from his "dream" he had. He also showed how courageous he was by rushing into battle to help Jake when he found out he was in trouble, although he had only just learned the family's secret and was still trying to process that.

Significant events

His habit of leaving sticky notes for his son provided a few hints, which Jake eventually found helpful in defeating a henchman of King Hammer without having to reveal himself as a real dragon by using his powers or flying away.

Once on a camping trip with Jake, Trixie and Spud in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, he unknowingly set up camp near a village of sprites while the Jersey Devil threatened to destroy it. It was defeated by Jonathan, who mistook it for a bear. The sprites erected a statue in his honor.

When Jake grew tired of being punished for his various dragon duties, which he could not tell Jonathan about without revealing the truth of his being a dragon, he decided to go back in time to when Jonathan and Susan were still teenagers at school. Jake saw to it an undelivered letter where Susan revealed her secrets ended up in Jonathan's locker. However, he did not take the news well and broke up with Susan. To make things worse, Jonathan telephoned a radio show for advice on the air, attracting the attention of the Huntsclan. Which sent sends the then-apprentice Huntsman on his first assignment to capture him for questioning. Jonathan bravely refused to turn Susan over to them, gaining the respect of Lao Shi. Jake, Susan and Lao Shi rescued him, tricking him into believing the whole "dragon thing" was a dream.

Some Strigoi, magical creatures which feed on dragon blood, mistakenly believed Jonathan to be the American Dragon. Despite not being able to defeat them, Jake was defeated and was found by his father who soon realized what occurred and told his son to stand back as he confronted the creatures. Jonathan impressed Jake by being able to fight off the monsters and though he was defeated he was able to keep them at bay, long enough for Jake to defeat them. Afterward, Lao Shi informed Jake that while the Dragon Council perceives Jonathan as odd, they saw that he was brave and loyal to his family which helped them agree into making Jake the American Dragon.

While on family vacation in Hong King, Jonathan finally learned of his wife's family secret and accepted his family's status as dragons. He helped them in defeating the Dark Dragon's Shade Demons and was seen celebrating with them, truly happy they trusted him to know their unique traits. .

Episode Appearances

Season One

• Old School Training (first appearance)
• Dragon Breath
• The Legend of Dragon Tooth
• Act 4, Scene 15
• Adventures in Troll Sitting
• Shapeshifter
• The Long Weekend
• Jake Takes the Cake
• Hong Kong Nights
• Ring Around the Dragon

Season Two

• Half Baked
• The Doppelganger Gang
• Something Fishy This Way Comes (mentioned)
• Family Business
• Hero of the Hourglass
• Dreamscape
• Feeding Frenzy
• Haley Gone Wild
• The Rotwood Files
• Hairy Christmas
• Switcheroo
• Year of the Jake
• Young at Heart
• Bite Father, Bite Son
• Being Human
• The Hong Kong Longs

Trivia

• He's the stereotypical embarrassing parent but has a strict side on his part.
• When in school, if seated in classes by the common New York Public School practice of alphabetical order, then "Luong" and "Long" would probably have been next to each other most of the time. This may have been when their relationship first began.
• Jonathan was originally meant to be Lao Shi's son, thus making him Chinese-American. His ethnicity was switched with Susan's but was later changed to simply White for unknown reasons.
  • His first name was planned to be Charlie, nicknamed as "Chen".
  • Like Susan, he was not an enabled dragon since it skipped his generation. To specify, he was born in the Chinese year of the rabbit when dragons could only be born in the Chinese year of the dragon.
• Originally, Jonathan was going to know about the family's secret but was uncomfortable with it however accepting; meant to mirror Darren Stevens from Bewitched. The executive producers changed this when they felt Jake's dragon's powers would feel less special if the family knew his secret.
• In a behind-the-scenes development only, Jonathan was, unbeknownst to the family, a werewolf where every month he would go on a 'business' trip. There was going to be an episode revealing this, but it was never made.
• In Jeff Goode's transcript for "Hero of the Hourglass", it is stated that Jonathan was seventeen in 1986. The show takes place twenty years later, meaning that Jonathan is 37.
• Susan has had trouble telling Jonathan about the magical world since October of '92.

Gallery

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