The Venture Bros.: Seasons 1&2

February 29, 2008

Rated: UR Runtime: 586 min Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This is an animated series from the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.

It’s a spoof of the 1960s animated series JONNY QUEST, but it spoofs a lot of superhero comics, boys action-adventure series, etc.

The Venture Brothers are Hank and Dean Venture. Their dad, Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture, is a super-scientist. They live in his laboratory/headquarters/compound with their bodyguard, Brock Samson.

Each episode they get into adventures, often due to the nemesis of Dr. Venture, arch-villain The Monarch, and his many henchman.

Several writers of this worked on THE TICK, and it has that feel, but with more sexual innuendo and more fart jokes.

Several episodes spoof The Fantastic Four (The Visible Woman can only make her skin become invisible, leaving muscles and veins like one of those old plastic anatomical models).

Various sometimes-villains-sometimes-allies show up, like Russian femme fatale Molotov Cocktease.

In one episode, Dr. Venture has a yard sale to clear out some of the junk his father (also a super-scientist) accumulated. All the super-villains show up, hoping to buy super-weapons at low low low prices.

This is funny stuff, highly recommended.

DVD features: Each season has 13 episodes (A third season is in the works). Bonus features on the DVDs include the pilot, a Christmas short, and various deleted scenes and mockumentary segments. The first season has 5 commentaries, the second season has commentaries for all 13 episodes. Unfortunately, the commentaries aren’t very good. That’s my one complaint about this DVD set; the creators make fun of the fact that they’re doing commentaries, taking time to answer their cell phones and whatnot. This would be funny a couple of times, but doing it every commentary is a waste; I’d be interested in actually seeing some detail on the creation process behind the show.

Posted by Mack Guffin | Filed Under 4 Stars, Christopher McCulloch, Comedy, DVD, Doc Hammer, James Urbaniak, Michael Sinterniklaas, Patrick Warburton, SciFi