The Venture Brothers Season One

Imagine Jonny Quest being redone by the writers of The Onion, Spy, Sealab 2021, The Tick and the people who did the first several good episodes of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. Then throw in numerous comic-book, action-show and Sixties spy-movie references. Finally, sprinkle in funny pop-culture references over the last decade such as the death of INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence and that overweight Star Wars kid movie. This would only scratch the surface of how to accurately describe The Venture Brothers, The Cartoon Network/Adult Swim’s best new original show from 2004 and probably their only consistently funny one until Robot Chicken. 
 
The plot of is mainly parodying Hanna-Barbera’s The Adventures of Jonny Quest except it’s set during contemporary times. Instead of Jonny and Hadji, there’s the two naive, clueless twin (fraternal) brothers Hank and Dean Venture. Their father is the rather incompetent, short-sighted and strapped-for-cash Dr. Thaddeus Venture, head of Venture Industries. Some even say he’s not even a real doctor. The world still gives Dr. Venture a pass on his credentials and addiction to diet pills because he is the son of Dr. Jonas Venture (a parody of Doc Savage) who did invent incredible things and led the original Team Venture on missions against the forces of evil. (The surviving members of Team Venture appear over a couple episodes.) Despite Dr. Thaddeus Venture’s ineptitude, he still attracts the wrath of maniacal enemies with secret bases, henchmen and high tech; namely Baron Ünderbheit and The Monarch (a villain with a monarch butterfly theme). Thankfully, the Venture family has the homicidal, mullet-headed bodyguard Brock Samson (voiced perfectly by Patrick Warburton) to protect them. Next to killing the Monarch’s henchmen en masse, Brock’s other favorite hobbies are “making it” with the nearest, available woman and washing his muscle car, in that order too. 
 
This DVD set covers the show’s first season of 13 episodes plus the original pilot (done in Flash) and the 15-minute Christmas special. They should be watched in order because there is an ongoing subplot involving Dr. Venture’s recurring nightmare which is resolved in the season finale. There are also flashbacks to Brock and Venture’s pasts explaining how things got to the way they are. Guest voices from Stephen Colbert as Professor Impossible (a parody of Mr. Fantatsic) and Steve Park (the scene-stealer from Fargo) also enhance the humor of their appearances. So far my favorite episode is “Past Tense” which tells how Brock and Dr. Venture met in college while the original Team Venture comes out of retirement to save the day. 
 
Additional features outside of deleted scenes (only animatics are shown), the original pilot and Christmas special, its only bright spot is the mockumentary of how the show is made with creators Chris McCulloch (aka Jackson Publick), Doc Hammer and James Urbaniak (the voice of Dr. Venture) dressed as their characters. Unlike The Simpsons DVD sets, I found the one commentary I tried to listen through (for the pilot) to be dull, self-promoting and uninteresting as it usually is on every other movie. I’m very glad they didn’t more than a few. 
 
Currently, Adult Swim is showing reruns of this on Sunday evenings in preparation for the overdue debut of its second season near the end of June. The season finale ended with a parody of Easy Rider but with hints of the brothers’ actual origin: They’ve never known their mother and in “The Incredible Mr. Brisby,” it’s implied that Dr. Venture has cloning technology. I only recommend buying this show because it will probably be pulled off the air once the second season starts. Unless you’re a fan of all the genres the show honors through ridicule, then renting it through NetFlix or whatever means would be wiser. My main recommendation for buying it is the same for Mission Hill, to share with others who are unaware of something much funnier and intelligent than Family Guy and the last several seasons of South Park out of the water.