Master Billy Quizboy

Master Billy Quizboy is a supporting character appearing on the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros. He is a friend and ally of Dr. Venture and a very close friend of Pete White. He is voiced by Doc Hammer.

Character history

Billy claims to be a boy genius, though in reality he is not a boy, nor has he shown much proof towards the genius claim (though he is occasionally shown repairing or inventing mechanical devices, as well as successfully performing surgery on Dean, after he developed testicular torsion). He continues calling himself a "boy" genius due to "adult genius" sounding much more typical and thus less impressive or catchy, and he supposedly took the "quizboy" moniker due to his winning as champion on Card Sharks at a young age. Billy was inspired to become a scientist and child prodigy by his future friend Dr. Venture during his time as Rusty of the original Team Venture.

He and White are the co-founders, and probably sole employees, of Conjectural Technologies, which they run out of an old trailer which also seems to serve as their home. As seen in "Are You There God? It's Me, Dean", it is unknown what the company actually does, but it appears as if White bosses Billy around, forcing Billy to do housework and company-related tasks while he plays video games (Billy retaliates by passive-aggressively leaving post-it notes reminding Pete of what he should do). However, in that episode, White states that Billy is (more like) a "neurogeneticist," so he may not be as incompetent as most of his colleagues. He operated on Dean to help his testicular torsion and fitted Jonas Venture Junior with a bionic arm similar to his own in the season two premiere, Powerless in the Face of Death. He also reattached Dr. Venture's arm at the end of Victor. Echo. November.; at the very least, Billy is a skilled surgeon.

Billy first appeared in "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay", where he mocked Dr. Venture for his Ooo-Ray but did not do much else — his appearance here was even more abbreviated than it usually is. He then appeared as an invitee to Prof. Impossible's government think-tank in the episode Ice Station – Impossible!, awed at the fact that Impossible invited him. He helped Dr. Venture, Sally Impossible, and White develop an antidote for the Goliath serum that Hank had consumed (although Prof. Impossible later claimed the serum was never tested on a human, it was supposed to be used on a "dog or something"). He also featured prominently at Dr. Venture's tag-sale — he and White gossiped about some of the other people attending, whom they later attempted to woo into becoming their arch-enemies. Billy and Dr. Venture also fought over a shrink ray, and Billy criticized Venture for a redundant decal on the ray. In Escape to the House of Mummies Part II, the shrink ray caused some problems for Billy when he, White, and Dr. Venture attempted to repair it. White and Venture forced Billy to be their human guinea pig, and instead of fully shrinking him, it seemed to do one body part at a time (at first his lungs, then his head). He eventually forced them to reverse the ray to make him normal again, but it merely made a giant out of him without making his clothing bigger. Billy has shown a fondness for the high five.

While taking a personality test with Venture and White, it was revealed that he has some very strange and disturbing "guilty pleasures," including intercourse with fruit and masturbating into garbage bags full of baby oil. While he claims that he misunderstood the question, Venture and White ridicule him endlessly about the new discovery.

Appearance

Billy has claimed that his large head was due to hydrocephalus, and that his mother referred to him as her "little water baby." In some early episodes, his head makes a sloshing sound when he moves it. He has a growth hormone deficiency that explains his small stature. He has a speech impediment that gives him an odd lisp, which also reinforces the perception that he is a child.

Billy's eyepatch and bionic arm have not been definitively explained — he once claimed the arm was a weapon, which no one believed. In the episode "Victor. Echo. November.," #21 and #24, The Monarch, and Hank and Dean gossip about the origins of Phantom Limb, all of which tangentially involve Billy losing his eye and/or hand. Though each of the stories is portrayed as being false, it is implied that at least some of the information in Monarch and #21's stories is true:

• The Monarch's Story: When Billy was twelve, he invented a machine which accelerates muscle growth and tried it out on his roommate at the time, Phantom Limb. The machine malfunctioned, driving Phantom Limb insane as well as rendering his limbs invisible and giving him the power to kill by touch. In the aftermath, Limb apparently mutilated Billy out of revenge. The story is notable in that it implies Billy may well have been a boy genius in his childhood, though the Monarch could be referring to Billy being twelve facetiously. The muscle enhancer is later seen being used by Phantom Limb to accelerate the healing of Brock Samson's gunshot wound, which also supports the Monarch's account. This would also mean that Phantom Limb and Billy attended college with Dr Venture, Brock, Baron Underbite, Mr White and The Monarch.

• 21's Story: Billy and Limb won money on Card Sharks which they used to invent a time machine, which transported Limb's limbs and Billy's arm and eye into the future. Though the results of the story--Limb's limbs and Billy's arm and eye going to the future--are false based on the merit of Limb's limbs being simply invisible, not absent, the story may have some credence in that Billy and Limb gained funding for experiments by appearing on a gameshow.

• Hank's Story: Phantom Limb was a renowned stage magician who accidentally transported his own limbs to the moon in a botched trick. In a fit of rage, he then sliced off Billy's arm and ate it. There is no veracity to the first part of the story, per Limb's limbs simply being invisible rather than absent, though the part about Limb slicing off Billy's hand does apparently mirror the end of The Monarch's version, in which Limb does something off-screen to deprive Billy of his appendage.

At the end of the same episode, when Dr. Venture asks Billy himself how he got his robotic arm, Billy flatly responds: "That's an excellent question. I have no idea," perhaps supporting the theory he may have had the arm for longer than he can remember. While his response seems genuine, he may just not want to talk about it or is simply being sarcastic. The behind the scenes reason for the eyepatch, according to the commentary on "Tag Sale, You're It!" was that Billy was originally designed with every affectation possible - robotic limb, eyepatch, he was always to be in mourning for something, etc. This was eventually pared back into how he is today.