The Venture Bros.

The Venture Bros.
File:Venture bros logo.jpg Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture, Brock Samson, Hank and Dean Venture.
Created by	Jackson Publick
Voices of	James Urbaniak Patrick Warburton Michael Sinterniklaas Christopher McCulloch Doc Hammer
Composer	J. G. Thirlwell
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	55 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Keith Crofford Mike Lazzo
Producer	Rachel Simon
Running time	22 minutes
Production company	World Leaders Entertainment
Original release
Network	Adult Swim
Release	February 16, 2003 – present

The Venture Bros. (alternatively The Venture Brothers) is an American animated television series airing as part of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. It chronicles the adventures of two dopey yet well-meaning teenage boys, Hank and Dean Venture; their emotionally insecure, ethically challenged super-scientist father Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture; the family bodyguard, secret agent Brock Samson; and the family's arch-nemesis, The Monarch.

In April 2008, Jackson Publick said he and Doc Hammer had been working on season four. In March 2009, Adult Swim began airing bumps revealing that new episodes would begin airing in November 2009.

Origins

Show creator Jackson Publick (a pseudonym of Christopher McCulloch) was one of the main writers for the Saturday morning animated series The Tick. Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick, has co-written two episodes of The Venture Bros. and written one full episode, "¡Viva los Muertos!". Patrick Warburton, who played the Tick in the short-lived Fox Broadcasting Tick live-action TV series, provides the voice of Brock Samson.

McCulloch created The Venture Bros. storyline sometime prior to 2000. After working for the television program Sheep in the Big City and the live-action version of The Tick, McCulloch set to turning The Venture Bros. into an animated series. The Venture Bros. was originally conceived as a comic book story for an issue of Monkeysuit. McCulloch realized that his notes were too extensive for a short comics story and proposed that Comedy Central air The Venture Bros. as an animated series, but the network rejected it. Although the first draft of the pilot script was written in the spring of 2000, the premise was not greenlit until around the summer of 2002 by Adult Swim. McCulloch had not previously considered Cartoon Network because he "didn't want to tone The Venture Bros. down" and was unaware of the existence of the network's Adult Swim sub-unit. With the revised pilot, production began in autumn of that year and the pilot was first run on February 16, 2003. The first season of the series was completed in 2004 and it was added to the summer schedule in August.

Characters

Main articles: List of characters from The Venture Bros. and List of secondary characters from The Venture Bros.

The characters of The Venture Bros. are largely either re-imaginings of the characters from Jonny Quest, comic book superheroes and supervillains; or of other famous figures from popular culture. Hank (voiced by Christopher McCulloch) and Dean Venture (voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas) are the titular fraternal twin brothers of the show. Hank is the more adventurous and Dean the more timid and bookish of the two.

Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture (voiced by James Urbaniak) runs Venture Industries. Dr. Venture assumes the occupation of a "super-scientist", and certainly has the knowledge to back up these claims, but his actual competence and credentials in the field are questionable. Brock Samson (voiced by Patrick Warburton) is the muscular, hyper-masculine bodyguard to the Venture family. He is an Office of Secret Intelligence agent with a frequently used license to kill. Dr. Venture's deceased father, Dr. Jonas Venture (voiced by Paul Boocock), developed a loyal and rather emotional robot named H.E.L.P.eR. (listed in episode credits as voiced by "Soul-Bot") that accompanies and assists the Ventures.

Throughout the series, the Venture family has had various recurring antagonists. Many are current or former members of The Guild of Calamitous Intent, a group that bears resemblance to the Legion of Doom. The organization is run by the mysterious leader known as the Sovereign, who is revealed to be real-world singer David Bowie in episode 26. The pernicious but ineffective supervillain the Monarch (voiced by Christopher McCulloch), the masculine-voiced Doctor Girlfriend (voiced by Doc Hammer), and their numerous henchmen are some of the Venture family's primary nemeses. Baron Werner Ünderbheit (voiced by T. Ryder Smith) is a former dictator of the duchy of Ünderland and bears a grudge against Venture, whom he blames for the loss of his jaw in college, citing, "One is always supposed to look out for one's lab partner!" The season-three premiere reveals that the Monarch was responsible for the explosion, an attempt on the life of Dr. Venture. Phantom Limb (voiced by James Urbaniak) is a ruthless killer, villain insurance agent, and high-ranking Guild member; also, he is a former lover of Dr. Girlfriend's before she left him to become The Monarch's companion.

The Ventures' friends and acquaintances include expert necromancer Doctor Byron Orpheus (voiced by Steven Rattazzi) and his apathetic, teenage goth daughter Triana (voiced by Lisa Hammer), who rent out a portion of the Venture Compound; the albino computer scientist Pete White (voiced by McCulloch), a former college friend of Dr. Venture's; and hydrocephalic "boy genius" Master Billy Quizboy (voiced by Hammer). Surviving members of the original Team Venture, a group of extraordinary people assembled by Dr. Jonas Venture, have also appeared occasionally. Happy birthday Mitchell Sims! (^o^)

Episodes

Main article: List of The Venture Bros. episodes

The second season of the series premiered on the internet via Adult Swim Fix on June 23, 2006 and on television on June 25, 2006; the season finished on October 15, 2006. The considerable delay between the end of the first season and the start of the second was partially caused by Adult Swim's delay in deciding whether to renew the show; but, primarily because the show is drawn and inked in the traditional animation style (albeit digitally), causing each episode to take considerable time to move through production. Additionally, the producers were dealing with the time constraints of producing a first-season DVD that contained live action interviews and commentary for several episodes.

According to a recent interview with the creators, the show has been officially renewed for a fourth season. As Adult Swim's website earlier stated that 26 new episodes were on the way, this breaks down into two seasons with 13 episodes each (which conforms to the runs of the first two seasons). The third season began on June 1, 2008. The third and fourth seasons will be in high-definition. On March 24, 2009, Publick announced that the fourth season has been expanded to 16 episodes, with eight episodes to be shown beginning November 2009 and the remaining eight to be shown beginning June 2010.

A 15 minute rough cut of "The Doctor Is Sin" aired on April 1, 2008 as part of Adult Swim's April Fools theme of airing sneak peeks of new seasons of current shows and pilots of new shows.

Running jokes

Most episodes open with a scene prior to the opening title sequence. Additionally, almost every episode features both a smash cut into the end credits, and a short scene following the credits that itself often smash cuts into the final production logo, and usually wraps up the episode humorously or reveals something significant about the characters (usually both). This gives each episode a cold open, and two "cold closes."

Nearly every episode contains the infamous Wilhelm Scream. This has become a joke among many various shows and movies by the sound technicians.

Each episode is "PRESENTED IN GLORIOUS EXTRA COLOR", as jokingly stated during the episode's end credits - a reference to Hanna-Barbera programs in their golden age being presented in Technicolor. The only normal-run episode that this is missing from is episode 2, "Careers in Science".

Since the first season, two credits have changed every episode. Soul-bot's "voicing" the character H.E.L.P.eR., and another for animation director Kimson Albert. Starting with season 2, each end credit sequence holds a different additional, fake duty for AstroBase Go!.

Themes, homages, and references

One of the themes of The Venture Bros. is its multifarious use of allusion in its dialogue, character design and other facets. The series openly pays homage to a variety of sources, including adventure serials, pulp magazines, David Bowie, and many other elements of pop culture; musical references, television shows, movies, toys, fads, and comic books have all been used for fodder.

Jonny Quest

Comparing the main characters of The Venture Bros. and Jonny Quest

The series' predominant homage is to Jonny Quest, as it is the basis for many of the main characters. Dr. Venture is loosely modeled on Benton Quest, Brock likewise on Race Bannon, and the Venture boys correspond to Jonny and Hadji. The comparisons, however, are taken to the level of an extreme parody.

Dr. Venture is a pill-popping scientist who treats his children and those around him with overt disdain and contempt; Brock is a hyper-macho man with a (frequently used) license to kill; and the boys are nincompoops stuck in an out-of-date mindset. One newspaper critic remarked, "If filmmakers Woody Allen and Sam Peckinpah had collaborated on Jonny Quest, it would have come out a lot like this."

Failure

Publick and Hammer have stated that one of the primary themes of The Venture Bros. is failure.

"Yeah failure, that's what Venture Bros. is all about. Beautiful sublime failure." —Doc Hammer

In the commentary for the episode "Home Insecurity" Hammer and Publick elaborated on the theme.

Publick: "This show... If you'll permit me to get 'big picture,' This show is actually all about failure. Even in the design, everything is supposed to be kinda the death of the space-age dream world. The death of the jet-age promises."

Hammer: "It's about the beauty of failure. It's about that failure happens to all of us..."

"Every character is not only flawed, but sucks at what they do, and is beautiful at it and Jackson and I suck at what we do, and we try to be beautiful at it, and failure is how you get by."

"It shows that failure's funny, and it's beautiful and it's life, and it's okay, and it's all we can write because we are big fucking failures. (laughter)"

DVD releases

DVD Name	Release Date	Ep #	Additional Information
Season One	May 30, 2006	13	This two disc set includes all 13 episodes of Season 1. The episodes are presented censored, with black bars covering any nudity and bleeped profanity. Bonus features include "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay" (the pilot) and "A Very Venture Christmas", deleted scenes, behind the scenes mockumentary with the Venture Bros. Cast and creators commentaries on "Mid-Life Chrysalis", "Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!", "Tag Sale – You're It!", "Ghosts of the Sargasso", "Return to Spider-Skull Island", and "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay".
Season Two	April 17, 2007	13	This two disc set includes all 13 episodes of Season 2. As with the Season 1 DVD release, any nudity has been covered with black bars and the profanity has been censored. Bonus features include commentary on every episode by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer and, for some episodes, "special guests" such as voice actors James Urbaniak and Michael Sinterniklaas. Features also include deleted scenes and a tour of Astro-base Go!.
Season Three	March 24, 2009	13	This two disc set includes all 13 episodes of Season 3. Unlike the previous DVD releases, Season Three is completely uncensored, with all the nudity and profanity intact. Bonus features include deleted scenes and commentary. The season will also be released on Blu-ray, which will be packaged with an exclusive CD that will include 20 tracks that comprise the score from the season. The box cover is based on the box covers of many videos games on the Atari 2600. Although the Blu-ray is only available in the "Region A" zone, it will function in the "Region B" zone also.

The first season of The Venture Bros. on DVD was released on May 30, 2006, as officially announced by Warner Home Video. It coincided with the June 25 premiere of the second season. Originally, it was scheduled for March 14, 2006, but was delayed until May 30, 2006. The DVD packaging and interior art was created by comic artist Bill Sienkiewicz. On May 31, 2006, the season one DVD reached #1 on Amazon's top selling DVDs list.

The "Lost DVD Commentary"

On a June 30, 2006, LiveJournal post, Jackson Publick revealed that he and Doc Hammer had recorded a commentary track for the season one episode "Home Insecurity." Warner Bros. chose to omit this track from the Season One DVD due to space limitations and some minor sound quality issues. Publick also stated that the commentary can be found and downloaded from Quickstop Entertainment.

Soundtrack CD

For the video release of the Season 3, a soundtrack album was also released, entitled "The Venture Bros.: The Music of JG Thirlwell". This is the same audio CD included as a bonus with the Blu-ray version of Season 3. It can only be purchased on Adult Swim's website as a CD or a vintage styled LP, it can also be downloaded on iTunes. Although ordering the disc through Adult Swim or buying the Blu-ray version of Season 3 is the only way to get a physical soundtrack as opposed to a digital download. The CD version features 20 tracks, while the vinyl LP release is limited to only 16 tracks.

External links

• Adult Swim - Venture Bros. Website
• The Venture Bros. on TV Squad
• Series Creator Jackson Publick's blog at LiveJournal
• The Venture Bros. at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com