Day 99 - Venture

Platformer, Actually Sad, No Music · 07 Aug 2024

Skeeter’s Take:

Surely skeeter didn’t just choose today’s game as a thinly veiled excuse to talk about a 20 year old cartoon show, right? This is a gaming blog! Surely he wouldn’t abandon that main concept to talk about something completely unrelated? He’s got integrity! He’s got drive! He will deliver our gaily dame review, I believe!

So, I happened across this picture today:

Some of you real fucking nerds out there are probably stammering “B-but the pilot aired in Feburary!”. Yes, the pilot aired February 2004, the official first episode aired August 7th 2004.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t hear about the show until several years later. I was in middle school at the time and was staying over at a friend’s house. We were settling in for the night and his cooler older cousin brought over some DVDs of the first and second season of the Venture Bros. He popped the first season in, and after a couple hours I was absolutely hooked. I stayed up all night watching both DVDs (my friends even went to bed at some point, but I wasn’t letting that stop me). In the morning I woke up excited to talk to my friend’s cousin about it and ask him where I could watch more. He informed me that they were still working on the new season, and I would have to wait for that. I didn’t know it at the time, but the show would become known for its lengthy production times, often taking several years between seasons.

This didn’t stop me from going out and getting my own DVDs of the first couple seasons and rewatching those. My friend’s cousin had created a lifelong addict in one night.

I love the Venture Bros. I’ve been with it for nearly its entire run, so to see it come to an end recently has left me bitter sweet. I’m sad it’s over, but glad I got to experience something like this. It is my favorite show of all time. If you are reading this blog, I’m sure you have some fondness of a piece of media. Maybe a video game, or a movie you really connected with that changed how you view life, or helped shape you into the person you are today. That’s the Venture Bros for me. I do eventually want to make a proper write up on all the things I truly love about it, but this daily writing is not the format for that. This will mostly be rambly and unorganized but I’ll try to keep it spoiler-free as my goal here is to tell you about my favorite show, and maybe convince you to pick it up along the way.

Venture Bros’ “elevator pitch” will always be: “It’s a Johnny Quest parody but what if he grew up and lived in a more cynical world”. The thing is, while the Venture Bros is a parody at heart, it grew so far past a simple parody and became its own thing. It became an incredible world built up of deep and motivated characters and had something to say.

Venture Bros follows Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture - a once boy-adventurer following in the shadow of his Super-Celebrity, Super-Scientist, Super-Shit father Jonas Venture as he tries to keep himself and Venture Industries out of debt by creating super-science inventions. Rusty once had his own TV show called the “Rusty Venture Show” (brought to you by smoking!) where he traveled the globe with his father, getting into all the sorts of crazy adventures you’d expect from a Johnny Quest cartoon. The show itself being a romanticized version of the real, often life-threatening and traumatic events that were taking place while Jonas dragged Rusty around the world with him. With some lovely insecurities and some questionable morals, Rusty has been trying to follow in his father’s footsteps of super science. He loves the super science life, even if he’s not that good at it. Rusty has a celebrity status due to the popularity of the Rusty Venture Show, and it’s always funny when someone meets Rusty for the first time and is let down. In one episode Rusty opens a “Rusty’s Day Camp for Boy Adventurer’s” in an attempt to squeeze yet another dollar out of his already tired legacy. When the kids arrive for the camp, Rusty charges them extra to take a photo with him. And when I say him, I really mean a cardboard cutout he had made of him (so he didn’t have to take photos with the kids). It’s so scummy and so funny, and so on point for Rusty. I was trying to find the show streaming to add screenshots to this, but it’s been a rough time trying to find it. Adult Swim technically has it, but it doesn’t load for me. Instead, I’ll try to supplement with clips from youtube. Here’s Rusty using the buddy system at his camp:

I was going to explain a few characters, but I’m realizing with how long it took for Rusty, I wouldn’t have the time in the day to finish this blog. This is really sad, because the heart of this show is its characters. They are the thing that carries this show. I’m going to try to speed things up a bit.

Rusty has two sons, Hank and Dean who are happy-go lucky, aloof dorks with all the naivety of a 1960s sitcom child. This may be because they learn exclusively from a learning bed - an old outdated homeschool replacement created by Jonas Venture for Rusty that Rusty has repurposed for Hank and Dean - Here’s their graduation (they have a home prom later to celebrate and it’s one of the best episodes in the show - Hank asks out the mailady, it’s a whole thing):

One of the things Venture Bros does so well is develop their characters overtime. Since it had the starting point of “parody”, a lot of these characters come off as pretty stock in the beginning. Hank and Dean were always dimwitted but well meaning. I’m going to give a season 1 spoiler because I think it’s important.

Hank and Dean are clones. Rusty, being the scientist he is, saw the dangerous lifestyle he lived as a child and figured he would have to use his super-science brain to figure out a way to protect Hank and Dean. His solution was to make back-ups of Hank and Dean. I think this is one of those instances where creators Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick saw the old episodic Hanna-Barbera cartoons and thought “Wow, they are doing a lot of dangerous shit. I doubt those kids would survive that. Also, these kids never age, even though it’s been years. How would someone explain that in a serialized show?” and created an answer. Season one ends with Monarch Henchman 21 and 24 (god there’s so many characters) killing Hank and Dean. It’s crazy to think people had to wait 2-3 years on that cliffhanger. Season 2 introduces the idea that Hank and Dean are clones. Here’s one of the best montages I’ve ever seen in media of all the times the boys have died before:

Oops, I mean “the boys never died”. I do have to give another spoiler as it’s relevant to the point I’m trying to illustrate, but I’ll keep it vague. Something happens later in the season that causes Rusty to lose access to the clones. This means the Hank and Dean we see after that point are the only ones. If they die, they die for good. This also means the boys get to grow up, and get their own identities. I think this is a really good example of the Venture Bros starting out at a point of parody, but making changes to allow it to grow into its own thing.

If you haven’t picked it up by now: The Venture Bros isn’t episodic - it’s serialized. Season one pretends like it’s episodic but there’s a twisting and complicated story throughout the show that weaves in an impressive amount of characters and builds up mysteries that are only answered seasons later. Things you thought were throwaway gags, or one-off scenes become important parts of the story later. They even have a whole episode that I think is a dig at multi-part episodes in episodic shows and sort of a meta dig at the serialized nature of the show. There’s an episode called “Escape to the House of Mummies Part II” where we are given a recap of the false “Part I” and thrown into the middle of the “second” part. I can’t help but think that a series that builds on itself over time is a harder sell for the Adult Swim audience than something more easily digestible like a rapid fire Family Guy. I’m speculating, but perhaps that was Jack and Doc making a meta joke about the nature of their very own show? I don’t know - maybe there’s someone out there who’s watched the commentary that knows that (NERRRD). It’s too bad the show got canceled early during Season 8 production. Thankfully, we got a lot of answers to our questions with the Venture Bros movie “Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart”. Unfortunately, since it was a movie, a lot of the reveals felt rushed - like they didn’t quite have the time to fit in everything they wanted. It’s still a satisfying conclusion, but I will always wonder how crazy Season 8 would have been.

Man, I’m already tired and I haven’t even scratched the surface of this fucking show. It’s so dense. I’ll give a shout out to my boy J.G. Thirwell who does most of the music on the show, than wrap this shit up. I know I said, “my boy J.G. Thirwell” but I don’t know him personally or anything. I just mean he makes some absolute bangers for Venture Bros. Just listen to Mississipp Noir:

Zoo-wee mama!

This show has a way of feeling special. It makes you feel like you’re “in” on the joke, and rewards you the longer you watch. The characters grow and change over time and are complicated and wonderful. There’s a retired villain named Sgt. Hatred who ends up becoming a bodyguard for the Venture family. He’s a dumb character that you grow to really love over time. Oh, he’s also a pedophile. Well, recovered pedophile - the OSI (this universes’ equivalent of the American secret intelligence) pumped him full of anti-pedophile drugs so now he’s mostly reformed. You’re probably thinking “what the fuck?” and fair, but I honestly think it’s impressive they took a reformed pedophile and somehow made him as pathetic as he is endearing. He’s got a big heart, ok?!

And the Monarch - Man, the monarch is my favorite villain in any piece of media. He’s just pure passion. Passion of hating Dr. Venture. The man oozes obsession over his disdain for Dr. Venture and it’s fun to see every single time. He steals every scene he’s in - here’s a good example:

Venture Bros It’s truly unlike any other show I’ve seen, and while some of the humor is crass or may feel a little… dated now, I think it truly stands the test of time. This show is responsible for much of my humor and admittedly much of my vocabulary. I’m really glad none of my friends have actually seen Venture Bros. If they had, they would be able to pick out the alarming number of times I reference this show in a day. The lines from it are baked into me like bird poop on a tinted window on a hot day. “Super Fucking Runaway!”, “Are these they?”, and of course, “Go Team Venture!” are all staples my friends are probably tired of hearing. But yeah, I love this show. I love the huge spanning cast of characters. I love the way they are utilized, and how they grow over time. I didn’t even touch on 5% of the cast, if that. I didn’t even talk about some of my favorites (like 21, or Doctor Orpheus). I love the ever growing mystery that unfolds as the series progresses. I love writing, the strange 80’s references I don’t recognize because I’m a little younger than the target audience of this show. I have quite literally grown up with this show. It’s one of those medias I try to consume at least once a year. To think it’s celebrating 20 years is crazy. I’ve probably been watching this show for nearly 17-18 years at this point. So yeah, I have a real soft spot for the Venture Bros, but it makes itself easy to love. There is so much creative heart and spirit put into this show. I know people complained about the long times in between seasons, but I always loved that Doc and Jack took as much time as they needed to make sure they put out exactly what they wanted. The amount of time and effort and love put into this show really shines through the whole run. It’s truly a remarkable show. I think the one thing I can say to hopefully convince you to watch is: I always have fun watching the Venture Bros - it’s just a good time, everytime. I cannot recommend it enough.

Unlike today’s game: Venture!

In Venture you control a yellow block across a floor made out of the “transparent” background image editors use: