Customer Reviews

The Venture Bros.: Season One

5 star:		(169)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This warped take on the old Jonny Quest adventures features some of the best comic book/sci fi/action adventure hilarity you can imagine. I've been waiting a year for this DVD set to finally come out and it's finally arriving. Sit back, keep the kids away and enjoy. For Adult swim fun, you seriously can't beat the Venture Bros. The voice acting, animation, music, stories, you name it, all 5 stars.

The first thing I'm going to say is this: although this is a cartoon, it is most definitely not for kids! The Venture Bros. deals with a lot of adult situations, and it can get very vulgar and graphic at times. Having said that, this may be one of the best new cartoons I've seen in a long time.
I was never really a big fan of Adult Swim; until I got to college, the only show on the block I had seen was Futurama, which debuted on FOX. While I still don't like overall, it does have its gems, such as Cowboy Bebop (best anime ever!), Aqua Teen Hunger Force (when it was in its prime), and The Venture Bros. The Venture Bros. is a show that most heavily parodies Johnny Quest, though it also draws from Star Wars, DC and Marvel Comics, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and even Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
The plot is as follows; Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture is the son of Dr. Jonas Venture, one of history's greatest inventors and adventurers. Jonas built up a successful science industry and led a team of heroes known as Team Venture. Unfortunately, Rusty was never able to live up to his father's image. He never completed college (thus the fact that he calls himself a doctor is called into question a couple times), and he is pretty incompetant at most everything he does. Most of his inventions don't even work, and when they do, they always malfunction. He is also a pill-popper who suffers from dreams involving his dead father and a weird flashback to his mother's womb. However, he is a genius compared to his two sons. Hank and Dean Venture redefine naive. Even though they see themselves as cool and brave, they are anything but. They get squeamish around violence and are easily scared, yet they are always clamoring to go on new adventures, in which something always inevitably goes wrong. Fortunately, the three Venture men are protected by CIA agent Brock Sampson (voiced wonderfully by Patrick Warburton, who played David Puddy in Seinfeld and was The Tick in the live action series). Brock is basically an unstoppable man-beast who defies the laws of physics and biology to keep Dr. Venture and his sons safe. Other Venture allies include Dr. Byron Orpheus, a sorceror who tends to speak in an overly dramatic voice (even when warning others not to use a bathroom due to his choice to have Taco Bell for lunch) and his daughter Triana, who is kind of a goth/punk and is embarassed by her dad very often. Dean has a crush on her, but she finds the Ventures pretty silly. Dr. White and Master Billy Quizboy are two other allies who help out Dr. Venture from time to time. Dr. White is an albino while Billy is a vertically challenged genius with an oversized head.
On the villains side, Dr. Venture's archnemesis is The Monarch, a man who was raised by monarch butterflies after his parents died in an accident. He too is incompetant (seems to be a running theme in this show); he doesn't really have any "powers" per se, besides his weak weapons he built into his suit, and his henchmen are morons. The best twist though is that while The Monarch considers himself to be Dr. Venture's greatest nemesis, he has no reason to (Dr. Venture barely realizes that he exists). In this sense, I like to attribute The Monarch to The Joker; in a sense one can't exist without the other, or at least, that's how things would be if Venture actually paid attention to what was going on around him. The Monarch is dating Dr. Girlfriend, a woman who dresses like Jackie O. and probably has the deepest voice on the show. The other main villains include Baron Werner Underbeit, a Dr. Doom-esque villan who blames Venture for a lab explosion that blew off his jaw, as well as Phantom Limb, a man whose arms and legs are invisible.
Most of the episodes involve the family, Brock, and H.E.L.P.eR (the Venture's robot) going on some sort of misadventure, where Brock basically has to bail everyone out by the end. That's not to say that the episodes are formulaic; each one is very unique and very hilarious. For example, in one of them, Dr. Venture holds a yard sale in order to raise money, only to have a bunch of villains show up and create havoc. In another, the family goes to a theme park run by a Walt Disney lookalike who tries to get Venture to clone him. And in one of my favorite episodes, The Monarch is put on trial, and the opening scene is priceless (MECHA SHIVA!).
A lot of the show's humor is derived from the sheer bizarrness of the situation; most of the adventures are beyond impractical, and knowing how limited the abilities of the Venture family are, one has to wonder why they don't just give up. There is a good amount of parody, but the show doesn't overdo it (the way too many shows and movies are doing nowadays). And there are some very dirty jokes thrown in for good measure. As I said, this is not for kids. It is somewhere between a PG-13 and an R in terms of rating (they can only go so far because its TV, but there are times when, if it hasn't crossed the line, it is walking it). I think that at times, its even dirtier than Family Guy (and much funnier).
The Venture Bros. is not for everyone; the humor is for a very select group, and there are some scenes that are extremely disturbing and disgusting. However, it is a hilarious show that deserves a look. You're only hurting yourself by not checking it out.

I can't figure out why I seem to be one of the few people who thinks the Venture Bros. is one of the funniest cartoons to appear on Cartoon Network.

It is a spoof on the "Superscientist and His Family of Adventuresome Heroes" genre. Instead of being the pre-eminent superscientist, however, Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture has been, in the words of one character, "riding his father's corpses' coattails for 30 years."

Basically, he's not a very successful superscientist. In fact, he's more adept at getting himself kidnapped, which is why he has Brock Samson, his blonde, rage-prone bodyguard.

His kids, Dean and Hank (who I maintain is a spoof on Freddie from Scobby Doo), are more interested in irritating one another than anything their father wants, and the family is completed by H.E.L.P.E.R., a robot who never once lives up to his name.

Aside from Brock, the Venture clan is pretty much a sad lot, which makes it difficult for The Monarch, Dr. Venture's arch-nemesis, to really hate him properly.

"Here I am, in the belly of the beast, and I don't even care," the Monarch says when he sneaks into Venture's laboratory in one episode. "I don't even want to take a whiz on this... I used to DREAM of taking a whiz on this!"

Essentially, the series is about a bunch of marginal superheroes and supervillains with modern concerns and problems.

One of the best episodes involves Dr. Venture's tag sale, where, natch, he is selling used atomic death rays and other assorted superscience weaponry.

There is a lot of low-key, but hilarious humor throughout the whole season. I love it, but judging by the reaction from a lot of my friends, I guess it's not for everyone.

(The above quote comes from The Monarch in the episode "Trial of the Monarch"; the penultimate chapter of the turgid first season of Venture Bros. It very nearly made me cry with laughter... or was that the ole manic-depression kicking in again?)

What can be said about Venture Bros. that hasn't been said before? Its basically the funniest show on tv right now. The funniest tv show I've seen in years. Essentially a smart, sardonic, hipsterific, geektastic comedy geekfest; an endlessly inventive gonzo-transgressive parody of Johnny Quest and other action cartoons of the 60s and 70s that also, oddly, manages to be both hilarious and exciting (gotta love it when the ridiculously hyper-manly testosterone-fueled Brock clears the room of men in butterfly suits, ninjas, mummies, or tries to castrate giant living statues; all the while covered in blood and screaming; then later on talking about how much he loves Led Zepplin and a russian superspy named Molotov Cocktease). Then theres the Doctor Strange inspired Doctor Morpheous who declaims all of his lines in a booming voice dropping with gravitas while a bombasticly grim music cue blares in the back ground -- "DON'T GO IN THERE! I had TACO BEELLLLL for lunch!" Yeah, this is pretty much a must-buy for fans of avant-retardo subgenius style wackiness.

Did I mention that Jim "Foetus" Thirwell supplies the soundtrack? (Which basically sounds like his STEROID MAXIMUS project; the theme song is an edited version of an early SM track entitled "Fighteous.") Yeah, you need this. Its basically the greatest thing in the world. Go buy it. BUY IT NOW!

Unlike some of the other stuff that turns up on Adult Swim, this show could literally stand on its own on any major network. Its not an amateur effort, its not Flash animation with funny-the-first-time-you-heard-it diologue, this is an honest to goodness real 1/2 hour "adventure" show that just happens to be slathered in absurd situations, commentary, and dialogue. This show deserves awards on a whole lot of levels.

20 years from now this show will be on an awful lot of "best of" lists, its a shame more people aren't aware of it today. Its not generic redubbed Japanese Anime, its not stickfigures or drowning in tired SouthPark-esque toilet humor......its good stuff.

Keep an eye out for the "impersonated celebrity voices" too.....

It is brilliantly written. Let me say that again, it is BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN. The gags aren't thrown in your face, you might miss a few if you're not paying attention. If you ever watched Johnny Quest, if you ever collected Comic Books, if you are in your mid 30's right now (so you'll get all the pop culture references from the 70's and 80's)....and if you like your humor on the TWISTED side, this show is for you.

The voice acting is fantastic, and the show actually has continuity going for it. Watch the shows in order, especially if you start watching season 2 currently airing (And expected on DVD in early 2007) which picks up on events from Season I.

They've been running these episodes for what seems like forever, but I am still jazzed to get this super-great set. Of all the shows AS has put together, this one really has the most depth and lasting humor. Most of the stuff on AS is funny but completely disposable. Venture Bros. gets funnier with each successive viewing. My only complaint with the show is that the episodes generally seem to cramped- like they are trying to shoehorn an hour of show into a half hour time slot. I would love to eventually see some expanded "director" versions of this material, with a little more breathing room and maybe the curses unbleeped (yeah i know good luck). But that complaint aside, it's just brilliant stuff. Smart and dumb at the same time, making pop culture references pulled from the span of human history; the show really asks a lot of it's audience. But it really pays off. I still catch new stuff after repeated viewings. I'm very excited to have this in my collection. I'm a little worried about the quality of the set- a whole season packed onto two discs? It seems like image quality might suffer from overcompression, but it won't keep me from buying it.

Oh yeah and I **can't wait** for season 2 to start! It's good to have stuff that holds up to repeated viewings, but I want some NEW shows!!

Numerous people have described this show in detail, and probably in a better manner than I could. Just know that the Venture Bros. is leaps and bounds ahead of Family Guy or South Park (both of which I tend to enjoy). No other cartoon can capture you like this one... whether it's the stupidity of Hank and Dean, the Monarch's antics, Dr. Orpheus' dramatic voice, or (my personal favorite) Brock's murderous eye-twitching rampages, the Venture Bros. is 101% hilarity. I'll be picking this set up as soon as it's released - I can only hope Season 2 will be on par with the first.

I caught the Ventures Brothers on Adult Swim quite by accident.
I was hooked the moment I heard The Monarch say, ".. Grover Cleveland's presidential time machine...". I watched every episode I could find afterwards. At the time I did not have a DVR so I downloaded all the episodes I could get. That having been said I am totally getting this DVD. I will gladly shell out the duckets to keep this show on the air.
I am looking forward to the second season and cant wait to see what Team Venture gets into this year. Plus, the show features the music of Jim Thirwell as Steroid Maximus. Absolutely brilliant and a must see.

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I can best describe "The Venture Bros." with six words:

"'Johnny Quest' gone horribly, horribly wrong."

That is all you need to know.

Where do I start? I couldn't even believe how unbelieveibly hysterical this show was when I first watched it. When it first started airing I thought it was a waste of time because the commericals made it look retarded. But one night when I was watching [adult swim] I decided to give it a chance. Man, that could possibly have been the smartest decision in my life. I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing on the TV screen. I thought to myself "could someone have came up with something this great??Episode after Episode I was never dissappointed. Each episode has it's own originality that never makes it feel like you're watching the same thing twice. The jokes are never reused (Unlike Family Guy which uses the same jokes over and over) the characters are easily likeable and have their own personality about themselves. Whether it's Dr. Orpheous's over-dramatic tone or Monarch's schemeing to ruin Dr.Venture's life you will never want this show to end. It's kinda stupid how they're releasing the DVD on May 30th '06 when they already have it completed. (If you want proof look up "The Mantis-Eye Experiment A Venture Bros. Fansite) No matter what you're looking for in a cartoon whether it's action, killing, blood, gore, comedy, adult situations, histerical-ass jokes, this show has every thing that you could ever want. The Venture Bros. is easily my favorite show by a long shot. Get your ass off of that Family Guy kick and check this show out. I bet after you do you'll look at shows like Family Guy and think "Did used to think this was funny???" trust me I know. I could use up 100 pages describing the da Greatness of this show but I'm going to sum it up like this. This show can't be touched by any other show. You can't compare this to any other cartoon because it's in a league of it's own. I can't wait for the DVD and 2nd season. [adult swim] needs to produce more shows like this and stop wasting time on shows like Minoriteam.