The Venture Bros. debuted on Adultswim 17 years and two days ago on 8/7/2004 (damn, had I know I would've done the writeup Saturday!) and ran for seven season scattered across fourteen years, and always worth the wait.
I'm not even sure how to describe it so I'll just let wikipedia do the work for me, The series chronicles the lives and adventures of the Venture family: well-meaning but incompetent teenagers Hank and Dean Venture; their loving but emotionally insecure, unethical and underachieving super-scientist father Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture; the family's bodyguard, secret agent Brock Samson, or his temporary replacement, the reformed villain and pederast Sergeant Hatred; and the family's self-proclaimed archnemesis, The Monarch, a butterfly-themed supervillain.
I've never been an Adultswim fan, by the time it came on I had little interest in cartoons on TV, but a friend of mine when I worked overnights at Walmart knew we had similar interests in pop culture and comics so he convinced me I needed to check the show out and let me borrow his season1 DVD. After just a couple episodes I was hooked. Rusty Venture's dad was the epitome of the 1960s action cartoon alpha male Race Bannon/Dr. Quest ultimate super-scientist, while Rusty is basically Johnny if he grew up to be a miserable failure but lived off his father's wealth and fame.
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To watch over Dr. Venture and his two sons, is Office of Secret Intelligence (OSI) agent Brrrrrrrrrrrock Samson (and if you read that in Paul Heyman's voice give yourself five extra points) voiced by Patrick Warburton best know for his critically acclaimed, a financially successful run as the live action version of The Tick (Spoon!)--hey, in my universe it was.
But the real star of the show for me, and often the most hilarious episodes, involved The Mighty Monarch and his quest for Vengeance on Dr. Venture, alongside his girlfirend.wife, Dr. Girlfriend/Dr. Mrs. the Monarch, Henchmen 21 and 24
The show was popular enough that it spawned it's own line of t-shirts of the week from Adultswim that coincided with each episode. I had a Henchmen 24 shirt that used to fit .
Spoiler:
And a line of Mego-esque figures
Hell, they even released yearly Christmas songs, that were amazing (but you'd have to follow the show to recognize the voices and really get the humor)!
But it wasn't all zany action, blood and voilence combined with foul language and lewd conduct. Oh, no. It was also a learning experience. Thanks to the Venture Bros. I now no the horror of testicular torsion.
The cast would grow overtime to include Doctor Orpheus (a Dr. Strange caricature), an albino computer scientist Pete White, a former college friend of Dr. Venture's; hydrocephalic "boy genius" Master Billy Quizboy; and Dr. Jonas Venture, Jr-- Dr. Venture's former parasitic twin brother who has succeeded in all of the areas that Rusty does not. Surviving members of the original Team Venture have also appeared as well as Dr. Orpheus's teammates in the Order of the Triad. There's even OSI which is a combination of SHIELD and GI Joe.
I can't recommend this show enough. At the time of it's airing, sporadic as it often was (81 episodes over 14 years isn't a lot) it was my favorite show and something I looked forward to weekly. I was saddened when I found out it was cancelled but while doing the reading for this write up I found it that there's a movie in the works to tie up any loose ends!
"Doc’s latest invention will either bankrupt the Ventures or launch them to new heights, as Hank searches for himself, Dean searches for Hank, The Monarch searches for answers, and a mysterious woman from their pasts threatens to bring their entire world crashing down on them."
Hell, one of my earliest customs waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2012 was of the Monarch (and sadly, my photography skills sucked)
The humor was lewd, topical, and skewered just about any action cartoon you can think of from Johnny Quest to Scooby Doo.
So, if you've never seen it before, and want something new to watch, I'd recommend giving it a go,
There's way more then this, but here's a video someone put together...
But don't just take my word for it...