It’s back to Couch Slobs traditional “Hi! And welcome to the 21st Century!” column where we examine TV delights others were aware for years now while we stumbled blindly in the darkness of the TV Wasteland.
This month we examine “The Venture Brothers”, whose episodes were deliciously vicious additions to Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” program. Three years ago creators Christopher McCulloch and Doc Hammer started the surreal story about the (mis)adventures of Dr. Thaddeus Venture, his almost-retarded sons Hank and Dean and their sociopathic yet lovable bodyguard Brock Samson. Always threatened by their nemesis The Monarch and his butterfly-themed minions, Venture family spends more time concerned with their messed-up personal lives than in any kind of actual adventures.
Beside its main heroes, “Venture Brothers” also has a great bunch of supporting characters who say as much about the cartoon than I ever could: Jefferson Twilight, blacula hunter; Dr. Bryon Orpheus the Necromancer (Venture’s tenant whose monologues have to be heard to be believed); Dr. Henry Killinger (and his magic murder bag); or hydrocephalic one-eyed, one-handed Master Billy Quizboy.
It’s almost impossible to describe content of this cartoon. Nominally, “Venture Brothers.” started as a parody of “Johnny Quest” cartoon series from the 1970es, but soon proved to be much, much more than that. Made out of fruitful blend of Saturday morning cartoons, daytime TV and bad movies “Venture Bros.” parodies everything from “G.I. Joe” and “Da Vinci Code” to superhero comics and TV commercials.
But what makes “Venture Brothers” really stand above other parodies – especially those horrible “_____ (insert adjective)” movies - Date, Scary, or Epic - is that, instead of simply mimicking and parodying the scenes from the other, way better movies, it actually tries to give as much thought to it’s story and characters as to the jokes that surround them. There’s a certain surreal sense in the cartoon’s plot line – all the way to season finale cliffhangers.
Meanwhile, viewer cannot but feel actual sympathy towards some of the characters that, despite being merciless parodies, nevertheless are pretty solidly characterized. This is no accident: creators of cartoon pointed out how the main theme of “Venture Brothers” is failure. And as Venture fails at science and Monarch fails at killing Venture, so the cartoon itself represent of all the disappointment of generation fed by SF dreams and growing up into just another mundane and messed up future. As Leo Gerry says in the “West Wing”: “My generation never got the future it was promised… Thirty-five years later, cars, air travel is exactly the same. We don’t even have the Concorde anymore. Technology stopped. (…) Where’s my jet pack, my colonies on the Moon?”
But at least we got “The Venture Brothers”.
Oliver out.
