The Venture Bros. is currently available on Hulu and Adult Swim.
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A new Venture Bros. season is like a solar eclipse. Rare, exciting, and spectacular every time, but luckily you don’t need special goggles to see how great it is, just… lots and lots of patience. With only seven seasons of this show since its premiere in 2004, its primary focus is on two hapless (cloned) brothers, Hank and Dean Venture, and their former child-star-turned-scientist father, Dr. Rusty Venture. The Venture Bros. have cemented their standing in cartoon history by not only being the longest-running scripted show with the least amount of seasons, but mostly by being an incredible satirical journey with pop-culture heavy characters and storylines intermixed and paralleling one another in unreasonably comical, and sometimes even heady ways.
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Conceptualized by Jackson Publick prior to 2000 while working on The Tick, the show debuted on Adult Swim strong out of the gate with the episode “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay,” which was co-penned by long-time collaborator and voice actor Doc Hammer. In the first episode we get a glimpse at the Venture family and their “Swedish Murder Machine” Brock Samson, voiced by the infamous Patrick Warburton of The Tick, “Gronk” from The Emperor’s New Groove, Seinfeld, and Family Guy fame.
The original premise was simple enough. Two idiot brothers, clearly inspired by The Hardy Boys, go on adventures in the vein of old Jonny Quest/Hanna-Barbera episodes, while their father, famous scientist and former “boy wonder” Dr. Venture and his bodyguard Brock try to break new ground scientifically, all while keeping up with bills and fighting constant threats from arch-nemesis The Monarch, and his counterpart formerly known as Dr. Girlfriend (now Dr. Mrs. The Monarch).
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But what began so simply did not remain so as the show introduced new characters such as Sergeant Hatred, Billy Quiz Boy and his hetero life-partner Peter White, and Dr. Morpheus. Tack on the introduction of government interference in the SHIELD-like group OSI and a union of evil-doers called The Guild of Calamitous Intent, and well… to say this show has evolved over the more than decade and a half since its inaugural season is an understatement. Ever-changing, delving deeper into the psyche of each and every character in at least one way or another, The Venture Bros. does a great job at fleshing out its inhabitants one by one, all while advancing a sometimes daunting storyline that gets weirder and weirder as the show ages. It’s really a thing of beauty.
Riddled and pock-marked with movie, comics, and music references all throughout, The Venture Bros. is a tour de force of pop-culture acumen that can only come from fervent consumers of media. Publick and Hammer know their stuff, and they’re not afraid to let you know it either. There are so many characters named after obscure and mainstream references as well as whole storylines inspired by movies and TV that it’s nearly impossible to keep up. But like any good source of entertainment, the more you watch the show on repeat, the more you begin to understand and even catch small Easter eggs strewn throughout.
Though The Venture Bros. suffers from extended stretches between each season, it tends to remain fresh by consistently updating the characters, the storylines, and even the quality of production. Around every corner, there’s a surprise, and ultimately, delight is sure to follow. If you enjoy sex, blood, and explosions, this show has it in spades. If you enjoy spy thrillers, sci-fi, and mystery adventures, it’s got that as well. Or if you’re looking to just enjoy storylines that satisfy and shock, it’s got that too.
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There isn’t much to dislike about The Venture Bros. other than not having enough seasons, and honestly any episode with Dr. Killinger is enough to keep me going back regardless. The jokes are insane, the voice acting is unbelievable, and man, I just can’t recommend this one enough.
It has been greenlit for an eighth season, but who knows when that will be as they still animate each season traditionally (or as traditionally as you can in the age of computers). But in the meantime, you can check out The Venture Bros. on Hulu and Adult Swim’s website.
Other than that, Go Team Venture!
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Binge It! is IGN’s recommendation series. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, music… if you can binge it, we’re here to talk about it. In each installment of Binge It!, we’ll discuss a piece of content we’re passionate about — and why you should check it out.
Source: IGN.com Binge It! The Venture Bros. Is a Smorgasbord of Pop-Culture Hilarity