The Venture Bros.: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"Go Team Venture!"''}}
''[[The Venture Bros.]]'' (2003-2004, 2006, 2008-2010, 2013, 2016-) is a cartoon series on [[Adult Swim]]/[[Cartoon Network]] that focuses upon the lives and adventures of the titular Venture brothers (snarky Hank and brainy Dean) and their father, scientist/adventurer Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture (who has grown bitter and abusive towards his own children due to his failure to live up to the legacy of his super-scientist father Jonas Venture, making him a sort of pulp version of a [[Former Child Star]]). They are followed by their government issued bodyguards: first Brock Samson, an ex-black ops agent who's described as a [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath|Swedish murder machine]], and then Sergeant Hatred, a former super-villain/recovering pedophile who was drafted by the military to replace Brock when he quit the job.
The Venture family travels the world, getting into all sorts of bizarre adventures and spoofing the everloving hell out of ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' along the way -- at least at first. The series [[Growing the Beard|quickly developed]] into something far more interesting than a mean
There is also [[Ensemble Darkhorse|The Monarch]], Rusty Venture's longtime nemesis who transforms from lame joke villain based around butterflies to bad-ass super-villain; his quest to win back his girlfriend and get revenge against fellow villain Phantom Limb, who framed him for murder, catapults him into the spotlight in a number of episodes.
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** The super-intelligent, incredibly-handsome, fabulously-wealthy, and outwardly-perfect Dr. Jonas Venture. Jonas Jr. skirts this trope but keeps from falling in by being a dwarf who spent several decades being mistaken for a tumor.
* [[Actor Allusion]]: [[Hey, It's That Voice!|Kevin Conroy]], who also does the voice of [[Batman]], plays a wealthy superhero who likes to take on young boys as sidekicks.
* [[
** Go-Fish's specialties: Aquatic Annihilations, Moist Murders, Sea Slayings, Liquid Lynchings.
** 21's insistence that the "Monarch Mind Infractor" should have been called the "Monarch Mind Machine" or the "Monarch Mind Mutilator."
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** Brock Samson. The early episodes show him bedding mostly unattractive women and even paying a particularly skanky prostitute. Later he's shown to be more of a memetic sex god, having bedded most of the female characters on the show.
* [[Arbitrary Skepticism]]: Rusty and Dr Orpheus spend the entirety of "Return to the House of Mummies pt II" debating this.
* [[Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?]]: When Brock discovers Dr. Girlfriend in bed, she says something along these lines. Brock declines, still suspecting that she's
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]:
** From "Any Which Way But Zeus," various villains must submit to a power inhibitor for a joint hero/villain summit. After reading off a long list of side-effects, one of which is "loss of life."
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* [[Author Appeal]]: In the DVD commentary for the Doc Hammer-written "ORB", Jackson Publick remarks that the script was "a list of stuff Doc likes." Most notably, allusions to late 19th/early 20th century American painters. (Doc Hammer is [http://doc-hammer.deviantart.com/ also a painter].)
* [[Author Avatar]]: In the DVD commentaries, Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick have said whenever they're stuck on the writing, they create a pair of characters loosely based on (and frequently voiced by) themselves. #21 and #24 are the Ur-example; others include Watch and Ward, the Moppets and the Lepidopterists.
** Of course it has been suggested that [https://web.archive.org/web/20140405053209/http://i.cdn.turner.com/asfix/repository/8a25c3920eaf5fa6010eafac52fc00ef/thumbnail_2152.jpg Pete White] looks suspiciously like [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Doc_Hammer_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg Doc Hammer], and they share a love of 80's electronica.
* [[Author Filibuster]]: Possibly a subversion, but: the season four episode had two (Pro-Choice and Anti-Vegan/Vegetarianism) for the price of one, when now [[Imaginary Friend]] 24 delivers a tangent about the "truth" about souls: everything
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: A common source of humor in regards to many of the [[Zeerust]] devices.
** Jetpacks. "My shoe is on fire!"
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** 21's design for the Mark V henchman battle armor. It's far too advanced for current technology to actually ''create'' most of its systems.
*** Subverted occasionally as 21 thinks that the henchman suits are just for show, but turn out to include first nightvision goggles and later the seemingly impossible functional butterfly wings.
* [[Back
** {{spoiler|Hank and Dean, though season three removes the resurrection option from the table}}.
** Colonel Gentleman, whose season two death was handwaved away as being in a diabetic coma.
** Brock, in the first episode, after getting shot with hundreds of The Monarch's henchmen's tranquilizer darts, getting run over by the Monarch Mobile, and buried.
** {{spoiler|Henchman 24}} returns in season four as an Obi-Wan-esque ghost. In the season four finale, {{spoiler|it is revealed that he wasn't a ghost at all, but just 21's wishful hallucination}}.
* [[Badass]]: Brock Samson, to the point of [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstruction.]]{{context}}<!-- How does this character deconstruct this trope? -->
* [[Batman Gambit]]:
** Brock Samson does this to the Monarch and OSI, tricking them into fighting each other.
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* [[Chaos Architecture]]: Underland is somehow in Eastern Europe and at the same time bordering with Michigan.
* [[Character Development]]: Most of the characters started out as ''[[Jonny Quest]]''/pulp comic parodies whose personalities could be summed up in one or two sentences, but all of them have become more complex and three-dimensional as the show progressed. For example:
** Dean has gradually changed from an enthusiastic adventure boy to a Type 2 [[Seen It All]] who really just wants to hang out with kids his own age. He's also become more likely to get into fights (though he hasn't [[Took a Level
*** Dean is by no means a Badass, but let's be fair, he did manage to kneecap Baron Ünderbheit with a steel baton after being caught *completely* off-guard by The Revenge Society. Definitely an improvement over Dean's previous onscreen fight, where he just flailed wildly against Dermott. In the same scene his rape whistle seems to disable Mr. Impossible, or at least forces him to put his hands over his ears instead of using his stretching powers to subdue Dean. It takes Phantom Limb's "killer hand thing" to drop him.
** The Monarch has become more intelligent and sane in his villainy, even pulling off a [[Batman Gambit]] -- though it's possible he was always this way, since he became horrifically lethal the moment he was arching anyone other than Venture. His relationship with Doctor Girlfriend (now Dr. Mrs. The Monarch) has dramatically evolved, too.
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* [[Doomed New Clothes]]: We'll miss you, Butterglider.
* [[The Dragon]]: Dr. Girlfriend made a career out of playing "Number 2" to various supervillains, including the Monarch and Phantom Limb. Shortly after their marriage, however, she and the Monarch became an [[Evil Duo]], with the Pupa Twins (formerly Dr. Girlfriend's Murderous Moppets) acting as twin Dragons.
** The Pupa Twins eventually lose their Dragon position to Henchman 21, or as the other henchmen call him, [[Took a Level
** Depending on whether or not one sees Rusty as a [[Villain Protagonist]], Brock Samson could also count.
* [[Dressing as the Enemy]]: Attempted by the original Venture Team in ''[[FemBot]] swimsuits''.
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* [[Emo Teen]]: Hank in season four.
* [[Equal Opportunity Evil]]: in Ünderland, both men and women are apparently subject to conscription into Baron von Ünderbheit's army until age 38, at which point [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]].
* [[Eskimos Aren't Real]]: In "Ghosts Of The Sargasso":▼
{{quote|'''Hank''': Brock, if pirates are real, then all bets are off! Santa Claus could be real! The Easter Bunny could be real!▼
'''Brock''': Hank, no one said pirates aren't real. }}▼
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Rusty Venture (who's just very, ''very'' morally ambiguous, as opposed to evil) {{spoiler|refusing to clone Hitler in the season four opener}}.
* [[Everyone Went to School Together]]: Rusty was in college with Baron von Ünderbheit (similar to [[Captain Ersatz|Doctor Doom]]'s relation with [[Fantastic Four|Reed Richards]]), as well as Pete White, Brock Samson, and the Monarch. This is quickly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] by Hank. Also, Professor Impossible was one of their teachers.
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* [[The Men in Black]]: Mr. Doe and Mr. Cardholder.
* [[Mind Screw]]: The Christmas Special. It's a dream within a dream within a nightmare and when Dr. Venture wakes up from it, his legs are gone and the four of them are in Bethlehem.
* [[Mismatched Eyes]]: As near as it can be told, {{spoiler|the Mighty Sovereign, David Bowie}}, as well as Jefferson Twilight.
* [[Missing Mom]]: Nearly omnipresent. Rusty's mother is never even referred to, Hank and Dean's mother left right after they were born {{spoiler|on account of maybe being taken to a mental institute}}, and Triana's mother left her husband for another man.
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** And to {{spoiler|[[Edgar Allan Poe]] in the fake preview for "Escape to the House of Mummies part 3" }}
* [[Never Found the Body]]: {{spoiler|Henchman 1/Scott Hall.}} After two seasons of being presumed dead, {{spoiler|he appears in season four as "Zero."}}
* [[Never Trust a Trailer]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20120625235140/http://video.adultswim.com/the-venture-bros/the-venture-bros-season-4-trailer.html The fourth season trailer] (beware of spoilers if you haven't watched up to the [[Wham! Episode|season three finale]]). Several clips used in it turn out to be fake-outs of some sort, especially the clip of {{spoiler|Future!Doctor Venture juxtaposed with a shot of Dean aging - the two scenes have ''nothing to do with each other'' in the series, and Future!Doctor Venture is just David Bowie in disguise. The trailer also milks fantasy sequences and out-of-context lines for as many cool scenes as they can.}}
** The Trailer for ''The Better Man'' focused on a [[Department of Redundancy Department|"Hell Beast From Hell,"]] who was even in the [[Cold Open]] and wasn't even from Hell. Despite physical appearances, it was ''not'' on the level of Cthulhu. The rest of the trailer talked about Triana entering a "portal to the Second World." Except it's ''not'' a portal to the Second World. Orpheus doesn't ''have'' a portal to the Second World. Half the episode ''centered'' on Orpheus not having a portal to the Second World.
** None of the season four trailers can be trusted: AT.ALL!
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** And Ginny, who is clearly attracted to Brock and considers him the only real man she's ever met.
* [[Reed Richards Is Useless]]: For all his money problems Doc Venture never considers selling cloned organs. However, the clone slugs seem to grow in real time, so doing so wouldn't be very fast. He ''was'' able to make a "quick and dirty" clone of a boy who died in "The Buddy System," but the quality of that clone was pretty questionable.
▲{{quote|'''Hank''': Brock, if pirates are real, then all bets are off! Santa Claus could be real! The Easter Bunny could be real!
▲'''Brock''': Hank, no one said pirates aren't real. }}
* [[Replacement Goldfish]]: In the season four premiere, 21 tries to convince Dr. Venture to clone {{spoiler|24}}. However, as the only payment he can come up with is a vintage comic book, Doc declines. In "Handsome Ransom", Capt. Sunshine seeks to make Hank his new Wonderboy. It's clear he's desperately trying to use Hank to replace his slain sidekick because he's not ready to deal with it, spoiling and sheltering him for fear that he'll feel that loss again.
* [[Reunion Revenge]]: "Past Tense" centers on Dr. Venture, Brock, Pete White and Baron Ünderbheit being kidnapped by a supposedly ({{spoiler|and actually}}) dead college classmate for their "crimes" against him - all of which are extremely minor, petty pranks which he thinks ruined his chances with the girl of his dreams (they didn't; he was a total loser and she wasn't interested).
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** ...and averted completely in another episode.
{{quote|{{spoiler|'''Dr. Mrs. the Monarch:'''}} Gary, you've seen too much.
'''Henchman 21:''' I've seen my only real friend die. I've seen a giant penny roll over guy dressed like a rainbow. I've seen the Donkey Kong kill screen. [[Blade Runner|I've seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.]]
{{spoiler|'''Dr. Mrs. the Monarch:'''}} ([[It Makes Sense in Context|in a cheerleader's costume]]) Oh, G-A-R-Y! You ain't got no alibi! You're Gary! What, what?!? You're Gary!
'''Henchman 21:''' Okay, I have not seen that ever! }}
* [[Sequel Hook]]: Each season finale had these. In fact, seasons one and especially three have had full on [[Cliff Hanger|cliffhanger]] deaths. On killing {{spoiler|Henchman 24}}, Doc Hammer stated that it was such a stupid decision that you ''have'' to see where they're going with it.
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* [[Stealth Pun]]: In the season four finale, "Operation: P.R.O.M." Sgt Hatred has most of his HATRED tatoos removed, with the exception of the D, as it's [[Groin Attack|in kind of a tender area]], and replaces the H with a V for "Venture," meaning his tattos now read "VD," venereal disease.
* [[Stock Scream]] In particular the Wilhelm Scream, but since this series a huge [[Deconstruction]] of the [[I Want My Jetpack|future of yesterday]] it's probably a homage to it more than anything else.
* [[
{{quote|'''The Alchemist:''' ''But being a magic super hero that keeps chasing the same guy? It's completely gay. That is coming from a guy that voluntarily has sex with men!''}}
** Apparently inverted with born-again Holy Diver and Sky Pilot, who are allegedly Gay Straight, but he revealed later that it was a cover-up and that he actually is still [[Camp Gay|very, very gay]]. Hell, [[Hello, Sailor!|he's in the navy]].
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* [[Time Travel]]: "Escape To The House Of Mummies Part II" with Grover Cleveland's Presidential Time Machine.
* [[Tongue on the Flagpole]]: In "Now Museum, Now You Don't", Hank sticks his tongue to [[Human Popsicle|the ice block containing Ug-Ugh.]]
* [[Took a Level
* [[Too Much Information]]: Col. Gentleman and Sgt. Hatred's sex lives. Billy Quizboy's "guilty pleasures" list is considered too much information by Billy himself when he realizes he misunderstood the question.
* [[Too Soon]]: "Handsome Ransom" involves a [[Captain Ersatz]] of Superman and Batman who takes a shine to Hank as his new Robin. It involves "sleepovers" and giving him lots of toys. For what it's worth, the season had started production ''before'' [[Michael Jackson]] died.
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** The pirate captain has an addiction to tranquillizer darts in the episode "The Lepidopterists."
** 24's attempt to kill Hank in the episode "Tears of the Sea Cow" are averted because he didn't know his rifle only shot tranquillizer darts.
* [[
** Some think Dr. Girlfriend, due to her deep, masculine voice. Brock continues to make jokes about Dr. Girlfriend to both the Monarch and Phantom Limb throughout seasons one and two, and her gender is questioned when she enters a public restroom. In the season three episode "Home Is Where the Hate Is", she's caught smoking for the first time by her husband, the Monarch, at a party. After he comes to realize the clues that she's been smoking (since 1989), well...
{{quote|'''Sgt. Hatred:''' I guess I'll say it. Her three-pack-a-day voice?}}
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== U-Z ==
* [[
* [[Ultimate Evil]]: {{spoiler|The Leviathan from "Assisted Suicide".}}
* [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny]]: 21 and 24 like to debate these. Their debut consisted of an argument about who would win in a fight between {{spoiler|Ann Frank and Lizzie Borden}}. When this conversational well runs dry, they also engage in excessive [[Fan Wank]]. In all cases, 24 takes whichever position is most obviously wrong.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Prime Time Cartoon]]
[[Category:
[[Category:The Millennium Age of Animation]]
[[Category:Trope Overdosed]]
[[Category:Western Animation]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Adult Swim]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Venture Bros., The}}
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