About three weeks after the 3rd season of The Venture Brothers started, I wrote about it to make sure that anyone who hadn’t heard of it by then knew to check it out (Venture Brothers: Watch It). Now it is three weeks into the 4th season and I’m following up. Seriously, are you watching it yet?
I knew after only three episodes that I was going to end up buying the whole season on DVD, and I was oh so right. Much to the pain of my finances, it has become ridiculously clear that the same is true for this season as well. This show speaks to me, to my current age, position in life, and memories of cartoons from my childhood in all the naughtiest ways. Even the episodes that you might consider sub-par for the course are still pretty damn funny, and just when you think some kind of over-arching plot is going to run things for a while something new hits you in the face completely out the blue. Just when you start to tire of whatever random or side stories they’re telling, the larger plot comes back into focus. Oh, and lest I forget to mention, this show is completely freaking hilarious!
If you’re still in the dark about it, I summarized the show pretty well back in 2008 so I’ll use those same words again:
Venture Brothers is a very adult themed spoof of Johnny Quest type shows, it runs on Adult Swim which should give you some idea of what I mean when I say ?adult themed?. If you liked the animated The Tick series, then you will most likely love VB because the main creator (Jackson Publick) of VB worked on The Tick as well. The show?s title might give you the impression that it focuses on the adventures of the appropriately named Venture brothers, but they are really secondary to their father, former boy wonder Rusty Venture, and his hilarious bodyguard Brock Samson (voiced by Patrick Warburton). The show beautifully blends several themes like fantasy, super-science, and campiness into a supple goo of episodic television content.
If that’s not enough to get you to watch it, one of the first three episodes of the current season focused on a do-good superhero named Captain Sunshine that was voiced by the excellent Kevin Conroy. It’s great hearing his voice in a cartoon again, for me it is the same jubilant emotion created when hearing Peter Cullen’s voice in the new Transformers movies. Don’t know who Kevin Conroy is? Here, this should help:
I ave to admit that I am behind on the current episodes. Things that involve real life have gotten in the way, but I plan on sitting down and catching up soon! Venture Brothers is one of my favorite cartoons and is so awesome it hurts.
.-= Tyson J. Hayes´s last blog ..Good Enough to Eat =-.
I keep hearing how good this show is… but I haven’t actually saw any episodes yet…
.-= Lunatyk´s last blog ..Dungeons and Streetwise =-.
Lunatyk: I definitely recommend watching the first few episodes of Season 1 before anything else, I don’t think I’ve heard from anyone that doesn’t like the show so check it out!
Wow. Seriously? You’re hyping Venture Brothers?
Here are some other fresh new shows people might not have heard of: The Simpsons, Stargate SG-1, South Park, The Daily Show.
Oh, and as long as we’re giving outdated advice, I strongly urge Americans to vote for Al Gore over George Bush.
:p
.-= Asmor´s last blog ..Win an Invitation to Google Wave =-.
You can also rock out to some Kevin Conroy *as* Batman in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.
The man is and always will be the one true Batman.
.-= Vince´s last blog ..Meme Marion? =-.
Asmor: All of those shows are incredibly popular and have a lot of viewers, there are still a LOT of people who don’t watch or have only barely heard of Venture Brothers. See Lunatyk’s comment above. 😛
Vince: Exactly, the man very easily defines the role with just his voice.
Have been following this season with “fan-boy” fanatcism…
And I agree – there are way too many people out there that when you say “OMG…did you see this week’s Venture Brothers?!” give you this cow-chewing-cud look that means they’re probably only watching what the major networks spoon-feed them.
We can only hope they are the first to go when the zombies overrun the country…
I’ll repeat what I’ve said elsewhere: The Narrative Structure of the Venture Brothers show is debateably one of best I’ve seen anywhere. Seriously. The way they loop everything into another is really expertly done and the fact that there are story arcs in a cartoon comedy show…it boggles my numbed brain. The Captain Sunshine episode made me particularly happy…because you don’t know if the character was planned way back in season 2 or they just expanded on a joke character name they threw together in some random small talk from same episode in season 2. Goofy example but the way all the stories and characters are linked is insanely complex for what you’d expect from a show like this.
Of course, in film school I did my whole program on experimental narratives, so I fanboy gush on a couple of levels here. Forgive my sins.
-Jared
@Asmor: I could never get into South Park…
.-= Lunatyk´s last blog ..Dungeons and Streetwise =-.
One of the best shows on TV , animated or otherwise!