The Venture Bros.: Season Three: Blu-ray/DVD
Studio: Warner Bros./Adult Swim
May 08, 2009 Web Exclusive
For the uninitiated, The Venture Bros. is an animated series that runs on Adult Swim. It concerns itself with the adventures of two (very) sheltered brothers named Hank and Dean, their father, Dr. Rusty Venture (ex-boy adventurer turned super scientist), and their Race Bannon-esque bodyguard, Brock Sampson. Despite the foibles and faults, these are the good guys, and every good guy must have an archenemy. Enter The Monarch, a man dressed as a butterfly who is more bent on killing Dr. Venture than on anything more nefarious (like, say, world domination). And as we join season three, The Guild of Calamitous Intent have deemed it necessary to assign a new nemesis to the good Dr. Venture: Sergeant Hatred, who gives new focus to the Monarch’s obsessions and more headache for his wife, Doctor Girlfriend (or is it Doctor Mrs. The Monarch?).
The show itself really has no peer with the rest of the Adult Swim lineup. As entertaining or funny as the other shows may be, The Venture Bros. is working on a higher level. The writing is always clever and the voice cast (consisting mostly of the creators, with James Urbaniak and Patrick Warburton in lead roles) is fantastic. I dare you to not do a Dr. Orpheus impression or just try getting Billy Quizboy’s voice out of your head when you find out his secret origin in “The Invisible Hand of Fate”. While the show does indulge in numerous pop culture references, they are never forced or random but instead are seamlessly worked into the plot. With supervillains like David Bowie with a Klaus Nomi sidekick, a rogue operative fashioned after Hunter S. Thompson but with breast implants, and an abusive egomaniac version of Mr. Fantastic, how could you go wrong?
Venture Bros.’ narrative is pretty serialized, so while you could enjoy the occasional episode here and there, they are best watched in order so as to experience the mythology. And that mythology is richer than ever in this season, building on and reintroducing characters and threads from prior seasons. A real stand-out is the intricately written episode “Orb” where we see in to the Ventures past and get a hint at just how large the scope of this world can go. The best episode, however, deals with the return of Dr Henry Kissinger (er, I mean Killinger) as he floats in like Mary Poppins, establishes a Dr. Phil-like relationship with Dr. Venture to help him through some daddy issues, and then leaves just as quickly as he came. The whole season shines with its outstanding blend of action and comedy, and culminates (in true Venture style) in a cliffhanger ending of epic consequence.
The set comes in super-cool Atari 2600-style packaging with matching menu screens and is available on Blu-ray, a first for any Adult Swim product. The standard definition version still looks great and is presented anamorphically to fit widescreen televisions with 5.1 and 2.0 audio options. The Blu-ray comes with the soundtrack on CD, with music by J. G. Thirlwell (Foetus, Steroid Maximus, Manorexia, etc.), but never fear, if you picked up the standard definition version and are a fan of the theme song, you can purchase the soundtrack separately. Just listening to the theme makes me want to sneak down a corridor and punch someone in the face. The extras include a very informative and sometimes disturbingly open commentary tracks from creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer on every episode as well as deleted scenes in the form of animatics. (www.adultswim.com)
Author rating: 8/10
Average reader rating: 6/10
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