Here at Techland, only one television program manages to tie into so many of our geeky obsessions all at once. Superheroes, mythical creatures, action figures and barely believeable sci-fi all flop onto each other on the glorious cavalcade that is The Venture Bros. Cartoon Network’s just started airing the spoof action series from the start and Techland’s Hive Mind is taking the occasion to re-watch the exploits of Hank, Dean, Brock and Dr. Thaddeus Venture. Join us as we witness how Venture Bros. evolved over its four stellar seasons.
This week, Graeme McMillan and Evan Narcisse talk about Season 1/Episode 1: “Dia de los Dangerous.”
Evan: One thing that probably goes without saying is that I loved Jonny Quest, to the point where I watched that 1996 The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest update they did. Part of the reason Jonny Quest and a lot of the Hanna-Barbera action shows of the 60s and 70s grabbed me was because of their incredibly awesome jazzy theme songs. So, I watched Venture Bros. from the start partly just because of the music, but I haven’t ever re-visited these early episodes. The first thing that strikes me is how limited some of the animation looks. “Dia de los Dangerous” isn’t lacking in style, but it’s certainly not as fluid as the stuff that comes after.
Graeme: It’s odd watching “Dia le Dos Dangerous!” again – Doubly so for me, because I got into Venture Bros. somewhere during the show’s second season, and caught up on DVD with the first and remember being disappointed that the show wasn’t as good as it later became. So this time around, I was fighting my own disappointed nostalgia as well as well as all future knowledge of what the show becomes in future seasons. Because of that, I still don’t really know if I like the episode: All I can see is the ways in which it’s not what the show will turn into, and the ways in which the characters aren’t quite there yet (Brock in particular feels really one note in this episode, just a fairly generic badass who’s more quiet and much more psychopathic than he ends up, but Rusty as well seems more of an asshole than the pathetic figure he is today. Or am I imagining that?).
Evan: No, it’s not just you. The show’s creators clearly started off on subverting the archetypes of shows like Jonny Quest and were content with just that at first. Each character’s got an inverse “What If” at the core of their construction. “What if Race Bannon really got off on all the bloodshed? What if Dr. Quest was a fraud? What if Jonny and Hadji’s pluck was just bone-headed stupidity?” Still, I think part of the fun of Joint Venture will watching the layers of personality accrue onto each character and onto the show’s creativity, too.
(More on Techland: Six Things You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Know About Team Venture)
Graeme: It doesn’t help that the humor is more cliched, and more broad, at this early stage (Rusty wakes up with his kidneys stolen! The answering machine cuts the Monarch off mid-message! So hilarious!); there were hints of the darker comedy here and there (Especially in the post-credits coda, when Rusty reveals that he’s taken kidneys from both sons instead of just one), as well as the show’s particular brand of the comedy of failure (I can’t be the only person who thinks Rusty’s attempt to bribe the doctor with $10 is a great moment: “And what would you prescribe for… Alexander Hamilton?”), but what makes me love Venture Bros. so much is that it doesn’t settle for the obvious joke, but – normally – takes it much, much further, and normally in the direction of either something dark and potentially much too far. Last week’s joke [in the Season 4 finale] about what a Rusty Venture was being a prime example, or the bastardization of childhood dreams (See: OSI, the Impossible Family, Team Venture, David Bowie). That just wasn’t really there this time around, and it suffered for it – It was funny enough, but not as good as we know it could be. Is it just me? Was this awesome for you, and I’m just being extra critical?
Evan: Yeah, the voice acting seems more mannered, like they’re trying to sound like what they think the characters need to sound like. The performances have yet to grow into the slightly manic energy that every character touches on in later seasons. I also agree that the jokes here seem more stilted in general. You can see the set-ups coming a mile away; the punchlines still pay off, though. You talk about stretching the pay-offs, Graeme, and it’s the choking-the-henchman gag (umm, sorry) here does it for me. It’s a slow, horrific death played for a loooong bunch of beats to the point where it goes past funny to uncomfortable and back to funny again. At first, I thought Speedy–the pimply Monarch henchman–was meant to be #24, but then he meets his untimely end. And then the same voice actor who later does #21’s voice–Christopher McCulloch–is prominently featured, too. So, it makes me wonder if Doc Hammer and the boys were thinking of breaking out individual henchmen into bigger roles even at this early stage.
Speaking of breaking out into bigger roles… Hello, foreshadowing in the image above, huh?!
I totally forgot that we got the Monarch’s origin in this episode. The flashback’s a knowing wink at the mythos of Tarzan and Batman, what with the being raised by butterflies and trust-fund baby riffs. And, while it’s hilarious, the origin sequence also showcases the odd dysfunctional tenderness that’s at the heart of the show, too. When the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend, the characters care about each other, even if it’s not the ones who should be caring about each other.
(More on Techland: The Venture Bros. Season 4.5 Trailer Brings Tears of Joy)
Other random notes:
Evan: I still miss the Hardy Boys-esque credit sequence and really dig how many characters they foreshadowed in there, like Baron Underbheit and Molotov Cocktease. I pine away for Brock’s guayabera, too.