GRAEME: Brock is still this wonderful cliche of the completely competent alpha male – the opposite of Rusty! – at this point, and the scene where he saves the falling Rusty by shooting a nail through his pants leg and sticking him to the wall really reminded me of the hilarious scene from last night’s Leverage finale where Elliot managed to re-enact every single gunflight cliche you could imagine. It works in the Leverage-world because Elliot is Batman, but Brock is… more Batman than Batman. He’s a comedic uber-Batman. No wonder Hank idolizes him so much.
MICHELLE: The scene where Brock busts in and saves Dr. (although we learn in this episode he isn’t really one; he never finished school) Venture, with his primal grunt we really see Brock’s machismo character, the one who can always step in and save the day. (Well, until he’s foiled by a poison-laced cigarette, which falls in line with the stereotype that the one thing that can foil a brawny hero is some evil genius plan and, as we see later on with Molotov Cocktease, the opposite sex.)
EVAN: Speaking of subplots, there’s more foreshadowing to be had in the Bowie references and in Dr. Venture’s “Cloning? I wouldn’t know anything about that…” line.
MICHELLE: I also like the cloning storyline for another reason. To me, it references the rumor that Walt Disney was frozen in order to be brought back to life when the technology was advanced enough. There’s nothing creepier than a children’s animation guru wanting to live forever, kind of hinting at the idea that he may have dabbled in kid’s entertainment as a way to preserve his youth. I may be looking too deep into this however.
EVAN: No such thing, Michelle. One thing that’s engineered so much love for this show is the dead-on specificity of the references. Those Safari Animal Wildlife cards Dean’s going through at the beginning of the episode? Commercials for them were inescapable on kids’ TV in the late 1970s and 1980s.
My favorite line: “I won her from David Bowie in a trivia contest… This is before the big trivia craze, of course. But, then, Bowie always was a trendsetter.”
MICHELLE: Mine is: “He is the angel of death, and that animated abomination he created is bringing darkness to this world,” referencing how Disney’s empire took over the world. Although I should point out, Disney did provide innovative techniques in cartooning and created educational institutions to help nurture future artists. It’s why artists still dream of working for Disney in this day and age. I think that in referencing Disney this episode the Venture Bros. weren’t pointing out that Disney animations were bad, just that Disney’s overreaching corporate empire was extremely tainted with greed despite the happy vision it strived to present.
GRAEME: “HOLY DAMMIT CHRISTMAS” may be my new favorite exclamation. Also, Lele is Brisby’s “longtime companda”?
There’s so much to love here – It really is the first fully Venture episode, in a lot of ways – The full extent of Rusty’s failure to live up to his father’s legacy is revealed, as is his wonderfully… Rusty-esque brand of assholishness (“Call me a golf cart, I am done here!”) – but the best part is the way that the show really comes into focus; it’s here that the whole thing about the gap between childhood perception and reality comes into its own, whether it’s a villain (who’s pretty pathetic) who is pretty much Walt Disney and the deadliness (or lack thereof) of Disneyworld, or the way in which Hank and Dean are completely oblivious to everything that’s going on throughout the whole thing.
There’s also a welcome slide into surrealism and open silly subversion of cliche (“You took my eye!” “Only after you took… my heart”) that really comes into its own later on. Rusty’s reaction to the truth serum? That’s out of nowhere, and completely wonderful.
Also: What’s with Rusty and insects? The Monarch, now bees…
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