The Venture Brothers!

Is my current favorite show on TV!

The Venture Brothers, Hank and Dean, are teenage fraternal twins and are the son of celebrated scientist, Dr. Venture. Protecting the Ventures, is their hired bodyguard Brock Samson. Dr. Venture's notoriety and work take the group on dangerous adventures and run ins with bizarre villains.

Sound familiar? Well, yeah, kind of. The Venture Brothers is part Hardy Boys, part Jonny Quest with a whole lot of great satire thrown in.

To say that this is just a "spoof" of JQ and it's like couldn't be further from the truth. The scripts (by creators Publick and McCulloch former writers of the hilarious animated "The Tick" and the live action "The Tick") are extremely clever and filled with some great fleshed out characters.

Besides our main group, the extremely naive Hank and Dean, their caustic, self-centered father Dr. Venture and the homicidal strongman Brock Samson, the cast is peppered with a unique mixture of villains and hanger-ons.

There's the Ventures' "arch-nemesis" The Monarch, an insecure madman who wears the wings of a Monarch Butterfly. Dr. Girlfriend, a husky-voiced confidant of The Monarch who's more capable than he. Their next-door neighbor, Dr. Orpheus, the master of mysticism.
And there's also The Phantom Limb, Master Billy Quizboy, Mr. White, Baron Underbelt and more!




As all 14 episodes of the first season (and I just heard that the show's been renewed! Yay!) concluded, I realized how strongly this series grew. It may have begun as just another one of those spoof shows on Adult Swim, you know like Space Ghost and Harvey Birdman, which relies more on "tearing" down the straight adventure animated series from the 60's - and nothing more than that, but the characters have developed so well that any reliance on it's "roots" are no longer necessary.

Since the networks have already proven that they can no longer produce a smart, strong, FUNNY, half hour show, and you're looking for one, check out The Venture Brothers on Adult Swim one of these weekends. I think you'll agree that it's worth tracking down!