The Venture Bros.

The Venture Bros. is an American adult animated television series created by Christopher McCulloch (also known as "Jackson Publick") for Cartoon Network's late night programming block Adult Swim. Following a pilot episode on February 16, 2003, the series premiered on August 7, 2004.
"The Venture Bros." was one of Adult Swim's longest-running original series in terms of years, and had the record for fewest seasons produced of a scripted show per year of continuous production, with seven produced seasons over fifteen years of production.
The series ended on October 7, 2018, with a total of 81 episodes over the course of 7 seasons, as well as 4 specials. On September 7, 2020, series creator Jackson Publick announced on Twitter that the series had been canceled. Adult Swim has stated that they have been working with the creators to find an alternative way to continue the story-line. On May 12, 2021, it was announced a direct-to-video film is currently in production. The film will take place right after the end of season 7.
Plot.
The series chronicles the lives and adventures of the Venture family: well-meaning but incompetent teenagers Hank and Dean Venture; their loving but emotionally insecure, unethical and underachieving super-scientist father Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture; the family's bodyguard, secret agent Brock Samson, or his temporary replacement, the reformed villain and pederast Sergeant Hatred; and the family's self-proclaimed archnemesis, The Monarch, a butterfly-themed supervillain. Initially conceived as a satire of boy adventurer and Space Age fiction prevalent in the early 1960s, it is considered to be an action/adventure series with comedy-drama elements.
Development.
Show creator McCulloch was one of the main writers for the Saturday morning animated series "The Tick". He created "The Venture Bros." storyline sometime prior to 2000. After working for the television program "Sheep in the Big City" and the live-action version of "The Tick", McCulloch set to turning "The Venture Bros." into an animated series. "The Venture Bros." was originally conceived as a comic book story for an issue of "Monkeysuit". McCulloch realized that his notes were too extensive for a short comics story and proposed that Comedy Central air "The Venture Bros." as an animated series, but the network rejected it. Although the first draft of the pilot script was written in the spring of 2000, the premise was not greenlit until around the summer of 2002 by Adult Swim. McCulloch had not previously considered Cartoon Network because he "didn't want to tone "The Venture Bros." down," and was unaware of the existence of the network's late night adult-oriented programming block, Adult Swim.
With the revised pilot, production began in autumn of that year, and the pilot was first run on February 16, 2003. The first season of the series was completed and premiered in 2004, and it was added to the summer schedule in August.
Characters.
The characters of "The Venture Bros." are largely re-imaginings of characters from "Jonny Quest" as well as comic book superheroes and supervillains.
Throughout the series, the Venture family has had various recurring antagonists. Many are current or former members of The Guild of Calamitous Intent, an organization founded to save mankind from self-destruction but which now serves as an "ad hoc" placement agency matching super villains with appropriate heroic nemeses. The organization is run by the mysterious leader known only as "The Sovereign", who is revealed to be real-life rock star David Bowie in episode 26, though in episode 5 of the 5th season it is revealed that The Sovereign is actually a shape-shifter who frequently appears as Bowie.
Episodes.
Most episodes begin with a cold open and are shot to appear to be in letter-box format. Almost every episode features both a smash cut into the end credits, and a short scene following the credits.
The second season of the series premiered on the internet via Adult Swim Fix on June 23, 2006, and on television on June 25, 2006; the season finished on October 15, 2006. The considerable delay between the end of the first season and the start of the second was partially caused by Adult Swim's delay in deciding whether to renew the show, primarily because the show is drawn and inked in the traditional animation style (albeit digitally), causing each episode to take considerable time to move through production. Additionally, the producers were dealing with the time constraints of producing a first-season DVD that contained live action interviews and commentary for several episodes.
The third season began on June 1, 2008, and marked the beginning of the show's broadcast in high-definition. A 15-minute rough cut of "The Doctor Is Sin" aired on April 1, 2008, as part of Adult Swim's April Fool's Day theme of airing sneak peeks of new episodes.
The fourth season was split into two segments airing a year apart, with the first eight episodes airing in the fall of 2009 and the remaining episodes in fall of 2010.
A note contained in the closing credits of the Season 4 finale indicated that the series would continue into the fifth season.
On February 6, 2013, it was announced that Season 5 would premiere on May 19, 2013. This was later shifted to June 2, 2013, at midnight.
On July 8, 2013, Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick stated in an interview with Slate Magazine that they had begun writing the sixth season as of Summer 2013 and that it would enter full-production in September 2013. They tentatively stated that Season 6 would premiere in Fall of 2014, or very early 2015 at the latest. This estimated season-debut date turned out to be extremely premature as Season 6 premiered at Midnight, February 1, 2016.
Jackson Publick confirmed on Twitter that Season 7 of The Venture Brothers would be aired on Adult Swim in "Summer" 2018. On June 27, it was confirmed via Adult Swim's Instagram page that Season 7 would begin August 5, 2018. For this season, Publick stepped back from directing, assuming the role of supervising director. Two-time directing partner and storyboard director for season six, Juno Lee, took over as the series director. Barry J. Kelly also served as Lee's co-director.
Since the first season, two credits have changed every episode. Soul-bot's "voicing" the character H.E.L.P.eR., and another as a nickname for animation director Kimson Albert. Each nickname is a quote from its respective episode; Albert left the series after several seasons. In season two, each end credit sequence holds a different additional (fake) duty for "AstroBase Go!".
Cancellation.
After the conclusion of the seventh season in October 2018, the series was announced to be renewed for an eighth and final season. However, on September 5, 2020, one of the show's illustrators, Ken Plume, tweeted that "The Venture Bros." was among others he would be sorry were cancelled. When asked directly about the tweet, he replied, "I have no further comment." Jackson Publick confirmed two days later that the show was cancelled, with season 8 being axed. The script for season 8 had been partially written at the time of its cancellation a few months before the public announcement.
Following the announcement, Adult Swim has stated via Twitter that "We also want more "Venture Bros." and have been working with Jackson and Doc to find another way to continue the "Venture Bros." story".
On November 13, 2020, HBO Max general manager Andy Forssell tweeted that HBO Max was "working on" reviving "The Venture Bros". While the show's revival was being discussed within the company, a source confirmed to Vulture that there was no active plans to revive the show yet.
On May 12, 2021, it was announced a direct-to-video film is currently in production.
International broadcast.
In Canada, "The Venture Bros." previously aired on Teletoon's Teletoon at Night block and later G4's Adult Digital Distraction block. The series currently airs on the Canadian version of Adult Swim.
Themes, homages, and references.
"Jonny Quest".
The series' principal reference is to the 1964 animated science fiction adventure television series "Jonny Quest", as it is the basis for many of the main characters. Dr. Venture is modelled after what a child such as Jonny Quest might have grown up to be like after having lived through a childhood filled with bizarre, life-threatening events. Brock is modelled on Race Bannon. The Venture boys are based on the Hardy Boys and take the places of Jonny and Hadji. In the episode "Ice Station – Impossible!", Brock mentions that he had served with Race Bannon on several occasions. He regards his fellow agent with respect calling him "one of the best". One newspaper critic remarked, "If filmmakers Woody Allen and Sam Peckinpah had collaborated on "Jonny Quest", it would have come out a lot like this." In season 2, Jonny Quest was introduced into the show as "Action Jonny", a homeless drug addict who deeply resents his father. As of season 4, Jonny is somewhat stable, and in a support group for former boy adventurers, along with Dr. Venture, the second Wonder Boy, RoBoy, and The Hale Brothers– the final three being parodies of Robin, Astro Boy, and The Hardy Boys respectively.
Failure as a recurring theme.
Publick and Hammer have stated that one of the primary themes of "The Venture Bros." is failure. Hammer in 2006 said, "Yeah, failure, that's what "Venture Bros." is all about. Beautiful sublime failure."
In the commentary for the episode "Home Insecurity", Hammer and Publick elaborated on the theme.
Publick: "This show... If you'll permit me to get a 'big picture', this show is actually all about failure. Even in the design, everything is supposed to be kinda the death of the space-age dream world. The death of the jet-age promises."
Hammer: "It's about the beauty of failure. It's about that failure happens to all of us...Every character is not only flawed, but sucks at what they do, and is beautiful at it and Jackson and I suck at what we do, and we try to be beautiful at it, and failure is how you get by...It shows that failure's funny, and it's beautiful and it's life, and it's okay, and it's all we can write because we are big...failures. (laughter)" 
In 2013, Publick and Hammer discussed moving away from the theme and embracing the "successes" of the characters as well.
Publick: I think you and I are both sick of every interview mentioning the “It’s a show about failure” from five years ago. I don’t think we made a conscious effort to fight that or anything, but every year, we push what we do as writers a little more. An area we hadn’t gone into very much was positivity. I mean, all our victories are still satiric, but there are definitely places where we said, “I want to see these guys do something. I don’t want to just have everything fall on its face all the time.
Reception.
The show has received critical acclaim over its run. "The Venture Bros." ranked at #56 on the IGN "Best 100 Animated Series" list. In 2013, "Slate"s Chris Wade called "The Venture Bros." "one of the best shows on television" and praised the detailed serial nature of the humor with a favorable comparison to "Arrested Development". Also in 2013, "The Atlantic"s Armin Rosen compared the show favourably to "The Simpsons", noting that the two shows held the same "slacker optimism" and great comedy. "The A.V. Club"s Zach Handlen commented in 2012 that the show had evolved over its seasons into a "meta-commentary on a whole sub-section of male nerd culture" and that it had become one of the funniest contemporary shows.
Critical reception to the first season was more mixed than later seasons but was still mostly positive. "The A.V. Club"s Emily VanDerWerff felt that the pop-culture references of the first season fell flat, especially in the beginning of the season, but grew better and funnier as the show's emotional core took hold. Mike Drucker, writing for IGN, criticized the predictability of some first-season episodes, but noted that the show was "a refreshing cartoon because it willingly indulges in the sitcom fad of the '90s".
In 2013 IGN placed "The Venture Bros." as number 12 on their list of Top 25 animated series for adults. In January 2021, Sean Cubillas of "CBR" described the series as "one of the most well-written superhero series of all time," a stand-out in the field of adult animation, and said it had "witty writing, tot pacing, and large yet complex cast of characters."
Home media.
The first season of "The Venture Bros." on DVD was released on May 30, 2006, as officially announced by Warner Home Video. It coincided with the June 25 premiere of the second season. Originally, it was scheduled for March 14, 2006, but was delayed until May 30, 2006. The DVD packaging and interior art was created by comic artist Bill Sienkiewicz. On May 31, 2006, the season one DVD reached #1 on Amazon's top selling DVDs list.
On March 27, 2010, series creator Jackson Publick revealed on his Livejournal that a standard definition DVD of the first half of season 4 would likely be released sometime between July and October 2010, with a DVD of the second half of the season and a Blu-ray box set of the entire season to be released after the full season has aired.
The first four seasons are available in the UK (both halves of Season 4 are sold as a set). Madman Entertainment have also released all seven seasons on DVD in Australia. No Blu-ray editions have yet been released in Australia. It's also the first Adult Swim series in Australia to be given a restricted MA15+ rating for Season 1 and later the higher R18+ rating for Season 4 Part 2.
The "lost DVD commentary".
Jackson Publick revealed that he and Doc Hammer had recorded a commentary track for the season one episode "Home Insecurity". Warner Home Video chose to omit this track from the Season One DVD due to space limitations and some minor sound quality issues. Publick also stated that the commentary could be downloaded.
Soundtrack CD.
For the video release of the Season 3, a soundtrack album was also released, titled "". This is the same audio CD included as a bonus with the Blu-ray version of Season 3. While the CD release was originally made available at Adult Swim's website, it was given a wide release on May 12, 2009; the vinyl LP release came out a month earlier. It can also be downloaded from most major digital retailers. The CD features 20 tracks, while the vinyl LP release is 16 tracks and a download link of the complete release including the songs omitted from the LP.
"Music of The Venture Bros: Vol 2" was released digitally on April 10, 2016 and on CD and Vinyl on June 3, 2016. The album was released on Thirlwell's own Ectopic Ents label in collaboration with Williams Street Records.
References.
Informational notes
Citations