DVD Review: Cartoon Network's Jonny Quest Parody for Adults The Venture Bros. - Season One

The Venture Bros. is a cartoon series that runs on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.  It is a very funny parody of the children’s action/adventure cartoon Jonny Quest.  In fact, the Quests’ bodyguard, Race Bannon, makes a brief appearance in the episode “Ice Station-Impossible”.




The brothers are fraternal twins, Hank and Dean, young boys with an innocence and simplicity straight out of The Hardy Boys.  You expect to hear them say things like “Gosh” and “Gee willikers”.  They are always up for an adventure, though they usually get in over their heads while illustrating that intelligence isn’t hereditary.  

Their father is Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture, a pill-popping scientist, who has failed to be as successful as his father, Dr. Jonas Venture.  The aptly named Brock Savage is the Venture’s bodyguard with a license to kill that gets used on a regular basis.  He wouldn’t know the meaning of the word “overkill” if it bit him in the “no-nos”, tore them off, spit them in his face, and then made him eat them.  

The family’s main nemesis is the Monarch, who chose the guise because he was raised by monarch butterflies when he was orphaned.  His partner-in crime is currently known as Dr. Girlfriend.  I’m still surprised that they got away with the name Molotov Cocktease for former Russian secret agent and Brock's love interest.

The show’s creative team must have been Marvel Comics readers when they were growing up because they spoof a number of characters.  Professor Impossible, voiced by Stephen Colbert, is Dr. Venture’s former school professor and a caricature of Mr. Fantastic and has his own fantastic foursome. Baron Verner Underbheit, an exchange student Dr. Venture met in college, is Dr Doom.  Dr. Orpheus, the necromancer who is renting a lab at the Venture compound that he shares with his teenage daughter, is Doctor Strange.