Vanity Plates and Underage Dates
The Venture Bros. - Season Four (2009-2010)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
In 2003, The Venture Bros. was a riff on the Space Ghost joke that boy adventurers were imprisoned inside the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that made them stars. Rusty, the son of an alpha male misogynist, struggled with his failures as a scientist and a father, while Brock the bodyguard cut up henchmen for fun. We met the arch-nemesis, then his wife, and what seemed like a hundred (a thousand!) other characters. When they spoke, they shouted, and so over-stuffed were the scripts that they must stack twice as high as any other half-hour show on TV.
Brock, as blunt as a man can get, was the perfect ambassador, in a way. He’s voiced by Patrick Warburton, who alsovoiced played The Tick – a superhero send-up whose villains had more than a little in common with guys like Monarch and Henchman 21. The Venture Bros. is as colorful as taffy, and each time those jokes about Rusty’s psychoses stretched about as far as I could stand, the show’s creators folded them back and pulled again.
At this stage, Rusty is more like Kenny Powers than Dr. Katz, but he lives in a world where every vulgar creation is loved. The episodes are a madhouse, and watching six hours at a time (the only way to greet each new half-season release) is like melting that taffy down into sugar water and joining the hummingbirds in la-la land. Hank and Dean are my Franny and Zooey - kids with money and a lot to say.
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
In 2003, The Venture Bros. was a riff on the Space Ghost joke that boy adventurers were imprisoned inside the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that made them stars. Rusty, the son of an alpha male misogynist, struggled with his failures as a scientist and a father, while Brock the bodyguard cut up henchmen for fun. We met the arch-nemesis, then his wife, and what seemed like a hundred (a thousand!) other characters. When they spoke, they shouted, and so over-stuffed were the scripts that they must stack twice as high as any other half-hour show on TV.
Brock, as blunt as a man can get, was the perfect ambassador, in a way. He’s voiced by Patrick Warburton, who also
At this stage, Rusty is more like Kenny Powers than Dr. Katz, but he lives in a world where every vulgar creation is loved. The episodes are a madhouse, and watching six hours at a time (the only way to greet each new half-season release) is like melting that taffy down into sugar water and joining the hummingbirds in la-la land. Hank and Dean are my Franny and Zooey - kids with money and a lot to say.
posted by NPK at 11:07 AM
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