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Season 3 delves into characters' back stories; soundtrack is eclectic mix
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
Published on Sunday, Apr 12, 2009
Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, once a few late-night hours of repurposed Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, has expanded into a cultural phenomenon and cash cow aimed directly at Generation X and the coveted 18-to-35-year-old market.
Many of the shows are 15-minute slices of surrealism, such as 12 Oz Mouse, Squidbillies and the ever-popular Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
But one of the crown jewels of Adult Swim is The Venture Bros., a show that encapsulates the pop-culture-obsessed channel and its viewers while delivering a funny, inventive and surprisingly linear story.
The show is written by Gen-Xers Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick (aka Christopher McCulloch), who both worked on The Tick. The 1960s adventure cartoon Jonny Quest is the basis, but the creators corral familiar characters, situations and references from a variety of old superhero cartoons, then add contemporary neuroses and problems never faced by the costumed heroes of yore.
The show centers around Dr. Thaddeus ''Rusty'' Venture, the insecure, pill-addicted, no-self-esteem son of the late, great ''super scientist'' and founder of Venture Industries, Dr. Jonas Venture. Rusty was the childhood star of a Jonny Quest-like series. but as an adult he is an unmitigated failure, driving his father's once-great business into arrears and always scheming new ways to make money.
His two teenage sons, Hank and Dean, are well-meaning, naive, clueless idiots (and clones, it was revealed at the end of Season 1). Due to their life of constant danger and adventure, they are completely out of step with their peers.
In the alternate universe of the Venture family, superheroes and supervillains have an organized set of rules and regulations that both sides must follow.
Season 3 spends the least amount of time with the Ventures, instead filling in the back stories of popular characters such as Dr. Venture's self-proclaimed archenemy, The Monarch, and his beautiful wife Dr. Mrs. The Monarch (whose voice sounds like actor/playwright Harvey Fierstein after three packs of unfiltered cigarettes), The Phantom Limb and Col. Hunter Gathers, a transsexual former operative who looks, sounds and smokes like writer Hunter S. Thompson.
Since they are filling in back story, viewers are treated to a slew of new and old characters. They aren't just good or evil; they are beset with personal problems and neuroses. Some characters come and go in one episode, while other episodes tell the stories of previously introduced characters such as Dr. Venture's Guild-assigned archenemy Sgt. Hatred, who has marital troubles, an intense foot fetish and a taste for young boys.
Maintaining their generation's raison d'etre, The Venture Bros. is both a vicious skewering and unabashed love note to those old cartoons, their simplistic black-and-white concepts of good vs. evil, and the naivete of the 1960s dreams of the space age that never came true.
As with the last two releases, the episodes are uncut, meaning all the naughty words and nudity censored for television are given free reign. The two-disc set's extras are few, including a few deleted, non-animated but voiced scenes, and commentary for each season's dozen episodes. The commentary varies from a few inside secrets about the production and writing process to rambling non sequiturs and some funny tangents such as an extended riff on the general awfulness and political incorrectness of the film The Eiger Sanction on disc one.
The show's soundtrack is included in the Blu-ray version and is also available separately, featuring music composed by Jim Thirlwell. Thirlwell is best known as the mastermind behind Foetus and many other noms de plume — Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel, Foetus Under Glass, Manorexia to name a few. But he got this gig for his instrumental side project, Steroid Maximus, which Publick has said was a big influence on The Venture Bros.
Like the show, Thirlwell's music is a pastiche, including classic-sounding noir, spy themes, Latin, and skewed big-band jazz, often mixed with contemporary beats. Thirlwell performs the bulk of the music himself and his use of sampled orchestras and instruments adds an appropriate sense of surrealism to his music that meshes perfectly with the show.
Thirlwell's soundtrack work recalls other film/television score masters such as Henry Mancini and Quincy Jones, and tracks such as Fumblestealth resemble an updated version of Lalo Shifrin's groovy music for Mission Impossible and Enter The Dragon.
Thirlwell also pays homage to Spaghetti Western composer Ennio Morricone on the aptly named Spag; plays some warped blues on Mississippi Noir featuring some fine wah mute trumpet soloing from Steven Bernstein; and goes wild with the sampled orchestra patches on Tuff.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, once a few late-night hours of repurposed Hanna-Barbera cartoons such as Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, has expanded into a cultural phenomenon and cash cow aimed directly at Generation X and the coveted 18-to-35-year-old market.
Get the full article here.
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