After waiting years for new episodes, fans of The Venture Bros were delighted to have the work of Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer back on their television or computer screens. Unfortunately, the season that was so long-awaited turned out to be only 8 episodes. For those not familiar with the show, The Venture Bros features Hank and Dean Venture, two brothers created in a lab by their former child star scientist father, Thadeus “Rusty Venture.” In addition are a cast of warped characters based on caricatures of Saturday Morning cartoon characters. The show is witty and pop-culture heavy, featuring a great deal of random one-liners and sight-gags involving things such as the TARDIS from Doctor Who and several Science Fiction robots that have been long forgotten.
In addition to 8 regular episodes, the box set features the A Very Venture Halloween Special, A Venture Venture Halloween with commentary and From The Ladle to the Grave: The Shallow Gravy Story, a tongue-in-cheek VH1-style video discussing Hank Venture’s band. Also included is Fax My Grandson, extended audio for a scene featuring two aging former members of the group Sphinx. There are also several deleted scenes showing the pencil work rather than completed art.
My only disappointment with this set was a lack of audio commentary. For anyone who hasn’t spend a good deal of time listening to Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick speak, it’s basically like listening to two incredibly funny popculture nerds go off on fifteen tangents a minute. The best part of a Venture Bros DVD or Bluray is this commentary, so the disc feels like it’s missing a large piece of it’s soul. While commentary is included for the A Very Venture Halloween, the amount of time we had to wait for this half season alone merits a little bit extra for a box set. I’d hoped for more, but at this point I will take what I can get from this series.
The Venture Bros: Season 5 is now available on Blu-Ray.
