The Venture Bros./Headscratchers

• In season 2 episode 4 "Escape to the House of Mummies Part II" Dr. Venture expresses disbelief in magic, and refers to Dr. Orpheus as doing, 'Card tricks at children's birthday parties.' He then has a science vs magic argument with Orpheus, where he professes that his scientific mechanical devices are superior to Orpheus's magic. HOWEVER, In season 1 episode 5, "Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!", Dr. Venture used the soul of an orphan to power his 'Joy Can', which would appear to be magical in nature. This leads to a contradiction in his later displeasure with Orpheus' magic.
  • It's explained in that same episode that both magic and science achieve the same results, just with different terms and methods. There is, then, presumably some scientific process by which Rusty could derive power from an orphan heart (shudder.)
• Could someone explain to me what The Monarch's defense was in Shadowman 9? Actually I'm not even sure what he was charged with.
  • He was charged with illegal arching. Their defense essentially came down to Phantom Limb falling for a really stupid lie, and thus the entire thing must have been some sort of set-up. Largely, the entire interrogation was just a test to see how loyal they were to each other.
    • To put it more correctly, this was Dr. Girlfriend's defense for The Monarch. The Monarch's own "defense" was that he did not invent his supervillain identity purely to menace Dr. Venture, but also to try to seduce Dr. Girlfriend, as she would not have been as impressed if he stayed in his place as a henchman. Nevermind the fact that this claim, though true, does nothing to disprove the supposed accusation of The Monarch's unlicensed arching.
  • Right. To put this into real-world terms, think of The Guild as any other Union and The Monarch as a Journeyman who has been selling his services as a Master-level Guild Member. Monarch's defense basically came down to two points. First, that his becoming the Monarch was motivated just as much by his trying to impress Dr. Girlfriend/Queen Etheria as his desire for revenge on Thaddeus Venture, which negated The Guild's charges that he was basically a scab, flouting guild authority. Second, as Doctor-Mrs. Girlfriend-The Monarch pointed out, there was no way The Monarch could have operated as a pseudo-Guild member for so long without The Phantom Limb helping cover for him. This may actually be the gods honest truth, since Phantom Limb was the one who formally signed The Monarch up for Guild Membership in Season 2.
  • A minor correction. The Monarch was a Guild sanctioned villain before Season 2, he just spent several years before becoming one in full blown villain aggression against Dr. Venture. He was a henchman, and on the way to being a full villain, when he started being The Monarch, he just wasn't advanced enough yet. Remember, The Monarch had his own henchmen and Dr. Girlfriend as his Number Two, none of which would have been possible without the legitimate authority. It's just after Phantom Limb framed him in Trial of the Monarch he was expelled from the Guild for breaking their rules and let back in in Victor Echo November.
  • The best part about all this is the end of credits scene where it turns out that yes, Phantom Limb WAS dumb enough to fall for the Monarch's ruse.
    • That, or he was already crazy, or when the Limb says no one gets off his Shit List, he means it.
• Why did Brock feel dissatisfied with his job at the end of season 3? His job didn't seem any different than in season 2 when he declined Molotov's offer.
  • Even from my perspective as a viewer, season 3 was waaaay weirder than the previous two seasons. Also, a fair number of the episodes feature Brock being very confused. He didn't quit because he was unsatisfied as much as because he had just had enough.
  • Alternatively, he might've known Rusty could go nuts and try activating the ORB and didn't want to be the one who had to kill him.
  • Also, he'd just watched all of the boys' clones be slaughtered. He's shown more affection for them than their own father has -- watching dozens of members of his family die right in front of him probably broke his spirit pretty good.
    • Not only that but with all the clones dead the boy's "safety net" was gone. As death-prone as they are he probably didn't want to have to actually see them die for good. Getting a letter, or a phone call may be easier for him to take.
  • And in "¡Viva los Muertos!", he starts to feel bad about killing henchpersons as freely as he has in the past. The whole thing can likely be chalked up to character development.
• How could people actually work on The ORB and add to it but not know what it does?
  • How could scientists, authors, artists and inventors all "contribute" to a little metal ball? The point of the whole episode is that the ORB conspiracy is impossibly elaborate, like a Dan Brown novel. The fact that ORB itself doesn't make any sense is part of the joke.
  • Actually this is entirely possible on anything sufficiently complex with enough collaborators and is fairly common with programming and other large projects. An example would be the episode of O.R.B. itself. The actual animators of the show only really draw a few frames per animation, the "inbetweening" (drawing the 20+ frames in between the key frames) are usually done by other studios. The animators doing the inbetweening, while contributing to the project, probably have no real idea how the episode as a whole works and fits together, despite being instrumental in the process.
  • Or consider the movie Cube. They were so excited to find out that one of their number worked on the Cube project, only to learn that he only contributed to the outer shell, and has no idea about the inner workings.
    • Both the Cube and the animation examples only work because there's a direction team with a goal in mind running the project. The fact of the matter is that the ORB couldn't have worked or done anything impressive - that's part of the joke. The greatest minds of all time spent hours fiddling with a lump of metal believing it to be the Singularity or the Ultimate Weapon when all it was just a lump of metal.
• In the last episode of the third season, why didn't Brock and the others just call J.J. for a pickup to his island instead of desperately trying to reach him?
  • Maintaining radio silence.
• So why does Dr. Venture even bother to replace Hank and Dean when they die? Does he really love them or is it some other unexplained reason?
  • He genuinely loves them. He's just so fucked up its almost impossible for him to express it.
  • Or maybe he just doesn't want to explain what happened to them.
    • This seems unlikely as the boys died for a pretty legitimate reason with witnesses at the end of season one. If he just didn't care he could have always left it at that instead of activating another set of clones.
      • Based on recent events, I think they're Exactly What It Says on the Tin for him: Replacement Goldfish for the original Hank and Dean that died, I think, 12 clones ago? Having them around makes it feel like the boys are okay and nothing bad ever happened to them, but just talking to them for even a couple seconds makes it painfully clear that these immature shells are not his children that he loved and brings it all back. So he keeps recreating them because he needs them on an emotional level, but he can't actually bring himself to love them because he knows they're a lie.
  • Then of course there's the whole 'walking organ bank' thing - you never know when you'll need another kidney or two.
• When The Monarch starts arching Jonas Venture Jr., J.J. seem rather puzzled about how to proceed. But having apparently paid attention during the forty-odd year he was inside Rusty Venture, wouldn't he be intimately aware of what was expected?
• Why does no one understand that Hunter got the sex change because He wanted and not that it was just part of the mission?
  • And you're basing this on...what?
    • You mean the supposed sex change that the season 4 opener reveals was just a faked bit of plastic surgery?
      • And in "Ghosts" he reveals that he actually DID get a sex change, but then reversed it (probably in the same way as Mr. Garrison).
    • Sorry, my bad. I rewatched the episode like immediately after I posted that and paid closer attention and realize what everyone else saw. I feel like such an ass.
  • Honestly, Hunter probably got the sex change because he wanted it and the mission was a good excuse for doing it.
  • This is confirmed as of The Silent Partners.
• In 'Doctor Quymm, Medicine Woman' Nancy and Drew are turned off by Hank after they learn he's uncut. But they're British and circumcision is uncommon in the UK! In fact I've heard British women express the reverse attitude, that circumcised penises are less attractive since they're used to uncut.
  • Their Mileage May Vary.
    • I guess they could have gotten used to having sex with the local, cut natives?
  • Doc and Jackson either think all teenage girls are grossed out by uncut penises or they're making fun of teenage girls that are grossed out by uncut penises. It's cropped up in the show from time to time.
    • "Stop bragging about your circumcision, Hank."
• Really? In the entire Venture compound, there is only one bathroom?
  • Maybe there are several others, but they all use supertechnology Rusty can't maintain, so only one of them still works, and he refuses to ask for help for the others.
  • There are at least three; the one Sgt Hatred was crying in, the one just off the boys' bedroom that Torrid was using, and the one off Rusty's bedroom where he first saw the 'hickey'. Maybe 24 didn't want to risk using one of the others and be caught with his pants down?
    • Sometime in season 4 they show that the hallway one is connected to the boys' room. So there are only 2 confirmed bathrooms.
    • A Series Continuity Error, then... The bathroom Hatred was in was fairly small, with the bath on the left (screen right) and sink on the right, while the one off the bedroom that Torrid was using was much larger, and had both the sink and the bath to the right of the toilet. The door was on the wall that the toilet's back was to in Hatred's, while in Torrid's, the toilet faced the door into the bedroom, and the second door was in a small nook/very short hallway behind the bathtub.
  • Well, the character's really only hang around that one specific part of the compound. It's a huge place, complete with factories and other apartments like Orpheus's, which probably have their own bathrooms. In season 4 it's shown that S.P.H.I.N.X has their own bathroom with a giant bath in the Venture compound factory.
• Why can't Rusty make new clones of the boys? If it's just because they're illegal and now that he's been caught out he can't keep it up that would be understandable, but the reason seems to be that he can only age the clones at normal human speed instead. However, in The Buddy System he has a clone of the boy slapped together by the time evening came; even though it was incomplete, the clone was obviously a grown (but gooey) kid and not a couple of hours old zygote, and it wasn't just one of Hank or Dean's clones quickly modified since Rusty mentions fixing his genetic propensity towards cancer. Not wanting to clone 24 as anything older than a baby is understandable, since the clone would come out of the vat without any memories and raising him from infancy would be easier than trying to teach a mindless adult, but he should have his recordings of the boy's memories stashed somewhere.
  • I'm more bugged by the fact that Orpheus was unable to bring back Number 24, claiming he can't bring back the dead. But he tried to do just that in the episode where we first discover the boys are clones, and he claimed to have resurrected several other people in the past, saying it's a relatively trivial matter.
    • He stated before that he needs both a body and a soul to resurrect the dead, and being unable to find the boy's souls is what stopped him the first time, 24 is just a skull now, he has no body to attach his soul to.
  • His equipment was probably seized by OSI.
    • He could still clone if he was motivated. He would've cloned 21 if he believed the comic was worth as much as it was, and he would've cloned Hitler if he wasn't, you know, Hitler.
  • I think he just doesn't want to, so that the boys actually learn survival skills by thinking that their safety net is gone. As long as they still use the "learning machine", they can be uploaded into a new clone body eventually. Or cloning is illegal in his world, and he doesn't want to risk it getting out.
  • I'm pretty sure in one episode they explicitly explain that cloning is illegal and now that he's been found out by the OSI, they're keeping a close watch on him.
    • Cloning has been illegal at least since the Brisbyland episode.
  • Plus when 21 wants to clone 24 Rusty says he'll be a baby, so I think all the clones start as babies...
  • For that matter, why would Brock go to so much effort to save Hank from the Goliath Serum rather than just killing him and booting up a new clone? Although, in a bit of Fridge Brilliance, it makes Dr. V seem like less of a Jerkass for taking two kidneys (one from each of them) rather than just one.
    • Because then he'd have to kill Dean too, to ensure that they didn't know they were clones. Also, no women, no children thing?
    • Plus, Brock isn't really a Complete Monster and all?
    • That's probably it. Brock genuinely loves the boys, as has been shown time and time again. He's constantly risking his life to save them -- he doesn't view them as disposable. I mean, he jokes around in the season 2 premiere when they're dead and their new bodies are cooking, but that's probably him coping.
• So... who DID kill 24?
  • If you want to blame someone within the show, it's 24's fault for buckling in the first place, as 21 states, "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!". If you want to really blame someone, I'd blame the car's manufacturers for building shoddy seat belts that don't allow you to escape quickly.
  • Sure, 24 buckled up on his own, but someone else triggered the bomb to go off (we saw Dr. Girlfriend leave the bomb's remote control in the cocoon). It seems that the ever-bloodthirsty moppets are the most likely. Or, on a more pathetic and less dramatic note, the bomb might have just had hastily-made faulty wiring by the Monarch.

• Hunter is a pretty aware guy, a modern lorekeeper in a world of wizards, mummies, Japanese demons, superspies, villainous organizations and aliens, Hunter is THE man with the in-depth knowledge regarding many of the worlds conspiracies. But what on earth would drive him to tell his trainee and dear friend Brock Sampson that Vampires don't exist? Meanwhile, Jefferson Twilight, who was introduced only 4 episodes later, is on the prowl for Blaculas; black though they may be, they are still vampires, and not even the discreet, masquerading vampires that would seek to hide themselves either, since they raped Jefferson's poor mom right in front of him and let him live.
  • Have we seen any white vampires? I'm willing to believe that Hunter personally himself killed them all, and the thought of blackulas didn't even cross his mind.
    • dats racist.
    • Jefferson was not willing to rule out Caucasian vampires as the cause of the problem in "What Goes Down, Must Come Up". Presumably, they existed at one time, and if they've been wiped out, Jefferson isn't aware of it.
  • Hunter says that female vampires are fictional. To the best of my knowledge we have only seen male vampires. Maybe only males can catch the Vampire bug or whatever the hell it is.
  • A) It was the '80s when that scene took place. It's very possible that he had never encountered a vampire and just wrote them off as a whole, having assumed that because he had seen everything else, that they must not exist. B) Conspiracy theorists don't believe every single theory, no matter how crazy they might be, or even things that are definitely provable.
• The entire episode Every Which Way But Zeus, just bugs me. We never see any more than four hoplite guards ushering henchmen into the arena. Four guys... and apparently Shoreleave and Henchman 21 can't kill all four of them in less than five seconds. Seriously. They are two of the most ass-kicking individuals in the show. You could make the argument that they were afraid of getting set upon by "Zeus" if they started anything, but I still think they (or even just one of them) should have been able to overpower the four guards while they were inside the barn, freed all the other henchmen and THEN went out to take on "Zeus" and Zero. I mean... its 21 and Shoreleave for crying out loud! One of them once took on a laboratory full of dudes with guns and the other went toe-to-toe with BROCK SAMSON. And when they finally DO take on the guards, they predictably have no trouble taking them out. It just really stretches credulity, even in this show.
  • They're also both smart enough to want to know what they're getting into before engaging. By the time they do fight the guards, General 21 has already figured out Zero's identity and the secret behind Zeus's appearances. Prior to that, for the information they have, yes, they COULD take down the four guards, and then Zeus can blast them both to death with a lightning bolt. Knowing your enemy is better than fighting blind.
  • There's also the fact that while Henchman 21 and Shoreleave could probably kill all the guards single-handed, there's little they could do protect the less combat-able henchman - most of whom were support-level techies like Billy Quizboy and Pete White. Shoreleave's too much of a hero to take the chance of innocents being hurt and there's probably some kind of Guild Law regarding selling out your fellow prisoners when taken hostage that 21 would adhere to, even ignoring his own latent heroic impulses.
• Also from Every Which Way But Zeus, assuming every Captain Sunshine has the same powers, did anyone else notice that "Zeus" apparently attacked Shore Leave at night?
  • The Monarch built a device that duplicates his successor's powers and happens to revitalize him if it's used on him at night. Maybe he stole or duplicated it specifically for night battles.
• Why does everyone have black eyebrows?
  • Making an outline and filling it in with color is hard when the object in question is tiny and thin. You basically have to make two almost parallel lines and then fix up the ends, it's a nightmare just for a still drawing, let alone animation.
    • But couldn't you just make the eyebrow a different color without outlining it?
• Why isn't Rusty sitting on a mountain of money? Noting,of course,that he actually seems pretty wealthy- Why doesn't he use his cloning process to provide human organs(like he's already effectively done for himself),making a killing in the process? Did he just not think of it?
  • Human cloning is illegal in the United States.
  • And the technology isn't perfect, it still takes a lifetime to grow something that's of any use.
  • He grew a clone from scratch in a *single afternoon*, which implies control over differentiation and what's to stop him from doing it in some other country?
  • Did you see that thing? It was hardly a perfect clone, it was hardly human at all, plus he pretty much admitted that it was mentally a blank slate.
  • Which stops him from cloning organs how..?
  • Think if it this way. In Doc's world a bunch of guys got a replacement metal heart.......because they really liked Iron Man. In Doc's world all of his awesome superscience that'd blow our minds is not only common place but his superscience is rather mediocre in comparison to everyone else's.
• In Assisted Suicide, why exactly did Dr. Girlfriend and the Monarch have a Henchman 21-sized gimp suit?
  • The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend were supposedly in an open marriage. Maybe those were leftovers from their last awkward attempt.
• The being "broke all of the time" story lines on this show really bug me. Rusty Venture has created numerous clones...had a successful TV show and his father was a millionaire inventor/scientist. If there are any situations that would mean that you DO have money, those are them (they?). The Ventures would have so much money,they'd be TIRED of having so much.
  • It was explicitly stated within the show by Rusty himself (during the O.R.B episode) that he has never seen a penny of any Rusty Venture, Boy Adventurer merchandise sales. Also, Rusty's shallowness as a person and failure as a scientist has been demonstrated time and time again, from the new car he just up and bought when he wanted to feel young again (during Mid Life Chrysalis), to the sentient "Joy Can" that he built which had to be destroyed before it could be sold (in Enie, Miney... Magic!). The cloning facility must have cost a fortune by itself and the fact that he kept it secret means he never reaped any profit from it beyond keeping his boys "alive" as he brought them along on dangerous expeditions. It's not hard to believe that Rusty has been constantly squandering his father's fortune over the past 20 years while the surely astronomical bills of maintaining a super-sonic jet, cloning facility and giant super-science compound have piled up without him making any significant contributions to the scientific community to make money off of.
  • Ok...so a lawsuit for the merchandising and as for the cloning...HUMAN cloning may be illegal; cloning animals is not. And I'm sure that even in the "Venture Universe" the utility of cloning animals can easily be seen. And even if it can't be and the act of cloning may be illegal, teaching people to clone is not.
    • I kinda assumed Rusty's just really poor with money. Were he to be more efficient with his spending, he'd likely be much wealthier, but due to his apathy, he's not really that motivated.
    • Rusty being bad with money is pretty much canon, after Dr. Killinger fixed his finances in about a week.

• In Operation P.R.O.M., Henchman 21 quits working for The Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch in disgust after he confesses to having a monster crush on the latter and having made-out with the latter over the comatose body of the former... and neither of them care because all super-villains are supposed to be swingers! Not only does this contradict everything we know about The Monarch, given his reaction to the "tell-all" book revealing Dr. Girlfriend's past "Number Two-ing" for various other villains (i.e. calling her a whore and kicking her out of his cocoon) - it also contradicts everything we saw in the Season 3 opener where Phantom Limb has MAJOR issues with his "Queen Etheria" having a quickie in the backseat of "Man-O-Taur"'s car.
  • Not to mention you'd expect Gary - who has been hyper-competent in Season 4 - to have kept better track of the movements of his bosses given his encyclopedic knowledge about everything else regarding their operations and his boss's likes and dislikes.
  • It's possible that they were just bluffing in order to sweep the potential drama under the rug. Either that, or their views on polygamy relaxed when they got married.
  • The Monarch doesn't mind because he believes he was part of a drunken threesome. It's the thought of Dr. Mrs getting it on with people he hates, like Phantom Limb and Dr. Venture, that enrages him. Guys she was with before him, same. If he knew that he was unconscious, and Sheila and 21 were bonding over how hard it is to work for the Monarch, he probably would be less okay with it.

• Other than Rule of Funny, why did they have to erase Hank's memory of getting laid? They explain the memory eraser can't pick and choose memories to erase, that it erases the most recent memories... so can't they just erase everything AFTER him hooking up with her?
  • The only thing I can think of is the fact they might think it's more cruel to let him remember that and not realize the squick involved... but they were fine with the idea of not telling him and letting him be happy before.

• What color is Dean's hair supposed to be? When the show first came out, I saw his hair as red, but now it seems more brown.
  • Ruddy brown that leans more to the brown end in most lights?

• Was anyone else a little confused by the Monarch's "confession" in the Shallow Gravy special? He seems to imply he was directly responsible for killing HEL Pe R, which he was only partially. He had the bomb installed, but as we know he didn't activate it (the detonator was on Mrs. Monarch chair). So either he's embellishing the fact that he was basically the reason HEL Pe R "died", or he did actually activate the bomb. If the latter is true, it kind of defeats the whole mystery, especially since they had the lingering shot on the detonator to imply it was for the taking of whoever wanted it.
  • Would it be the first time that Jackson and Hammer resolve an important plot-point in a completely anti-climactic manner? They won't let Gary find the 'real' killer, so he would have to settle for the next best thing : the man who made H.E.L.P.E.R into an explosive gift for Dr Venture. The Monarch making little case of his henchmen, it's no wonder he doesn't realize that he's basically confessing to the murder of 21's best friend and making himself a very dangerous and personal enemy.
• How can Triana have been "afraid of [her] closet all her life" if she and Dr. Orpheus hadn't been living there that long?
  • 1) She always subconsciously (possibly due to her magical abilities) picks a room on the same side of the house where the portal to the Necropolis has to be. 2) Teenager exaggeration.

• Perhaps it's just Idiot Ball and Rule of Funny or something, but why the hell would Henchmens 21 and 24 (as it is implied if not outright confirmed) write "The Flight of the Monarch" in the episode "The Trial of the Monarch" if they knew it was only going to lead to trouble. It seems that a good deal of the plot on the second season, about the Monarch trying to get back Doctor Girlfriend could have been avoided if they just didn't make the damn book.
  • I don't think we know why they wrote it, but we know that 24 didn't think his pal was dumb enough to put the Monarch's face on the cover. So yeah, they knew the trouble it could create, but at least one of them thought of using some tricks to prevent their boss from reading it.
• Season three finale. Two questions--1) what on Earth was marching the Venture clone slugs between the two armys supposed to accomplish? Was it the ceasefire? Was that what they were expecting to happen? 2) What's with the Ventures and Brock jumping out of the coccoon after the first commercial when they arrive at the compound? How did they get there? Why didn't the Monarch just kill them while he had them in his ship?
  • 1. The clone slugs were supposed to be a distraction / disposable army to interfere with the OSI-Monarch battle. It's just that no one planned for the Monarch to get into his spinning, laser firing battle suit and slaughter all of the clones in less than three minutes. Besides, it got Hatred out of the Panic Room and not try to kill himself (there). 2. The Venture gang climbed into the coccoon as it was leaving so they would get a quick ride back to the compound. That was a place normally for henchman deployment so the Monarch didn't know that they were there.
• What is the name of the track often used in the show (the upbeat-ish sounding one with a chorus singing "zoom zoom zoom zoom" along with the melody), as seen here, and where can I find it?
  • Or this electronica-esque track? Both pop up in the show on more than one occasion, but are nowhere to be found on the official soundtrack.