I had seen the previews of the "Venture Brothers" and found it funny before watching the actual show. The show has good continuity with plenty of comical and dumb humor nicely packed into each episode. Just about every episode I saw was pretty funny which has me laughing afterwards. If you want a good comedy to wind you down, I suggest watching Venture Brothers which is on the Sunday night Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network.
In a sense, they spoof stuff like Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Three Investigators, and Jonny Quest. They do a good job parodying the world of heroes, villains, and all sorts of secret organizations. The story revolves around four characters: Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture, Dean Venture, Hank Venture, and Brock Sampson.
Dr. Venture is by far the most humorously pathetic characters. He inherited Venture Industries from his father, Dr. Jonas Venture. His goal is to be great as his father but fails. Basically, he likes to cut corners which causes trouble and doesn’t seem to care about his sons that much as he has made multiple clones of them.
The Venture Brothers are basically idiots. The two of them constantly go on these "adventures" under the "supervision" of Brock Sampson the agent assigned to protect the family. He came from the same agency as Race Bannon from "Jonny Quest" but is the complete opposite.
Brock seems to be homophobic when a nurse assumed that he and Dr. Venture were a couple during one episode. He’s also a womanizer that’s gotten with a good number of women except for Molotov Cocktease a former agent of the Soviet Union. Molotov has a chastity belt that Brock hasn’t been able to take off and it drives him nuts. My favorite part about Brock is that he’s pretty homicidal like Punisher’s long lost brother or something. But the way they made Brock a homicidal maniac was pretty funny.
The family does seem to have an interesting assortment of allies such as Dr. Venture’s more successful and more hardworking brother Jonas, Jr. who is only two feet tall.
They’re assisted time to time by Dr. Byron Orpheus who is a necromancer with mystic abilities. He can raise the dead, communicate spirits, and send spirits into the afterlife. Orpheus is very dramatic and seems to care more about the boys than Dr. Venture does. He longs for an archenemy of his own which is shown when he is passing business cards to various villains at the garage sale in one episode.
Venture Brothers isn’t complete without an assortment of interesting villains such as the Monarch who thinks he’s a devious villain but is pathetic. His assistant Dr. Girlfriend who looks like Jackie Kennedy is the brains of the bunch and has a man’s voice which I found pretty funny. He eventually got sent to prison and assigned as a youth motivator to kids who are prone into getting sent to prison.
There’s Baron Underbheit with a metallic jaw. Watching him carefully, this person is a poke at Dr. Doom of Latveria the main villain of the Fantastic Four. And then there’s Phantom Limb a person with invisible arms and legs. So far, he’s the only intelligent villain but doesn’t care much about the Venture Brothers. All he cares about is having Dr. Girlfriend all to himself. He’s more a villain to Monarch than he is to the Venture Brothers.
The creators do a good job poking fun at everything. There’s even a group that’s a parody of the Fantastic Four called The Impossibles. Their powers are a mockery of the Fantastic Four’s powers which made it hilarious. There’s Sue Impossible that can go invisible but only leaving her flesh behind and needs concentration keeping her skin visible. There’s Cody who can ignite himself but can’t control this reaction which is painful.
With the storylines and the characters, it’s no mystery that Venture Brothers is a very successful TV show. The third season is going to be released around 2007-2008. Overall, it’s gut busting humor if you’re familiar with comics and the old cartoons.