The Mantis-Eye Experiment

Fans of The Venture Bros. probably know of Ken Plume, the very first Astro-Base Cadet (he might even have graduated past cadet at this point) and his site called FRED. Among the features on the site include the 'Bit of a Chat' series where Ken chats with various guests as the name might suggest. This week he has a bit of a chat with Venture Bros. creator Jackson Publick. The chat promises to be about "writing, Edith Ann, pee jars, smoking, dead air, shoebox bases, and box furniture," so get your podcast listening device of choice ready and get going. Many thanks to Adult Swim Central for pointing this out.

If you're a fan of animation but also have kids you may be aware of the Parents Television Council which essentially watches naughty TV programs and rates them as far as their kid-friendliness goes. Their most recent study (there's a PDF download on the right) delves into the world of animation, including some of our favorite series airing on Adult Swim such as The Venture Bros..

"Nielsen data told us where children ages 12-17 are watching animated programming on basic cable. PTC analysts followed the Nielsen data in order to see exactly what type of material kids are consuming. The findings of this report should be vexing for every parent. The term 'adult' not only describes the nature of the cartoon content itself; it also describes the products being marketed to kids," said PTC President Tim Winter.

Obviously parenting and not exposing your kids to whatever you deem unfit is important and the study can provide some valuable insight in that regard, it should be noted that well over half of the content explored by the study were shows airing on Adult Swim which accounted for the vast majority of the offensive content. 100% of all drug references and drug depictions, 95% of the sexual references, 85% of the explicit language and 65% of sexual depictions. So if you have kids and learn anything from the study it should be to not let them watch Adult Swim.

Douglas Lovelace, who has provided his storyboarding skills to every season of The Venture Bros. is up to his old tricks again. Head on over to his eBay items for sale page to check out the latest crop of storyboard auctions, among them the above scene from "Ice Station Impossible". Though clocking in at $99 it is the most expensive item there. If you're more of a frugal shopper you should check out this piece of Dr. Girlfriend looking kind of pissed. You can hang it on your wall and secretly pretend that she's your wife and always angry at you for playing too many video games. I mean, that's kind of weird, but you could totally do it. Don't pretend like you didn't think of it.

Adult Swim has put up one of their promos for the Venture Bros. special, "From The Ladle To The Grave: The Story of Shallow Gravy" letting you know about the special, which airs midnight on the night of August 28th, and the preceding Venture Bros. marathon, which is sure to kick butt. Get ready for it!

There's also a a second promo that doesn't have any footage from the episode but does include a cheerleader, if you're into that sort of thing. Remember, midnight on the night of August 28th!

For those of you who ordered a Brock Samson statue from Sideshow Collectibles you'll be pleased to know that they've finally been given a more concrete ship date. The latest Sideshow newsletter reveals that the statues will ship in November 2011, so in three months or so you have something to look forward to. For those of you who haven't ordered one but might want to, there are still some of both the exclusive and standard version left.

The latest in a long line of five-minute interviews with Jackson and Doc standing in front of a Comic-Con branded screen, the Flickcast only escapes the dreaded round-up post because they waited until now to post their interview. Check it out to learn what kind of gross, bachelor foods Doc has conceived throughout the years. Also some stuff about The Venture Bros.. That's with the royal 'the', by the way. It's difficult to convey in text.

For those of you looking forward to the BifBangPow! 3 3/4" figures revealed at Comic-Con be wary that they are apparently not fully approved yet. Hopefully the outlook is good, but fellow Venture fansite Venture Bros. Blog has an interview with BBP honcho Jason Lenzi where he reveals the following:

Now, as excited as everybody is and I don’t mean to pee in anybody’s internet cornflakes, these are not green lit. We are not definitely going to make these. It all depends on audience interest and cost. With this scale, we are dealing with a different material and we would be doing everything from scratch. Each part of the figure has to have it’s own laser cut mold and it can get very costly. So it’s a question of whether there’s enough support from the fans to make the minimum needed.

So if you want to get your hands on those figures, let them know how excited you are! Also the interview covers many more toy-line type things and you should check it out.

This appeared to go up very quietly in the last 24 hours or so, but Adult Swim Video has launched 'Gold' episodes, which are full-length episodes you can view in HD. The caveat here is that you need to currently subscribe to one of their partner providers to watch the video. So if you subscribe to AT&T U-Verse, Comcast, Cox, Dish Network, DirecTV, SuddenLink or Verizon for cable TV then you can watch Gold episodes! Just sign in with your account thingy. Currently there are four Venture Bros. episodes up. There's no additional catch beyond needing to subscribe to one of those services, and there are still the usual number of normal-quality episodes up, though they're different than the Gold ones. If you have any more questions, Adult Swim put up some frequently asked questions that may help.

For those of you who can't wait for your hot ladle injection (does that even make sense?) of Shallow Gravy on August 28th, you'll be happy to know that the two and a half hours that come before it are chock full of chunky Venture Bros. goodness. There will be four episodes of the show airing before it, including the hour-long season four finale, "Operation P.R.O.M." as a lead-in. The special itself (which is only 11 minutes long once you count commercials and such) will be airing at midnight the night of August 28th. Other episodes shown will be "The Buddy System" and "Tears of a Sea Cow" from season three and the highly-regarded "Everybody Comes To Hank's" from season four.

For those of you who have been waiting, it's finally up! Enjoy.