The Mantis-Eye Experiment

It's that time once again. Our special time where we gather around the fire and discuss the latest Venture Brothers episode which is now up on Adult Swim Fix. Won't you join us? We have hot chocolate and some delicious snack cakes, and everyone is always so friendly and polite. Oh yeah, the comments will probably have spoilers, so if you know what's good for you you'll stay out! I'm just sayin' is all. Enjoy the show!

Adult Swim.com also has some (tiny) behind the scenes videos of Jackson and Doc. You can see Jackson do the Monarch voice and take direction from Doc, and another short interview video where Jackson talks about everyones favorite henchmen, 21 and 24.

On top of that AS will be having an Ask Venture Bros. session where anyone can send in a question to askas@adultswim.com and Jackson and Doc will answer the best questions. So get your thinking caps on, or other such hats that may or may not help you ask questions. Looking good is what's really important here.

You can now check out the Twenty Years to Midnight capsule, notes and screengrabs, if you so desire. As always feel free to send in any additions or corrections. Also don't forget that Victor. Echo. November. will be on ASFix tonight at 6pm EST, and will of course air on the television box at 10:30pm EST on Sunday. I'm told something really awesome/crazy happens in this episode, but I've avoided the spoiler so I can't wait to see what it is! Woo!

Publick Nuisance was updated yesterday after a month-long hiatus. There are brief mentions of stuff that went on at Comic-Con and apologies to all the fans Jackson and Doc didn't get to meet or talk to, plus what's up with the show's schedule. Oh, and some production news:

Doc busted his ass sprucing it up with After Effects magic and creating a new exposition scene from scratch, we made some prudent cuts, and now I think it came out pretty good. Still not one of my favorites, but not embarrassing. We're jumping right in to the next episode, one of our favorites, posthaste.

It's that time again, kids. After two weeks of reruns there's a new episode and a new discussion article. 20 Years to Midnight should now be up on Adult Swim Fix for your viewing pleasure, or you can wait and view the non-Internet version this Sunday at 10:30pm EST as per usual. And of course THE COMMENTS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS so stay out if you don't want to be spoiled! You know the drill.

Oh hey, remember Comic-Con? Right. Adult Swim has put up a bunch of videos from Comic-Con, which you may recall was attended by Jackson and Doc. They're featured in a couple of those videos, as you might expect. There are also some pictures under the videos.

On top of that, Doc Hammer has a blog entry with even more Comic-Con info and pictures. Some even bordering on the creepy side, but that's okay. Sadly I think this rather informative and interesting update has really hurt his chances at being the "Worst Insider Blog", though the update does contain very little Venture Bros. information, so maybe he's still in the running.

That's about all the Comic-Con info there is for now. Oh yeah, and don't forget that there's a new episode airing this weekend. You're so forgetful!

Since I don't use iTunes, Anthony Papineau was nice enough to inform me that you can now grab the first four episodes of season two on iTunes, should you be so inclined. The going rate for TV shows on iTunes is $2, so I expect Venture Bros. costs the same.

On top of that, Mr. Papineau also sends along good news for you Canadian fans who haven't been able to watch season two:

The good news is that Teletoon in Canada is planning on bringing Season 2 of V.B. to Canada in the fall. Well.. planning doesn't mean "For sure" but hey. I'll take what I can get. Most of the time companies won't even respond to a "Are you planning" email...

Here's the exact message:

> Hi Anthony!
>
> Thanks for taking the time to write to us with your suggestion.
> Good news! There are plans to air The Venture Brothers (Season 2)
> next fall as part of our new Adult Swim lineup! Please visit our
> website www.teletoon.com regularly for the latest info.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Danny Dontigny
> TELETOON / TÉLÉTOON

So there you have it, Canada. Season two in the fall! Better late than never, I guess.

First I just thought I'd let everyone know that the House of Mummies capsule and notes are (finally) complete. You know what you must do. That aside, I think I have enough crazy e-mail to do another mailbag! Hooray! Let's begin.

First we have some e-mail from waaaaaay back in May from 'Tex' answering a question from the previous mailbag:

In an email posted on May 1st Swanky~Tuna asked,

"I was wondering, do you know what song is playing when Brock is hosing down the X-1? I hunted through the Foetus and Steriod Maximus song samples on cduniverse but didn't seem to have any luck. Would you happen to know?"

I have to make a couple of guesses here but if you hang on for a minute you'll follow the logic.

The first guess is that the scene in question is from the pilot episode.

The second guess is that the song is "Hobbit Ride (To the Midnight Sun of Valhalla)," also noted here.

And in fact Tex is correct. If you listen to the commentary for TSTB Jackson and Doc mention as much. The tune is a lampoon of Led Zep (Brock's favorite band) and their tendency to write about Hobbits and Vikings and stuff.

Here's a nice e-mail from Brandon:

Hi Mike, hope you're well - really appreciate your website - here's a pic you can post if you want for one of your updates - it's the Hank and Dean portion of the inside DVD art by Sienkiewicz - the original color is much more vibrant than in the DVD - sorry for the crappy pic but it's too big to scan, 15"x20"

And he's attached a pretty picture from the DVD. Feel free to grab it if you'd like. Thanks Brandon!

Here's a nice e-mail from 'Hop':

i just found your site last night while sort of battling insomnia and sort of accepting it's time-to-time rule over me. i'm a huge fan of the venture brothers (addict) and i spent better than an hour flipping through it. after i wore out my mouse finger i just wanted to drop a line saying "great site!" so... hey you've got a great site going. keep up the good work!

also i have a question, what do you think dr V's pills are? he calls them diet pills in careers in science, look like xanax to me tho.

Well thank you Mr. Hop, sir. I appreciate your kind words. And to answer your question, I have no idea what Dr. Venture's 'diet pills' are, but I suspect they are probably Xanax or maybe even Valium or one of those other crazy prescription pills people get addicted to (remember, they are prescription, as we learned in los Dangerous). It's probably not important what they are though, you just need to know that Dr. V has issues.

Question from Kacy Mathews:

i just watched Escape to the house of mummies... my boyfriend and i are trying to figure out who is the voice of Dr. Orpheus' "master".... he sounds so familar... but we just can't place it..

Well, the Master is voiced by none other than H. Jon Benjamin, who voiced Coach McGuirk in that series. He's also the voice of Mothmonsterman in Aqua Teen Hunger Force, if you're not a big Home Movies fan (and shame on you if that's the case!) and Ben in Dr. Katz.

Oh it was only a matter of time. Sing it, 'vbmaster1984':

were you at comic con, did you get to meet jackson and doc. I asked them if they would have a follow up to Escape to the House of Mummis Prt III. Their answer was no, hope that helps answer some questions. Good day Mike, i love the site

I was not at Comic-Con, but I applaud you for asking the tough questions, good sir! You will make a fine investigative reporter one day.

And to wrap it up, Jon Bennett sends along the following question:

When can I get my H.E.L.P.eR. action figure? Or Any Venture Bros. figures? Is it ever going to happen?

As of right now (and to quote Jackson on the subject), nope. No plans for Venture related figures just now.

So that's it for today. Catch the re-airing of Hate Floats tonight at 10:30pm EST (which is good because it's the most popular episode according to the poll), and don't forget that a new episode will be on next weekend. Huzzah! Thanks for the letters, guys.

Since I'm sick I left work at around 12:30pm today and decided that, after sleeping for a couple hours, I ought to do something actually productive aside from coughing a lot which has produced an ungodly amount of a lovely yellowish-green phlegm (that's what we call 'sharing too much'). I may have to see a doctor. At any rate, I tinkered around with the site a bit and got a few things working and improved. The first of those is the long-dead Mantis-Poll which I have received many requests for since the last one back in April, though the requests have slowly died down to nothing as people began to realize that it was a lost cause. Well, no longer, because it's working and there's even a new poll up! I just thought I should tell you.

Aside from that I spent entirely too much time screwing around with the logo. You may have noticed I ditched the text links a few weeks ago for an image, and now the image lights up like magic when you hover your pointer over it! I also changed a few things (that you won't notice since it looks the same) so adding a new logo or even a new item to that menu will be a lot less work for me. So yay! I also finally got around to making a schedule thing for myself so I can update the TV schedule without having to run SQL queries.

I'm sure this is all terribly exciting to you, but rest assured that I am indeed excited about all of it, and I think that's what really matters in the end. Maybe.

Anyway, I've also gotten a ton of e-mail which I have read, but not done much else with, but I assure you all that I'll be updating the capsules with all the useful info and hopefully even getting the House of Mummies one done as well. So until then I bid you adieu.

Some quick things collected from last week. If you didn't notice AS actually aired VB's ratings the last two Sundays even though the show didn't place in the top three. 4th place both times, 670,000 for Assassinanny and 463,000 for House of Mummies. Not too shabby. As always those are listed on the ratings page.

Next up, Adult Swim.com has some new VB wallpapers up based on the season one DVD insert art. So if you have the DVD you know how awesome the wallpapers are, and if you don't have the DVD I guess you can print these out and pretend that you have it or something.

And finally the schedule has changed slightly. Episodes will still premiere at 10:30pm on Sunday, but they will then rerun at 12:30am on Monday. Also if you're interested I have the screencaps for House of Mummies up since that's the easiest part. I'm hoping to have the capsule/notes up by the end of the week, but being sick is awesome and since I have two weeks until the next episode there may be slacking to be had. That's all for now kids, so I'll see you guys later.