The Mantis-Eye Experiment

Summary

When the Venture family is captured by a time-traveling religious cult from ancient Egypt, Dr. Venture reluctantly calls on Dr. Orpheus for help. Once freed it's up to Dr. Venture to save Brock and the boys. However a little heated competition between he and Dr. Orpheus gets in the way. Dr. Venture enlists the help of Pete White and Billy Quizboy to help him defeat Orpheus, who visits his mysterious otherworldly 'Master' for advice as well. Meanwhile, will Brock and the boys be able to survive their perilous trip through time long enough for Dr. Venture to save them?

Capsule

Oddly enough we start off with a 'Last Week on... The Venture Brothers' announcement, but it's not the events that transpired in Assassinanny 911, but instead those of a totally unrelated episode; Escape to the House of Mummies, Part I:

Some Egyptian dude in a bird suit (Thoth, the Egyptian god of writing and knowledge) is prattling about creating the perfect man. A curtain in front of him drops to reveal a freshly hatched 'perfect man', chewing on his perfect foot. Skull logo! Dr. Venture informs Hank that he and Dean have to get Caligula and Dr. Freud back to the time machine! But wait, where's the Hand of Osiris? Oh... Caligula is holding it... in his... uh... ass. Yeah. Skull logo! Hank And Dean are tied to a wall while some more Egypt dudes watch them. Dr. Venture, on Brock's shoulders and disguised with a raincoat, attempt to scare off the primitive Egyptians with a flashlight. They ain't having it though, so Brock chucks the flashlight at a nearby pillar, causing it to crumble. Shoddy construction. Skull logo! Dr. Venture tells Dean to stop riding the perfect man because Brock has to kill him. Hank and Dean protest because they want to keep the perfect man. But no, he's an abomination. Sorry kids. Skull logo! Brock is flying on a hover disc thing of some kind and quickly rescues Hank and Dean from gunpoint. The, uh, Egyptians with SCUBA gear fire shots, and one of them throws his gun at Brock (now long gone) after it's empty:

SCUBA EGYPTIAN #1
We have more bullets, you know. You have to stop doing that.

SCUBA EGYPTIAN #2
I know, it just looks so cool.

SCUBA EGYPTIAN #1
Well go get it.

SCUBA EGYPTIAN #2
Fine.

[SCUBA EGYPTIAN #2 slinks off after his gun]

Skull logo! Yet another Egyptian, this time dressed in one of those longass hats (I guess he's Atum, or maybe Amun) holds an axe over Hank and Dean, ready to strike:

IBIS PRIEST
Give me the Hand of Osiris!

DR. VENTURE
Give me head.

IBIS PRIEST
You didn't just say that...

DR. VENTURE
I absolutely did, what are you gonna do about it?

IBIS PRIEST
I'm about to kill your sons.

DR. VENTURE
Join the club.

THOTH
Bring them to the Hall of Sorrows!

ANNOUNCER
And now, tonight's dramatic part two of the Venture Brothers, in, Escape to the House of Mummies.

Roll opening credits.

In the Hall of Sorrows Dr. Venture kicks a skeleton and laments that the Hall isn't very impressive. More like a basement. Dean, meanwhile, is attempting to squirm into a hole but failing. Dr. Venture gives it a try, but the walls of the Hall grow spikes and begin to close in on them. The Team needs a plan, and they need one now. Hank suggests calling Dr. O. Dr. Venture refuses at first but finally gives in when Brock starts to give the boys pointers on how to align the spikes with their brain or heart so they die quicker.

DR. ORPHEUS
Dr. Orpheus, master of mysticism.

DR. VENTURE
Uh, Orpheus, it's your landlord. We're trapped in a cliche. Use your fake, impossible magic to get us out of here.

DR. ORPHEUS
What? Uh, Mr. Venture, I don't think I can do that.

DR. VENTURE
Ugh, well what can you do?

DR. ORPHEUS
Well, let's see. I could astral-project myself there?

DR. VENTURE
That's it? Super, yeah, come on over and watch us die. Spiked walls are closing in on us and you wanna put on a puppet show- hold on a sec. Hank! Get off those spikes! It's not a ride.

HANK
Awww. [HANK stops having fun riding on a spike]

DR. ORPHEUS
Spiked walls? How fast?

DR. VENTURE
Uh, slower than haunted house spiked walls, but not quite as slow as evil scientist spiked walls.

DR. ORPHEUS
Good! Dean, can you hear me?

DEAN
Yes!

DR. ORPHEUS
Dean! Picture my daughter naked! Think of her as yours!

[DEAN looks surprised]

DR. VENTURE
Look you lunatic, stop worrying about inheriting my estate and get us out of here!

DR. ORPHEUS
Venture family, you must trust me! Dean, think only of my daughter kissing you! Kissing you on the mouth! Think harder, boy! She's using her tongue!

[DEAN squirms]

DR. ORPHEUS
There!! I have located you!!

Dr. O utters a spell and the spiked walls begin to shake. Dean glows a pretty blue and is flung into a non-spiked wall. Hank passes out and Dr. Venture and Brock hold their heads. It's all over after a second and Dr. Venture escapes through the hole 'before Dean wakes up crying'. He'll be back later with expensive crap to get them all out of there.

Later at the Venture Compound the X-1 lands, breaking the statue in the front.

Meanwhile in the Hall of Sorrows the Thoth guy wakes up a sleeping Brock, Hank and Dean. He asks who broke the Hall, but Brock refuses to answer. What was supposed to happen was the walls were supposed to close in and then hot oil comes out of the jackal's mouth (the jackal is the hole Dr. Venture escaped through). The believer with Thoth informs him that he thought he said 'voile', not 'oil'. Voile is a sheer fabric, and some was warmed in the dryer for such an occasion. Thoth sends the believer away angrily and then sneezes on the inside of his mask. Gross. Brock punches out Thoth.

Back at Venture Industries Dr. Orpheus finds Dr. Venture. They converse briefly before getting into a magic vs. science argument of epic proportions.

DR. VENTURE
Either way I'm just not impressed with your tricks.

DR. ORPHEUS
Tricks?! How dare you! With just a thought I could rise into the air!

DR. VENTURE
Or you could put on these anti-gravity boots.

DR. ORPHEUS
I could incinerate this entire lab! Make you believe that you are a very special episode of 'Blossom'! And shoot lightning from my hands!!

DR. VENTURE
Ohh. Laser ray, mind-control helmet, Tesla coil. Anything else?

[DR. ORPHEUS makes fire from his hands]

[DR. VENTURE lights a match dramatically and blows it out]

DR. VENTURE
Any time, any place. You name the contest.

DR. ORPHEUS
We shall celebrate your inflated sense of self with the ultimate contest. Shrinking! And I, like the Puss in Boots, shall gobble you up, bones and all!

DR. VENTURE
Fine! Eight o'clock tomorrow! Right here. Smallest man is the biggest man.

DR. ORPHEUS
Fine! Good day sir! [he leaves]

DR. VENTURE
Good blah blah sir!

DR. ORPHEUS
And I wouldn't bother looking for that shrink ray your father built. You sold it to the albino and his tiny companion. Ta ta. [he exits]

DR. VENTURE
Crap.

Back in the pyramid Brock and Hank are searching for Dean... turns out he's been decapitated but his head is still able to talk and all that stuff.

BROCK
What happened?

HANK
Yeah, Clarissa, explain it all.

DEAN
That guy with the bird head, he has this mummy army, and one of the mummies has a magic scepter. Don't move, Hank! He's right behind you!

HANK
What!? [he spins around, and indeed there's a mummy with a scepter behind him]. Yep. Oh, that's just Mummy Mum Muggy. He's a good mummy, Dean-o. Right? Muggy friend. Muggy like his chin rubbed. [HANK rubs MUGGY's chin] Who's a good mummy?

BROCK
Hank, get your brother's head and follow me. There has to be a way out of here.

HANK
Muggy might know! Where's the exit? Tell us, boy!
[HANK rubs MUGGY's chin again, but his head (above the lower jaw) falls off]

BROCK
This is getting stupid! Where the hell is your father?!

Back at the compound Dr. O is practicing shrinking himself. He utters another spell but ends up shrinking his desk and books. Not quite what he wanted.

Billy and Pete enter their trailer to find it's been trashed. Clear evidence of an arching! And look, the scoundrel is still here! Billy tells the culprit to show himself or be blasted with his laser hand... the nemesis reveals himself to be... Dr. Venture. Okay.

Commercial.

Dr. Venture tells them he only broke in to get the shrink ray back to beat Orpheus at their bet. Billy finds the shrink ray, but it's in pieces in a paper bag. Great. Dr. Venture hires Billy and Pete to help him fix the shrink ray. Because beating Dr. O is just that important.

Back... whenever, Brock has Edgar Allan Poe in a headlock. That's what I said. Brock finally gets Poe to tell him that the Hand of Osiris is hidden below the floorboards in the basement and lets him go:

BROCK
I gotta admit, I always wanted to get Edgar Allan Poe in a headlock. That thing is like a pumpkin!

HANK
We just completely screwed up that guy's life with our time machine. You- think we messed up the past?

DEAN'S HEAD BEING HELD BY HEADLESS MUGGY
I wouldn't worry about that.

Back at the compound Dr. O is in Triana's room. He opens her closet to reveal it's really some kind of crazy gateway... Triana walks in:

TRIANA
I knew it!

DR. ORPHEUS
Pumpkin! What are you doing in... your room? Shouldn't you be... not in your room?

TRIANA
My whole life I've been afraid of that closet! There's always there weird lights and something that smells like a burning band-aid.

DR. ORPHEUS
Brimstone. Okay fine, porthole to the burning nowhere, you got me.

TRIANA
Dad! I thought I was going crazy! I mean, I'm still afraid of the closet! Still! I wear the same thing every day because of that closet!

DR. ORPHEUS
Well how was I to know?! Come now, Archie and his indolent companion Jughead wear the same clothes every day. I thought it was an adolescent phase of yours.

TRIANA
Great. My closet is the door to hell.

DR. ORPHEUS
The Necropolis. A porthole to the Necropolis. It had to be on the south side of the apartment and since you had to have a private bathroom- oh this is never! [he grabs the sides of her head] SLEEP!!

Triana falls to the ground and Orpheus informs her she will forget everything. He then enters the closet.

Meanwhile in the lab Dr. V, Pete and Billy and burning the midnight oil... so to speak (since it's not midnight). They appear to be working but instead they're filling out a list of guilty pleasures. Pete has Rhea Pearlman, Dr. Venture has Joyce DeWitt and the mom from Die Hard. Billy has, uh, 'oiled garbage bag, sweat sock'. 'Melon heated in a microwave'. 'Dust buster with corner attachment'. Yes. I can't really add much more to this I guess. Poor Billy.

Dr. Orpheus enters the Necropolis (I guess; it's really foggy and dark) in search of his 'master'. However sitting in his throne is a three-headed dog! Orpheus shoots a fireball at the dog, who whimpers and informs Orpheus how much it hurt. Oops, that is the master.

THE MASTER
Look, Orpheus, I know why you're here, and I chose the form of Argos to teach you a little lesson.

DR. ORPHEUS
Don't you mean Cerberus? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Argos was Ulysses' dog. He had only one head.

THE MASTER
See? See? There you go, right there. That's what I'm talking about. You're a know-it-all, and no one likes a-

[the head on the right begins to lick THE MASTER's crotch]

THE MASTER
Wait, hold on a sec.

DR. ORPHEUS
I only know that I know nothing.

THE MASTER
Way to quote something I said like a year ago. But I'm serious, hold on. This other head likes to clean my genitals with his mouth. I know it sounds weird, I let him do it because it feels great. Oh yeah. The problem is that I can taste it. So, I taste my own genitals. In my mouth. It's a... conundrum.

Orpheus questions what this has to do with anything and the Master reminds Orpheus that his wife left him because he was working too much (saving the world from a secret peril) and didn't spend enough time with her. She left him because he's a wuss!

Back... wherever, the Egyptians have captured Dr. Venture in snorkel gear, and Dean with his head and... Hank observes from above the action with Brock and co. that he's been captured too! Brock asks what year Hank set the time machine too. Hank claims 1230 AD but apparently he set it to 12:30 AM. Edgar Allan Poe gets his melon stuck in the pillars everyone is peeking out through.

At the lab Dr. Venture, Billy and Pete test the shrink ray out on HELPeR. Time for a human test subject. Pete can't go because he's an albino and he's lucky to even visit the beach without exploding. Dr. Venture can't because "those boys need me" (remind me where they are again?)... so it's down the Billy. Billy, sadly, reveals he is still a virgin, which actually makes him a prime candidate since he has nothing to lose. Billy tries to convince them otherwise, but it's not happening. Get on the target, virgin.

Over at the Master's joint the Master tells Dr. O that his daughter probably doesn't respect him since Dr. Venture treats him like dirt. And then he lets her stay out all night partying! Dr. O is convinced his daughter doesn't drink though, of course. Sucker.

Back in the lab Pete shoots Billy with the shrink ray. At first it appears nothing happened but Billy informs him that they shrunk his lungs and he can barely breathe. Dr. Venture's answer to this issue is to fart. Deviled eggs.

Back in the pyramid or... where... whenever. Brock and his rag-tag team of... people... are about to charge in and save... themselves. I think:

BROCK
Hank, you and Caligula keep up the rear. [Caligula hugs Hank in the creepiest way possible] ... No, on second thought, you and Freud should do it. Caligula, you take the second wave alone [Caligula slinks away]. Ready Dean?

DEAN'S HEAD ON MUGGY'S BODY RIDING THE PERFECT MAN
Woooah! Steady perfect man! Ready Brock!

BROCK
When the gates open me, Poe and me [another Brock, in snorkel gear, steps into frame] rush in. You got that?

[POE gives a thumbs up]

BROCK #2
You're gonna kill him when he shows up, aren't you?

BROCK
Oh you know it.
BROCK AND BROCK #2
Charge!!

Back at the lab Pete, Dr. Venture and Billy continue their shrink ray plight:

BILLY
What happened?

PETE
We, uh, shrank your head. Only.

DR. VENTURE
I told you we should have mounted it.

BILLY
Hey nice shot, William Burrows. You hold a gun like a guy that plays Riven. Now switch to reverse and fix me.

DR. VENTURE
White, are you even aiming?

PETE
You want me to go in the backyard and shrink some cans or something first? I've never done this before you know.

BILLY
Fix me! Put it in reverse and fix me!

[PETE reverses the gun and fires it at BILLY]

DR. VENTURE
Alright, Billy, you need to relax.

BILLY
Nice, you shrank the whole room.

DR. VENTURE
Wow. I gotta get a camera.

PETE
You look like Tobey Maguire... in a bad Hulk costume.

BILLY
I need a mirror!

Back at the Master's crib, Orpheus reflects on how insignificant everyone is in relation to the cosmos. How they are nothing! The Master tells him that he's ready, even if he does taste a little salty, because he's the Master's brightest pupil!

THE MASTER
Now get the hell out of this closet and go win that incredibly gay contest! Go! Go!

Back at the lab Dr. Venture decides it's time to call it quits. Dr. Venture realizes that he was a good boy adventurer, but he sucks at the super science thing. Billy leaves for a second. Dr. Orpheus enters and tells Dr. Venture that he wins because he cannot make himself any smaller. Dr. Venture tells Dr. O if he had waited he would have won the gentleman (get it, gentleman's bet?) since Dr. Venture was about to concede as well.

Billy enters with a Rusty Venture lunch box that he won off eBay.

DR. VENTURE
Why do you have one of these?

DR. ORPHEUS
Can't you see, Mr. Venture? You were the little boy-man's hero.

BILLY
You were the reason I became a boy genius.

PETE
Yeah, Rust, every kid wanted to be you.

DR. VENTURE
Yeah. I was pretty cool. That's me on the pterodactyl. Took him down myself.

DR. ORPHEUS
Yes, you were pretty cool. Let us retire to my sitting room! I shall whip up a batch of my famous rice pudding!

[they exit the lab]

DR. ORPHEUS
I feel like we have forgotten to do something.

DR. VENTURE
Oh my god, you're right! I forgot to turn off the lights.

Dr. Venture goes back into the lab and steps on a very tiny and about to be flattened HELPeR.

Roll end credits.

Next week, on the Venture Brothers!

HANK
[shivering] I can't make it. I wanna die. I want the caveman to eat me.

BROCK
Hang on, Hank! Cut him open! We're gonna put the boy in there!!

[BROCK #2 nods and slices open a dead Edgar Allan Poe]

BROCK #2
Gah, and I thought he smelled bad... on the outside.

BROCK
DOOOOOOOOOOOOC!!!!

Notes

• Lest anyone forget, Venture Brothers is a parody of Jonny Quest which involved a team of four people (two adults and two kids) flying around the globe and getting into all sorts of crazy, impossible situations. Thus far Venture Bros. has focused more on real life type situations and battling crazy super villains rather than the Jonny Quest aspect. Well, no more! This episode plays like a demented episode of Jonny Quest. The mummy part anyway. Not so much the Orpheus vs. Dr. Venture subplot. That's vintage Doc Hammer right there.
  
  
• The Osiris cult, as you might expect, is made up of various people dressed as various Egyptian gods as well as 'standard' ancient Egyptian garb. The dude with the weird bird head (called 'Ibis Priest' in the credits) is similar to Thoth, the god of writing and knowledge. Osiris, who never appears in the episode, is the god of the underworld.
  
  
• Dr. Venture's time traveling crew includes Caligula and Dr. Sigmund Freud. Caligula is actually Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, who was the third emperor of the Roman Empire and ruled from 37 to 41. He was kind of an asshole so he was murdered by his own guards in 41 AD. He is portrayed as gay in the episode, though he was probably actually bisexual. Really though, there was just so much wrong with the guy that it's one of those cases where he probably didn't even qualify as human. You can learn more on the Wikipedia page or check out this short bio which also includes some recommended reading if you're curious.
  
  
• Sigmund Freud, meanwhile, was slightly less insane than Caligula. An Austrian neurologist who lived from 1856 to 1939, Freud is know as "the father of psychoanalysis" since, uh, he invented it. He's responsible for the id, ego and super-ego stuff, as well as being the first to conceive the concept of an unconscious mind in humans. He was also in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, though that was really Rod Loomis since Bill & Ted came out in 1989.
  
  
• Dr. O mentions making Dr. Venture think he's a very special episode of "Blossom". For you kids out there, Blossom was a crappy sitcom that was on for five seasons in the early 90s. I think the only thing of any cultural significance to ever come out of that show was Joey Lawrence's catchphrase 'woah!'. And I'm not even sure that's very significant.
  
  
• Dr. O also mentions that "like the Puss in Boots, shall gobble you up, bones and all". Puss in Boots is an old European folktale collected by Charles Perrault in his Mother Goose Tales book in 1697. The story follows the adventures of a talking cat who wears boots. Essentially the cat uses trickery and deceit to help out his friends and he gets his owner's son married to the princess. I haven't read the story in a long time, so I can't remember what exactly the 'gobble you up, bones and all' part is, but I believe it's a reference to when Puss talks to an ogre who can turn himself into any animal. The ogre turns himself into a mouse, which Puss promptly eats, thus freeing the ogre's servants.
  
  
• Hank's like "Yeah, Clarissa, explain it all" is of course a reference to the old Nickelodeon show Clarissa Explains It All which aired from '91 until '94. This show was much better than Blossom.
  
  
• Something to note, in Tag Sale, Dr. Venture actually refuses to sell the shrink ray to Billy and Pete, but in this episode they have it. Obviously the prospect of more money helped Dr. Venture see through Billy and Pete's shortcomings and he sold it to them anyway.
  
  
• Halfway through the episode Edgar Allan Poe joins the time travel crew. Poe was of course a famous poet and writer, probably most famous for the short stories "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Pit and the Pendulum" and for the poem "The Raven". In fact when Poe tells Brock where the Hand of Osiris is hidden ("basement, under the floorboards!") this is a reference to "The Tell-Tale Heart". Poestories.com is a great place to go if you want to read more of Poe's works or learn about Poe himself.
  
  
• I just want to point out that Archie and Jughead actually don't wear the same thing every day. I mean, a lot of their clothes look similar because only the color is different, but they actually do wear different clothes every day. But I suppose we can let that one slide since Dr. O probably isn't one to keep up with popular culture. Especially if his definition of popular culture is Archie.
  
  
• Necropolis is a cool word and all, but all it means is 'large cemetery'. The only official place named 'The Necropolis' is Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney, Australia. So I guess Triana's closet is a porthole to Australia. And The Master is some kind of three-headed dingo. Or something? Okay fine, as 'Spider Baby' in the comments points out, the literal meaning of 'Necropolis' is 'City of the Dead', but still. I mean come on!
  
  
• Rhea Perlman, Joyce DeWitt and Bonnie Bedelia. And now you know.
  
  
• The Master takes the form of Cerberus, which is a three-headed hound that guards the gate to Hades in Greek mythology. The Master mistakenly says he's Argos, however. Dr. O is correct in identifying Argos as the dog of Ulysses (or Odysseus) who only had one head. The story of Argos is that he was the first to recognize Ulysses after a twenty year absence (he was disguised). After seeing his master again for the first time Argos let out a final whimper and died since he had fulfilled his wish to see his master one last time.
  
  
• Speaking of The Master, he's voiced by none other than H. Jon Benjamin of Home Movies fame (he voiced Coach McGuirk).
  
  
• After Pete accidently shrinks Billy's head, Billy says Nice shot William Burroughs". I attempted to look that but I kept spelling Burroughs wrong, so I'll let Marc Erikson explain it since he knows how to spell:
  

  This is an allusion to the famous beatnik writer William S. Burroughs who wrote the book; "Naked Lunch" and many others. Anyway the reason Billy says this is because in the late 1940s William Burroughs was high on a concoction of drugs while in Mexico and attempted to shoot an apple off of his wife's head with a shotgun. He of course missed and shot his wife in the head. He later explained what happened to the Mexican authorities and was released.

• "You hold a gun like a guy that plays Riven" is a dig on the computer game Riven which is the sequel to the hugely successful game Myst. The joke lies in the fact that in Riven all you have to do is click on still images in order to solve puzzles (it's harder than I'm making it sound) and complete the game. Also guys who play games in the Myst franchise probably are going to have a certain stereotype that I'll leave to your imagination.
  
  
• An anonymous comment on JP's LJ:
  

  On the Rusty Venture lunchbox there's a picture of a blonde guy in a red shirt. Have we seen him before?

  And the response from JP:
  

  Billy owns a very rare and valuable misprint edition of the 1972 Rusty Venture lunchbox, featuring a mis-colored Jonas Venture Sr. Only 1200 of those were produced before the Thermos Co. fixed the error.

• The post-credits sequence is of course a reference to a famous scene at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back where Han cuts open Luke's dead tauntaun (I had to look that up, but it's that friggin thing he was riding around on Hoth) and puts him inside because he's going to freeze to death. Brock #2's line "and I thought he smelled bad on the outside" is what Han says after he cuts the tauntaun open (though Han says 'they' and not 'he').