The Mantis-Eye Experiment

Capsule

We start off in Tokyo. Otaku Senzuri is receiving acupuncture when his henchman (Kikai) informs him of Dr. Venture's latest plans. Otaku thanks Kikai and promptly throws some of the pins at him. Kikai is of course okay, and he no longer has any desire to smoke.

Roll opening credits.

At the Venture Complex the boys are scooting around on their hover bikes looking for the beloved dog Scamp. We find out that their dad (Doc Venture) has been on a bit of a tear recently (more likely annoyed by the boys) and he's going to show off his latest invention at the United Nations.

HANK
Say, maybe pops knows where Scamp's gotten to!

DEAN
Good thinkin' bro' of mine! And I thought I was supposed to be the smart one.

HANK
Ma Venture didn't raise no fools.

DEAN
W- we don't have a mom, Hank.

[The boys both look at the ground sadly for a while]

DEAN
[suddenly] Last one to the hangar's a rotten banana!

The boys race towards the hangar on their hover bikes and meet up with Brock who's washing off the X-1 in a pair of cut-off jeans. Brock informs the boys that their dad is in the lab. Right when they leave Brock gets a call from Dr. Venture on his communicator watch. Dr. Venture is excited about a discovery he's just made and wants to share it with Brock, but Brock doesn't seem to care very much (if at all). Brock ends his conversation when he hears something clicking around in the landing gear of the X-1.

In the lab the boys meet up with their father to ask if he knows where Scamp has run off to. Dr. Venture, as it turns out, has been using Scamp for an experiment and thusly has removed the dogs skin:

DR. VENTURE
Scamp's an integral part of some ground-breaking research I'm doing for a major cosmetics corporation. You see, their test animals are always expiring before they can perform all their super-important makeup experiments on them. So your father is perfecting a way of keeping them alive longer.

HANK
But pop!

DR. VENTURE
Hank. You like pretty girls, don't you?

HANK & DEAN
And how!

DR. VENTURE
Well pretty girls need cosmetics. How do you think they get so pretty?

[HANK and DEAN shrug]

DR. VENTURE
So the next time you see an attractive young lady, and you're sure to see plenty in New York City, you just think of old Scamp over there and all he's done for pretty girl science.

Scamps is of course licking his crotch something fierce the entire time this is going on. Just then they're interrupted by a loud sound from the hangar. They rush in to find Brock at odds with a mummy that got stuck in the landing gear (again, apparently). Brock then proceeds to beat the living snot out of the mummy and then pees on it:

DR. VENTURE
Was that really necessary?

BROCK
You have to defile a mummy completely or they come back to life. You know that.

Sadly it turns out it wasn't a real mummy, just some guy wrapped in ace bandages and toilet paper. In their landing gear. For some reason. Dr. Venture attempts to bond with Brock but Brock, as usual, doesn't really care.

Cut to the lair of the Monarch, where the Monarch is rambling in one of his usual monologues (though this being the first episode, this is his first one). The Monarch's plan is to launch some henchmen into the Venture Compound inside a ship that looks like a meteor. The Monarch counts on Dr. Venture wanting to experiment on the meteor:

THE MONARCH
Dr. Venture's legendary scientific curiosity will naturally get the better of him. And when he immediately drills open the cosmic mystery, he'll get a face full of men! My men!! Loyal footsoldiers of my war on everything and deadly! Just like the monarch butterfly of my namesake.

HENCHMAN
Wha? Butterflies aren't deadly.

The meteor is launched and lands, as planned, in the Venture Compound. Dr. Venture fights off the urge to check it out as they're already late as it is and they take off, much to the sadness of the henchmen in the meteor who are now trapped since the rocket landed with the hatch down.

At the UN Brock and the Doc (the boys are instructed to stay in the X-1) are welcomed by the UN science director. Brock goes to unload some of the bags and gets attacked by an alligator (or crocodile? I can never tell the difference in cartoons) that apparently stowed away during a trip to Brazil (these things happen). Brock promptly kills it (staining his clothes in the process).

Inside the UN the science director shows Brock and the Doc around. Dr. Venture unsuccessfully cracks a joke and then instructs Brock to take the boys to the hotel, which Brock obliges. Dr. Venture then meets Otaku who is suspiciously dressed in full ninja garb and clinging to the ceiling. Otaku tells Dr. Venture that he's eager to see Dr. Venture's invention, to which Dr. Venture seems mildly peeved by and walks off with the science director.

The Monarch, meanwhile, has chartered a flight (on a commercial airliner... still dressed as the Monarch) and has... finished his drink! Cut to commercial.

At the hotel the boys are playing astronaut in the bathroom with the toilet and a paper cup. Hank is not amused by this game and wants to find something more fun to do. However the boys aren't allowed to leave the room, so they instead decide to play submarine with the box Dr. Venture's invention is in. When they go grab it they accidently thwart an attempt by Otaku to poison Dr. Venture.

Otaku then sneaks into the bathroom and steals the box (now sitting in the bathtub with the boys inside it) and bolts out via the fire escape. However he notices that the box talks and when he checks it out he finds that it's not filled with a Venture product, but rather his sons. The boys attempt to judo chop Otaku who does that ninja neck pinch thing (or was that Vulcan? I always mix up ninjas and Vulcans) and knocks them out, leaving them in the ally. Otaku runs away and two kids walk by and steal the boys' wallets and watches.

Back at the hotel Brock awakes Dr. Venture from a dream of a fetus with a few hard slaps to the face. He informs the Doc that the boys are missing and Dr. Venture tells him to go find them.

In the ally the boys finally wake up and asses the situation. Just then the Monarch pulls up to the same spot (in a cab). He pays the cabby with a poison dart to the neck, and then proceeds to chase the boys who run away when they see him. Brock, meanwhile, is about six feet away from this scene, but instead chooses to walk in the opposite direction.

In the subway the boys jump on a train... but then don't (while the Monarch is apprehended by a cop, whom he likewise shoots with a dart) and the chase continues. Well, not really, because the Monarch's wing gets caught in the train door and he's carried off into the depths of New York City's underground.

Meanwhile over at the UN, Professor Impossible (though he is nameless in this episode) is presenting his latest invention, a car that repletes the o-zone layer. Dr. Venture is not amused.

Hank and Dean, meanwhile, meet one of those pretty girls their dad was talking about. Or rather a fat hooker with pink hair and a Bizzy Bee hat:

HANK
Hey look! It's one of those pretty girls pop was tellin' us about.

PROSTITUTE
You boys lookin' for some action?

DEAN
And how! We're always lookin' for action!

HANK
And adventure!

PROSTITUTE
Hey, hey, ain't safe to talk business on the street. Why don't I take you boys back to my... Bizzy Bee hive.

HANK & DEAN
Yes ma'am!

Meanwhile Brock bursts into the apartment of the two kids who robbed Hank and Dean before. In Brock style he beats the shit out of them and takes back the boys' watches.

Back over at the UN Dr. Venture is about to give his presentation. His presentation involves melting a plastic city model with a huge ray gun called 'The Ooo Ray'. Nobody in the crowd is pleased with this, especially the science director, since it's supposed to be a peaceful exhibition, though Dr. Venture can't seem to figure out why everyone is so annoyed. The science director adjourns everyone and they head to the next room for refreshments and cocktails. Everyone except Otaku, that is, who it seems how has Dr. Venture's weapon just where he wants it.

Meanwhile the boys seem to have gotten into more than they know. The prostitute touches Hank where he 'makes sissy' and the boys run out of her apartment at full speed. The Monarch is about to resume chase but instead runs into Brock who proceeds to gouge out the Monarch's eyes with his thumbs.

The boys run all the way to the UN... which is where Dr. Venture converses with a few fellow scientists and then meets up with his boys. They head over to pack up the Ooo Ray only to find Otaku, uh... near it. He throws a smoke bomb to escape, ninja style, when they call for security, but he doesn't make it very far (about six feet) and is apprehended.

The science director apologizes that Otaku was trying to steal the Ooo Ray, but is interrupted by General Manhowers who tells them that Otaku was actually masturbating because he has a strange fetish for super technology:

GENERAL MANHOWERS
He wasn't trying to steal it, he was masturbating like a teenager with a fast internet connection.

HANK
Mastur- what?

DEAN
Like an... evil... master plan?

The general express his interest in the Doc's invention and orders 100 of them for the army. The boys celebrate in the typical team Venture way (go team Venture!) and everyone is happy. Including Brock, who has found the same hooker the boys met earlier. Only he's not running away from her, if you catch my drift.

Roll end credits.

We're at a hospital infirmary.

DOCTOR
Someone did a real job on you mister. But you're gonna make it. Hard to believe considering the size of this thing they pumped from your stomach.

[he holds up THE MONARCH's wings, all broken and gummed up as one might imagine they would be after such an adventure]

THE MONARCH
[groans, in pain] Throw those out.

Notes

• This was the pilot episode for the series. As you might imagine a lot of things changed between this episode and the first episode. The major ones being the design of Dr. Girlfriend and the Monarch's uniform. HELPeR is also nowhere to be seen.
  
  
• So, curious as to where Jackson Publick (series creator) got the names 'Hank' and 'Dean' from? Even if you weren't, you're going to find out. From the man himself:

  [T]he long story is that a friend of mine from way back in high school and college had a habit of using first names as adjectives and verbs, depending on how the name sounded to him. Some of these were Hank (which meant "to bumble, botch, manhandle or damage" as in "aw, you hanked my copy of Spiderman #121"), Dean (which meant "nerdy or overly and uselessly complicated in a geeky way"--think gadgets--he would call the retractable handles on his briefcase "the dean handles"), and Mel ("a loser" as in "that guy's such a mel."). There were others I can't remember right now. I named the boys Hank and Dean as a private nod to this friend (I think their original names in my first sketches were Lunk and Dale).

• The show's origins actually date back to spring of 2000, when the pilot was written. It was originally intended to be a single comic book for Monkeysuit anthologies, but Jackson decided it was too large to fit into a comic. Instead it was pitched to Comedy Central, which turned the show down.
  
  The second chance at life the show got was for a company known for its claymation that wanted to start a CG division with Venture Bros. as its first fully CG adult comedy. However, there were shakeups in the company and it was ultimatley turned down due to money issues.
  
  After another revision of the script and "hundreds of dollars and many trips to Kinkos", it was pitched to Comedy Central again, and turned down once more. But of course there is a light at the end of the tunnel:
  

  Then my friend Eli told me about Adult Swim. Apparently, Cartoon Network had started airing some pretty weird, grown up stuff late at night. Before hearing about this, I had never considered pitching Cartoon Network because I didn't want to tone The Venture Bros. down, but now...
  
  I dug up an old phone number for Linda Simensky, who was then in development at CN. I asked her if I could send along my pitch, she said yes, and when I got back to New York I did just that. I also moved into a strange little workspace on the Lower East Side with the unlikely name of Astrobase--Go! Two weeks later Linda called me back and through the magic of lucky timing (they had already greenlit two of the three pilots they budgeted for that year and were searching for a third) and I suppose a convincing pitch package, the Venture Bros. pilot was a go.

• The major actors in the series; namely Patrick Warburton (Brock) and James Urbaniak (Dr. Venture) were explicitly selected by Jackson for their roles. He had previously seen James in a friend's performance art/comedy show years before, and had become friends with Patrick Warburton through the short-lived The Tick live action series in which Patrick played The Tick and Jackson was one of the writers.
  
  
• The Turtle Bay in the title refers to the actual location of the UN building. Not much more I can say about that I guess.
  
  
• The main villian's name, Otaku Senzuri, is actually a joke about his fetish. In Japanese 'Otaku' means nerd (or geek, I guess), and 'Senzuri' means masturbation. (TV Tome)
  
  
• A fellow by the name of HavocWare has pointed out to me a hidden nugget in the opening scene. When Kikai shows Senzuir the newspaper, the article is written by 'Pat Giles - New York Herald Science Reporter'. In reality, Pat Giles is actually mild-mannered artist and editor for Monkeysuit, of which a certain Chris McCulloch is a contributor to. Here's an image in case you don't believe me or Havoc (and shame on you for that). Sorry it's kinda blurry, but I had to re-encode my copy of the pilot because the video ran at double the speed of the sound. Plus it's a jpeg. But you can kind of see it. I guess.
  
  
• The voices of Master Billy Quizboy (unnamed in this episode) and Dr. Girlfriend were voiced by Chris McCulloch. In future episodes both are done by Doc Hammer.
  
  
• Lisa Hammer, who voices the prostitute in this episode (and Triana in future episodes) is the ex-wife of Doc Hammer.
  
  
• On a similar note, Peter McCulloch, who voices General Manhowers and Professor Impossible (called 'Solar-powered Car Scientist' here) is the brother of series creator/writer Chris McCulloch aka Jackson Publick.
  
  
• Two minutes of this episode were cut in the original showing, but then later re-added when it re-aired on July 27th of the same year.
  
  
• The rest of the series has been animated in the traditional hand-drawn way, but this episode was animated entirely with Macromedia Flash, which is the method of animation used by shows such as Home Movies (after season one) and Harvy Birdman.
  
  
• This is of course the first time the opening credits make an appearance in the series. They were assembled by Doc Hammer and scored by Foetus, aka J.G. Thirlwell.
  
  
• Speaking of the music, the score for this episode was taken from the albums Flow by Foetus, Ectopia by Steriod Maximus and The Raidolarian Ooze by Manorexia (which I couldn't find on Amazon). All of these are actually J.G. Thirwell.
  
  
• The end credits, while in the same format, have a different song played over them than the rest of the episodes, so I can only assume this is the first and last time they used that tune (which is slower paced than the current one) for the end credits.