I’m going to tell you a secret that will not surprise you: I’ve never cried at an episode of The Venture Bros. I mean, the animated TV series that aired on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim wasn’t designed for the feels to begin with (that’d be a job for Tuca & Bertie). As first conceived, it was meant to take the piss out of 1960’s, kid-oriented adventure shows, most specifically Jonny Quest. And it did that quite well.
But there have been points when the series has touched my heart in ways I wasn’t anticipating. One was when the sullen and delicate Dean Venture (Michael Sinterniklaas) tells his more optimistic twin brother Hank (series co-creator Christopher McCulloch, aka Jackson Publick) that they’re both clones, and instead of being devastated by the news, Hank greets it with enthusiasm, raising his brother’s spirits. Another is a flashback episode in which the disgraced former secret operative and eventual Venture bodyguard Brock Samson (Patrick Warburton) delivers the physically battered and psychically scarred encephalitic genius Billy Quizboy (series co-creator Eric “Doc” Hammer) to his former friend, albino computer expert Pete White (McCulloch), granting the person who had betrayed the former prodigy an opportunity for redemption.
And another is when Hank and Dean’s father, Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture (James Urbaniak), reveals a hitherto hidden side of his psyche during a trip to an isolated Greek isle in the fifth season episode, “Spanakopita!” (2013).
When The Venture Bros. pilot debuted—way back in 2003, when we hadn’t a care in the world (sarcasm)—it fit quite neatly into the Adult Swim mold. Like Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law and Sealab 2021, it took a well-worn kidvid concept from one-time animation powerhouse and Jonny Quest birthplace Hanna-Barbera, and twisted it in ways that would tickle the fancy of any stoned viewers who were up past midnight. One thing that separated The Venture Bros. from Birdman and Sealab, though,was that, instead of just lifting characters straight from the HB catalogue—and sometimes just literally lifting actual animation—Hammer and Publick created their own world and characters, building them from the ground up.
The other thing that made it stand apart from its satirical brethren was Publick and Hammer’s willingness to let their characters learn and grow. Not by much, mind you—this was a comedy series, after all. Dean would always fret, Hank would maintain an endearing, puppy dog enthusiasm, Samson would at heart remain, as he was dubbed at the beginning of the series, a “Swedish murder machine.” But the boys would eventually shed their cosseted naivety, Brock would grow from resentful bodyguard to empathetic guardian, even the family’s archnemesis, the butterfly-themed The Monarch (McCulloch), would begin to question his lifelong enmity toward Dr. Venture.
As for Rusty Venture, well, he would remain a miserable human being—in all senses of the term—throughout the course of the series. He had his reasons. Son of the Doc Savage-ish Jonas Venture Sr. (Paul Boocock), he was once a boy adventurer himself, part of the celebrated Team Venture, with the animated TV series, comic books, and metal lunchboxes to show for it. Behind the scenes, though, it wasn’t all pterodactyl surfing and rocket-belt rides.
Whatever accolades might have been attached to Jonas Sr.—genius scientist, bold adventurer, two-fisted warrior for the American Way (the 1960s, key party American Way, that is)—“Father of the Year” wasn’t one of them. Rusty, in Jonas’ eyes, was at best a marketing opportunity and, at worst, a test subject for whatever infernal invention was being cooked up in the labs of the Venture Industries compound. Add to the fatherly neglect the ordeal of being abducted on a weekly basis—Publick and Hammer’s meta commentary on what it would be like if TV fiction mirrored real life—and ol’ Rusty had more than a bushelful of neuroses way before Hank and Dean arrived on the scene. (The means by which those two arrive we shall not delve into here. But it is a hoot.)
Such a traumatic upbringing resulted in a man at once hypersensitive to his own perceived inadequacies and engaged, at the same time, in a desperate campaign to sublimate that awareness. Obsessed with the notion that he can never live up to his father’s legacy, Rusty spends most of his time either picking through the detritus of the decaying Venture Industries compound for whatever discarded inventions he thinks will turn him a profit—when it’s under his control, the operation is perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy—or developing his own contraptions, which are divorced from any connection with human decency (generally speaking, it is not advisable to bring a death ray to a United Nations inventors symposium, or to create a holodeck-like device called the Joy Can which just so happens to be powered by the brain of an orphan boy). Further galling is how, when his own twin brother, Jonas Jr. (Urbaniak), takes over daddy’s business (and how J.J. turns up is another detail we won’t divulge here), he does to Venture Industries what Rusty couldn’t, transforming it into a successful, Apple-like tech behemoth. Great for portable music devices, not so hot for the ego of a former boy adventurer.
None of this helps Doc’s interactions with humans. He has a tendency to treat Hank and Dean as annoyances; is abusive to Billy Quizboy, who may be his last true fan; tends to hit on any woman who gets within three meters of him; and tries to relate to Brock as a fellow man of the world, to Brock’s eternal annoyance.
To Publick and Hammer’s credit, though, they don’t have the heart to make Rusty completely irredeemable. Over the course of the series, he’ll show occasional flashes of empathy over the trials his sons endure; exhibit moments of regret over his voluminous roster of errors; and deliver occasional demonstrations of grace when things go wrong and the only thing one can do is grin, shrug, and move on.
And it’s those glimpses into the more pardonable sectors of Rusty’s soul that allows us the insight to understand his behavior during the fifth season episode, “Spanakopita!”
To be clear, the plot of “Spanakopita!” has nothing to do with the Greek spinach-and-feta-stuffed pastry, at least not directly. As Rusty enthusiastically explains to his guests Billy Quizboy and Pete White at the beginning of the episode, Spanakopita! is the annual celebration of… something or other (more on that later)… thrown on the isolated island of Spanakos. According to the Doc, he discovered Spanakopita! (and you’ve got to write it with the exclamation point) as a child, when he was lost at sea and rescued by the natives. Since hitting adulthood, he has been attending the festivities every year for the past twenty years. Hank, Dean, and Brock have typically tagged along on these trips, but this time around Samson is too immersed in conducting missions for the Office of Secret Intelligence, and Rusty’s sons beg off from attending, since Hank has a concert date with his improbable metal band Shallow Gravy, and Dean, deep into his emo phase, is too busy… sulking, I guess. And so Rusty has summoned Billy and Pete to the compound, plied them with a couple of his revolting “Doc-tails,” (a Hot Mummy for Billy, which appears to be some kind of red substance served in a skull-shaped mug wrapped in bandages, and a Slim Jim Fizz for Pete, which, ‘nuff said), and proceeds to pitch a fun few days away from inept archvillains and malfunctioning nuclear power plants.
I try not to get too into the nuts and bolts here, but you need to pay attention to how Doc is animated as he delivers his hard sell. Hammer and Publick’s default mode for the super-scientist practically shrieks “broken man:” Stooped posture, arms dangling impotently at sides, permanent scowl. The most animated he becomes is when he’s trying, typically unsuccessfully, to convince someone that something is more fantastic than it appears. Then he goes big: open arms, effusive gestures. He’s doing that here, but there’s something different about the choreography now—there’s more energy to it, more emotion. It’s almost like there’s no artifice to the Doc’s excitement. It’s almost like, brace yourselves…he’s actually feeling it.
Billy’s in. Of course he is—any opportunity to be with his idol. Pete is not so enthused—sunny Greek isles and people with albinism don’t really mix. But the adult boy genius eventually wins out, and with former archvillain/deprogrammed pervert/current bodyguard Sgt. Hatred in tow, the group jet off for a much-needed vacation.
And it turns out the Doc wasn’t faking anything. He fairly gambols as the group make their way to the inn, unmindful as Pete grouses about the lack of internet and Hatred vents his suspicions about the whole nature of the festivities. (And just to put you at ease, this is not a Midsommar scenario here.) Rusty isn’t even all that put out when he finds Jonas Jr.’s X-2 hydrofoil docked at the pier, or when his host, Giorgios (Larry Murphy) informs him that his traditional suite has been bought out by another guest.
That guest, though, is not Rusty’s aggravatingly successful brother, but Billy’s archnemesis, the ultra-rich, ultra-annoying, and toxically acquisitive super-nerd, Augustus St. Cloud (McCulloch—detecting a pattern, here?). He’s been spying on Billy and Pete with Bubo, the mechanical owl from Attack of the Titans (“Harryhausen’s a friend,” he mewls—btw, in a weird coincidence, stop-motion god Ray Harryhausen passed in May 2013, one month before season 5 debuted) and has acquired the X-2 and piloted it to Spanakos for the express purpose of ruining Billy’s—and by extension Doc’s—vacation.
Which he proceeds to do, both by cheating at the trio of contests that Doc traditionally (and, rather suspiciously) wins every year, and by buying up anything that has a real or implied price tag on it—which is everything, apparently. This drives Billy up a wall, to the point where he and White sneak onto the X-2 under cover of night to steal the awarded drachmas that will allow St. Cloud to be crowned King of Spanakopita! For their troubles they wind up staked to the ground in a sunrise death-trap—turns out St. Cloud is not just a super-nerd, he’s a homicidal super-nerd (and Pete’s anxiety over the trip was well-justified—he literally bursts into flames at the first kiss of daylight).
As for Rusty, he treats the intrusion in typical Thaddeus Venture fashion: He whines; he rages; he blames Billy and Pete for how St. Cloud is ruining his vacation. But in the scene where he confronts his travel-mates, he also exposes a bit of his soft psychic underbelly. When Billy suggests that they find some way to get the Spanakosians to kick St. Cloud off the island, and Pete responds, “Good luck. These people love him,” the Doc instantly snaps back, “THEY LOVE ME!”
And there you have it—the reason why Doc is so dead set on revisiting the island every year, the reason why St. Cloud’s attempts to take over the festival tear so deeply at Rusty’s soul. It’s the reason why, as Billy and Pete watch Doc frolicking with his hosts on their first night there—the super-scientist’s zeal likely fueled by a few infusions of ouzo—Billy notes that the Doc’s unalloyed happiness looks “kind of creepy.” There’s a palpable desperation to Rusty’s joy, as if he’s a cokehead deprived too long of a much-needed hit. Spanakopita! fills some kind of void in ol’ Rusty, one that extends beyond the typical urges of Doc’s battered ego.
Sgt. Hatred, his suspicions aroused by the conspicuously avaricious behavior of the Spanakosians and the strange “traditions” of Spanakopita!—among other things, visitors are welcomed by being hoisted around on a chair while gagged and bound (“How much for the full chair package?” St. Cloud inquires) —the bodyguard begins delving behind the scenes to find out what’s truly going on (one of the best one-off gags has him placing a video-watch call to Brock Samson, arousing the attention of a couple of women with curiously blonde sons). When he finally corners Giorgios, the host doesn’t hesitate in clearing up the mystery.
Back in the late ’60s, the poverty-stricken natives of Spanakos raided Jonas Venture’s X-2, carting away a chest they thought contained a fortune in antique drachmas. What they wound up with instead was a young Rusty, whom they immediately took captive with the intent of ransoming him back to his father. The problem with the plan was that Jonas Sr. would rather engage in battle with Robot L. Ron Hubbard (Murphy) than rescue his own son. As the days pass and it dawns on Rusty that his father is not coming anytime soon, his captors, moved by the boy’s grief and inspired by the snack one of their members is munching on, invent a grand festival in which all is happiness and Rusty always wins. A couple of decades hence, Rusty has either instinctually or deliberately managed to purge the details of the kidnaping, remembering only that there’s one place on Earth where he’s loved unconditionally, even if it’s for a price.
“Look,” Giorgios says, pointing to the Doc as he stands seaside, carving out of pumice a statue of young Rusty and his robotic companion H.E.L.P.eR (a touching image, imho), “You would tell him there’s no Spanakopita? You would break a lonely, little boy’s heart?”
Make no mistake: Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture will always be kind of a shit. It’s in his nature; it’s why, when at one point in the series he desperately asks Brock, “Am I evil?” the bodyguard responds with an equivocal, “Eh.” In pathologically pursuing even the smallest shred of joy, clinging desperately to it like a shipwreck victim might claw at a piece of flotsam (possibly at the risk of tossing other survivors into the drink), the Doc doesn’t especially render himself as an admirable example of humanity (especially since it’s at his goading that Billy and Pete wind up nearly roasted).
But that desperation didn’t form from nothing, it has to come from somewhere. And in giving us another glimpse into the tortured youth of a bitter, disgruntled, and self-obsessed scientist, Publick and Hammer allow us some leeway for empathy. So at the end, when Billy and Pete vanquish St. Cloud (by cheating, of course, with the help of St. Cloud’s albino manservant Pei Wie—turns out the “albino code” is even stronger than cash) and St. Cloud responds by noting that he’s bought the entire island of Spanakos, lock, stock, and olive oil barrels, it doesn’t come as a complete surprise when the Doc lets it all roll off his back. He’ll return next year, to the cavorting and the drinking and the repeated, and eventually annoying, cries of “Spanakopita!” like nothing ever happened. Because that hit of unrepentant joy is more important to him than anything else.
It’s easy to understand why. Live long enough in a vacuum sucked free of happiness—as too many of us have in recent years—and the faintest glimmer of it can exert a powerful draw. Even a louse like Rusty Venture is due a respite from darkness and gloom—he shouldn’t be condemned if occasionally he takes an opportunity to kick up his heels and exclaim, “Spanakopita!” He needs that sunny, effusive balm, as much as anyone.
Hardcore fans of The Venture Bros. know the difficulty of trying to convince people that the show is more than the typical Adult Swim mix of raunchiness and stoner silliness (although both of those tones arise when the need calls). “Spanakopita!” is one of the prime examples of how the show defied stereotyping, combining raucous humor, nerdy in-jokes (and kudos for giving Billy a Harryhausen-inspired, stop-motion nightmare), and surprisingly subtle human observation. But what do you think? Is there an episode you feel better exemplifies that kind of magic? Is there another series that can make you feel for the characters while laughing out loud? There’s a comments section below if you want to express yourself. I ask only that you do it in the spirit of friendship and, most importantly, with joy. Spanakopita!