This is a brilliant Adult Swim cartoon that spoofs Johnny Quest and a number of spy / adventure genres.

Doctor Venture is the grown up version of Johnny Quest as if Johnny had grown up to be a spiteful, selfish, amoral inventor-tycoon who must contend with a variety of supervillains, all with their own personal quirks and problems. Venture is guarded by his faithful he-man bodyguard Brock Samson who has to rescue Venture not only from his enemies but also from his own schemes and character flaws. Venture's two twin sons are as naive and gee-whilickers as Johnny Quest (without his smarts) which naturally puts them in harm's way every episode - they don't always get through the adventure unscathed.

This is not the same type of parody as another Adult Swim favourite Sealab 2021. While Sealab has its stupid humour and absurd charm, The Venture Bros. is chock full of funny dialogue, characters and hits the nerd factor bang on with parodies of James Bond / In Like Flint, comics like The Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange and, of course, Saturday-morning cartoons like Johnny Quest and Scooby Doo. The Venture Bros. also manages to fit in David Bowie, The Doors and .. well.. let's say they pull off the cultural references a lot better than The Family Guy.

The Venture Bros. is produced by one of the writers of another good parody cartoon, The Tick, Jackson Publick, and features the voice of The Tick's Patrick Warburton as Brock Samson.

And, to further distance The Venture Bros. from the Sealab comparison, the quality of the animation is very good. (I know! Part of the charm of Sealab is the crap animation!)

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Season one is available on DVD.

Season two is currently showing on the Adult Swim hour of the Cartoon Channel.