Venture Bros. Producers talk hoverbikes, Johnny Quest, and a longing for home at NYCC ’13

 

For those of you that know me, whether it’d be via my writings or real life, you should know that I can be tossed into any situation and be able to hold my own. Hell, I just escorted my girlfriend to her best friend’s wedding on a little over two weeks notice and absolutely crushed that shit! But I’ve gotta admit that when Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer sauntered up to our table in their matching Astro Base speed suits, ChefRich felt a little out of his element. But then Doc positioned himself in what could only be described as a catcher’s position in his chair and spoke…

“Sit like this in a speed suit. Your balls are getting cleaned! It’s a genital embrace from my own pants, that is also my shirt.”

And with that, the nerves went away and I was in my element. I was home. Ironically, home was a big part of our roughly ten minute roundtable discussion that saw questions both off the wall and poignant fielded effortlessly from the creators of what could arguably be show of the year.

Now I’m sure you guys are quick on the uptake, but I should probably let you know that when you see a DH- it means those are the words of Doc Hammer. This also means JP- is Jackson Publick. Easy Peasy, right? Now let’s dive into some of these questions!

What’s the writing process like for you guys?

     “DH-This. It’s just like this but without you guys here. It’s just goofing around and then “Oh, that’s funny.” JP– And it’s also a lot of sitting around quietly until someone says something. We get a big board, and that’s when we get excited.”

So we know that these guys are fans of matching speed suits and large marker boards. Let’s see how they feel about “what if” scenarios…

If you guys got the chance to go to a Venture Yard Sale, what’s the 1 item you would buy?

     “JP– Hover bike. DH– But then you get it and you don’t know where to get phosphate fuel. Then the hover bike is just sitting in the garage. It becomes like a Nordic track. There’s laundry draped over the hover bike.”

You’d think gentlemen as svelte and fit as these two would be bigger fans of the Nordic Track.  Next in line was a question that actually made me cringe, but the answer more than made up for it. I knew we’d hear the words “Johnny Quest” uttered at this roundtable; I just didn’t think it would happen this soon…

We know the show takes a little bit from Johnny Quest. Is there anything from certain episodes that you’re like, “Yea I want that in my show now?”

     “DH- Johnny Quest, at this point, is more of a nervous habit than anything that really affected our show. The look, the world, they were all a catalyst. JP– Sort of like a genre that didn’t actually exist. It was a little bit of sci-fi, little bit of adventure. DH– It was a promise to super science, is what it was. The Walking Eye is like a childhood memory of this ridiculous thing that may or may not have happened. We pulled it out and went back and watched the episode and it wasn’t anywhere near as glorious as we remember. Remember in the walking eye one when he was talking about it like it was his wife? It’s dirtier than you remember, that show. There’s an oiliness to that show that you don’t really want to think about. They also used a lot of black like a comic book. JP- It was the only show that really looked like a comic book.  Then you were like “What’s up with you ‘crappy Spiderman cartoon’ why cant you look like that?” DH- Yeah, we didn’t have good Marvel when we were kids. It was crappy Marvel. Marvel now is awesome. We had good Marvel comics, but shitty Marvel TV.”

After that crisis was averted, in my eyes anyway, we moved on to some questions that actually touched on things that happened during this past season…

I Didn’t think taking the kids out of the cloning process and taking Brock out of the family would work but its been excellent. Why did you decide to let them grow up?

     “DH- Because they had to. You get stuck in this almost Bart Simpson lie if you don’t let them grow up. And that’s a cool thing to do, to have a week of this persons life take 20 years to tell. But we have a habit of making things happen, then matter, then referring back to them later. So when you break your toe and it rains, it kinda hurts. Instead of it never happened. I like that. JP- Also, they had to be people for us to actually write for them. They couldn’t just be these dork ciphers who talk like it’s the 50s. Just developing them. We had to make shit happen, make them talk like they were people. DH- It’s hard to write about people you don’t care about.”

It’s a pleasure to hear writers and show creators employ the logic that the world doesn’t reset when the credits roll. Life choices and decisions have consequences and we all have to live by them, be we animated or not. Nowhere can this be truer than with Gary. His story arc this season was as much a part of the main plot as the Venture’s. We know how the season ended, but let’s see what Jackson and Doc had to say…

At the end of the season we saw Gary return to Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch, Im curious, after seeing that season long progression of Gary building his sphinx or working with the OSI, to gaining that weird friendship with Shore Leave and Brock, to me as a fan, it kinda feels like a regression as a character. From your standpoint do you see it as Gary regressing to somewhere safe, to a certain extent?

     “DH- The way I look at it is, that Gary went through a lot. He decided that I’m gonna be my own man. He saw how that worked out. Nothing really came of it and he ended up living in the Venture’s yard. But he became his own man. So when he returns home, it’s home. When he returns home, he has gone through something. And that’s what we’re writing for for next season, is somebody who has returned home and has lived as a man. The monarch is this weird… JP- A prodigal son who now demands to be treated like a man.  DH- By a person who is barely an adult himself. JP- I wish we had gotten to spend more time on him. The ten episode thing instead of the thirteen episodes, yea there are some blanks you have to fill in yourself. DH- It’s really something that we’re excited to be working on for season 6. But for us, it was a return home. He’s done all of his things and he just so happens to be on the doorstep. And if you remember how it happened, it was inquisitive. “I’m home?” I happen to be in this location and you guys are standing there, so you’re extrapolating. But you’ll find out.”

And with the line “So when he returns home, it’s home,” it all made sense to me. These characters mean more to the creators than just an outlet for overactive imagination or a paycheck. These characters are members of their families. And I believe that might just be one of the reasons that the distance between seasons is so exorbitant, because most of us (HOPEFULLY) don’t want to watch our family fuck up. So take as much time as you need with the next season boys, so long as the next season is as good or better than the last.

(@chefrichBB) would have picked a teleporter from the yard sale because fuck commuting!