Share the Wealth Wednesday #3
Wednesday morning is upon us once more, and so with it comes that most sacred of traditions: Share the Wealth Wednesday!
For those of you who are new here, and for those whose memories do not extend back as far as the murky depths of pre-history from which this practice emerges (by which I mean two weeks ago), every Wednesday, we post some neat thing that we’ve found in our journeys through the internet, which others can enjoy with but the click of a mouse. It can be anything - a YouTube video, a webcomic, a video game, etc - so long as it is freely and instantly accessible to anyone who cares to enjoy it. Theoretically, as more and more links accrue during the course of the day, this post, and posts from previous Wednesdays will become a repository of awesome distractions and oddities. New stuff is always preferred, since stuff you haven’t seen before is that much less likely to be something anyone else has seen, but the wealth of links you share need not necessarily be as fresh as all that; it need only be NEAT.
For my own contribution, allow me to direct you to Venture Bros Online. A website which makes the dubious claim to legality (which I nevertheless choose for the sake of argument to believe is valid) in presenting every episode of Venture Bros to date for your free online viewing.
I’ve spoken of Venture Bros a time or two, and the show has been on the air long enough that it shouldn’t be an enigma to most media savvy people, but it bears, for the sake of this post, a short description. Venture Bros started off as a parody of a number of “boy adventurer” cartoons; primarily Johnny Quest, with a bit of Scooby-Doo and Hardy Boys thrown in there for good measure, but has fairly swiftly matured and mutated into its own distinct entity. The humour is very much intended for an adult audience, and indeed by season three, there’s a certain amount of swearing an nudity which, though censored in the televised version, is on full display on the DVDs.
My personal favourite episode of the series to date, which I feel really captures the essence of what makes this show great, is a second season episode entitled “Escape to the House of Mummies, Part 2”.
A scene from Escape to the House of Mummies, Part II, in which things get bizarre and complicated.
This is the middle part of a ridiculously complex adventure involving a high-tech ancient Egyptian cult, time travel, mummies and death traps. There is no part one and there is no part three; you’re literally only getting the middle part of the adventure, with no setup and no resolution. What’s even better is that the bulk of the episode has Rusty Venture - a washed-up, embittered middle-aged former boy adventurer-turned failed mad scientist - getting into an absurd, petty and meaningless dispute with Doctor Orpheus - a necromancer and single parent who rents out a suite of rooms from Rusty - over a point of personal pride, which results in them becoming so completely distracted and side-tracked that they utterly forget about the adventure at hand, leaving the rest of the cast to their fates, which we occasionally see in a series of increasingly bizarre cut-aways as their adventure continues. It’s absolute comedy gold.
Anyways! There’s my contribution. What’ve you got to share, my friends? It’s time to share the wealth!
For those of you who are new here, and for those whose memories do not extend back as far as the murky depths of pre-history from which this practice emerges (by which I mean two weeks ago), every Wednesday, we post some neat thing that we’ve found in our journeys through the internet, which others can enjoy with but the click of a mouse. It can be anything - a YouTube video, a webcomic, a video game, etc - so long as it is freely and instantly accessible to anyone who cares to enjoy it. Theoretically, as more and more links accrue during the course of the day, this post, and posts from previous Wednesdays will become a repository of awesome distractions and oddities. New stuff is always preferred, since stuff you haven’t seen before is that much less likely to be something anyone else has seen, but the wealth of links you share need not necessarily be as fresh as all that; it need only be NEAT.
For my own contribution, allow me to direct you to Venture Bros Online. A website which makes the dubious claim to legality (which I nevertheless choose for the sake of argument to believe is valid) in presenting every episode of Venture Bros to date for your free online viewing.
I’ve spoken of Venture Bros a time or two, and the show has been on the air long enough that it shouldn’t be an enigma to most media savvy people, but it bears, for the sake of this post, a short description. Venture Bros started off as a parody of a number of “boy adventurer” cartoons; primarily Johnny Quest, with a bit of Scooby-Doo and Hardy Boys thrown in there for good measure, but has fairly swiftly matured and mutated into its own distinct entity. The humour is very much intended for an adult audience, and indeed by season three, there’s a certain amount of swearing an nudity which, though censored in the televised version, is on full display on the DVDs.
My personal favourite episode of the series to date, which I feel really captures the essence of what makes this show great, is a second season episode entitled “Escape to the House of Mummies, Part 2”.
A scene from Escape to the House of Mummies, Part II, in which things get bizarre and complicated.
This is the middle part of a ridiculously complex adventure involving a high-tech ancient Egyptian cult, time travel, mummies and death traps. There is no part one and there is no part three; you’re literally only getting the middle part of the adventure, with no setup and no resolution. What’s even better is that the bulk of the episode has Rusty Venture - a washed-up, embittered middle-aged former boy adventurer-turned failed mad scientist - getting into an absurd, petty and meaningless dispute with Doctor Orpheus - a necromancer and single parent who rents out a suite of rooms from Rusty - over a point of personal pride, which results in them becoming so completely distracted and side-tracked that they utterly forget about the adventure at hand, leaving the rest of the cast to their fates, which we occasionally see in a series of increasingly bizarre cut-aways as their adventure continues. It’s absolute comedy gold.
Anyways! There’s my contribution. What’ve you got to share, my friends? It’s time to share the wealth!