A Shoe Fit for a Monarch

"The Monarch has his hands in many sinister soups." -- The Monarch

One of my favorite shows on TV right now doesn't get many props. That show is The Venture Bros. on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The show has been on for years, but it seems to be ignored even by people who watch everything else on Adult Swim. I can understand this behavior. When I first watched a few episodes of the show back when I was in undergrad, I didn't really care for it either. The show didn't really seem to make sense, and most of the material didn't seem that funny.

Batmite, as he tends to do, berated me for my lack of taste. He said it was one of the funniest shows he'd ever seen. He gave me the first two seasons of the show, and once I sat down and watched the show in order, it really showed itself to be one of the most intelligently-written comedies on television right now. The humor, however, comes from knowing the characters, their behavior, and the various plots that the show maintains. I can't believe I'm tempted to use the term "story arcs" to describe a cartoon show.

At the most basic level, the show is a parody of Johnny Quest and other "adventure" cartoons of the 60s and 70s. Imagine that Johnny Quest grew up to resent his father and became a failure as a scientist, father, and human being. That's Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture in a nutshell. He's the father of the titular Venture brothers, Hank and Dean, who act like just about any teenager from a 70s cartoon show, complete with lines like "Golly, Pop!" or "It must be that no-good ne'er-do-well ninja!" Even though the show is named after them, Hank and Dean seldom play a major role in any given episode. They're not exactly dumb; they're just really juvenile. The whole family is protected by Brock Sampson, their bodyguard... and by "bodyguard," I mean a human killing machine with blood lust that would put Dracula to shame. Brock Sampson once killed a man using his sphincter! You have to see it to believe it.

The show features a huge assortment of colorful supporting characters, all of whom represent sublime failure in all its glory. But my favorite character is without question The Monarch (pictured at the very top of this post). The Monarch loathes Dr. Venture for reasons that are never really explained, but he takes such pleasure in his role as a villain. He is genuinely upset to find out that his name isn't in the handbook for the Guild of Calamitous Intent (sort of like the Legion of Doom from the Superfriends). He gives dramatic villainous speeches at the drop of a hat, but his schemes are never particularly menacing. In one episode, he gets into Dr. Venture's laboratory, but he doesn't know what to do. So he takes a dump in his toilet but doesn't flush. "LET HIM SEE THE WRATH OF THE MONARCH!" he declares triumphantly.

The most recent episode of the show ("Tears of a Sea Cow") featured the Monarch almost exclusively. The Monarch becomes bored with his new arch-nemesis, so he sneaks into the Venture Compound at night with his two favorite henchmen just to screw with Dr. Venture. He spits on a microscope slide, takes a dump in his pool, and then sodomizes Venture's robot. The episodes with very little plot are often my favorite.

The Monarch's henchmen are glorious characters in their own right. #21 is an overweight comic-book nerd who loves his job as a henchman and often geeks out over nifty gadgets and cool plotlines. He's always seen with the taller nasal-voiced #24 who seems to be in the henchman gig just for the paycheck. Their dialogue could be the entire episode as far as I'm concerned.

But my love for the Monarch is unrivaled. Yesterday, I went to the shoe store to find some new running shoes. My old ones were making the soles of my feet hurt. So I get to the store and narrow my selection to two pairs. This was not a particularly difficult problem since shoe stores have about four pairs of size 15 shoes in the entire building. I couldn't decide which pair to buy. One was New Balance and the other was Nike. I put one of each pair on each foot. They were both the same price, and they both felt about the same; however, the Nike pair had the following logo on it:
I figured that was as good a reason as any. If they were good enough for the Monarch, they were good enough for me.

Unfortunately, I wore these new shoes to go jogging today, and while they did indeed provide necessary cushioning to the bottoms of my feet, they also rubbed two layers of skin off of the top of my left pinky toe.

I SAW THE WRATH OF THE MONARCH!!
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The Venture Bros: Currently in its 3rd season. Go find the first two seasons and enjoy! Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back!

*Satisfaction will be measured according to a painful process involving electrodes, poisoned needles, three attack dogs, and a pile of compost. Attempts to reclaim money without proof of purchase, proper identification, three photo IDs, a tattoo of a naked Nigerian on you ass, a stool sample, and twelve cherry pies to serve as a bribe will be met with mocking laughter and.... I suppose death or something. Your patronage is important to us, but our own money and greed is MORE important to us.

[UPDATE: I neglected to mention one of my favorite trivial aspects of the show. The creators have the same unbridled love for puns, wordplay, and allusions in their episode titles that I do. Some of my favorites include: "Tag Sale, You're It", "Mid-Life Chrysalis", "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills", "The Doctor is Sin", "Home is Where the Hate Is", and the upcoming "Now Museum, Now You Don't." Anyone with even a passing awareness of the titles for my posts will understand why I'm a fan.]