1. Escape to The House of Mummies! Part II
The beauty of “Escape to the House of Mummies!” lies in its ability to tell, as opposed to show. In what would be a Season Two triple episode time traveling season finale for any other show, The Venture Bros. just gives us the Spark Notes of a grand-standing time-traveling romp.
Did you notice how I counted “Showdown at Cremation Creek” as one episode, but I only mention part two of “Escape to The House of Mummies!” here? Well that’s because there is no part one, forcing us to play a bit of catch-up and allowing the writers to flood the episode with non sequiturs.
The Osiris Cult, a group of zealots heavy on the Egyptian theme, had created a time machine to bring back The Perfect Man, the son of Rah, so Brock and the boys went on a timeline shattering adventure filled with the mummy Pharaoh Mummy Mon Mummy, Clarissa Explains It All references, and Brock living out a life-long desire of getting Edgar Allen Poe in a headlock…but that’s actually the B-plot.
In the main storyline, Doc gets into a gentleman’s bet with Dr. Orpheus, pitting magic against science and seeing who the biggest man was by seeing who could shrink themselves the most. Doctor Venture seeks the help of Billy Quizboy and Pete White, while Dr. Orpheus seeks the council of his shape-shifting master, voiced by quite possibly the best voice-actor in the business, H. Jon Benjamin. In this episode, The Master appears in the form of Cerberus, who manages to lick his own genitals without missing a line’s worth of hilarity.
Now don’t get me wrong, I may have pumped up the time traveling storyline up here, but that’s just what I’ve assembled from the glorious snippets they show us and the DVD commentary. In the meanwhile, we get glorious moments including a list of Top Ten Guilty pleasures, featuring Doc’s number 2., Bonnie Bella, and Billy Quizboy’s number 5., “Dust buster with corner attachment.”
Seriously, I’m not usually one to watch DVD commentary, but The Venture Bros. is one series to produce some really hilarious DVD commentary. It’s like watching a second episode of the show, as Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick voice nearly every duo of characters that appears.
We only get snippets of the B-plot, perfect given its anachronistic theme, as every time we cut back from Doc and Orpheus accepting failure, the time traveling storyline only gets more insane and random by the cut. By the time Brock, another Brock, Dean’s head on a mummy body dual-wielding machine guns and riding a giant simpleton, in arms with Caligula, Freud, and pumpkin-headed Edgar Allen Poe face off an overwhelming Mummy horde, you can only pray that one day they will actually give us the caveman cannibalism brutality of Escape To The House of Mummies Part III.
The episode also brings us this golden bit of dialogue.
So there you have it, with much deliberation and the most liberal definition of “work” ever, the top ten episodes of The Venture Bros. Keep in mind however that I honestly don’t think there is a single episode where I couldn’t find at least one redeeming quality. Though I can wax on about the glorious beauty of David Bowie themed wars and ultra-creepy Batmen , it pains me to admit that I had to ignore a Scooby Doo mystery with a serial killer twist and the “WALKING EYE!” amongst other Venture staples of hilarity to do so.
But what do you think? Should I have included more Sgt. Hatred? More Molotov? Less 21 and 24? The episode where Brock kills like, everyone with his car? LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS.
