Disco Fries
S1 E13: Return to Spider-Skull Island
The Venture Bros., 2003.
"Don’t touch that. For within that Homeboy figurine resides the souls of two foulmouthed rednecks!"
"Don’t touch that. For within that Homeboy figurine resides the souls of two foulmouthed rednecks!"
My dear friends, gather ’round your choice of vintage mid-century divan and let us speak—nay, marvel—at The Venture Bros. season 1 finale, “Return to Spider Skull Island.”
If you, like many of us, find the mere mention of spider-related destinations unsettling, rest assured that the horrors contained therein are offset by the surprisingly heartfelt revelations that ensue. Naturally, this includes the new addition of Jonas Venture Jr.—birthed from Dr. Venture’s abdomen like a cameo in a B-movie horror flick, albeit with fewer shrieking nurses and more scientific apparatuses. Also, let us not forget Dr. Orpheus’s paternal flamboyance, The Monarch’s trial shenanigans, and a general sense that absolutely nothing is going according to any script that was ever hammered out in a bored staff meeting.
As for the writing duo themselves, the unholy force behind this carnival of comedic chaos is Jackson Publick (the professional moniker of Christopher McCulloch) and Doc Hammer, who share an approach to scripting that might generously be described as, “Why not reanimate the corpse of every classic science fiction trope, and also insert a thunderously inappropriate side joke while we’re at it?” These two gents, in addition to penning “Return to Spider Skull Island,” more or less shaped the entire first season into a delightful tapestry of high-tech gadgetry, earnest boy adventurers, megalomaniacal arch-villains, and existential ennui served with a wink. Production, meanwhile, took place at the fabled Astro-Base GO studios in New York—though one might imagine it as more of an underground layer, complete with moody lighting, vintage space-age furniture, and towering stacks of pulp magazines for “research” purposes.
But enough about the behind-the-scenes. This episode brims with pivotal plot reveals (Jonas Jr. is real, folks! and yes, he’s a little raw about that whole “gestating in a belly” business), explosive action (gunfights, mad science experiments, the usual), and plenty of comedic asides, quips, and references so deep-cut that you’ll want to keep an encyclopedic knowledge of ’70s and ’80s pop culture tucked in your back pocket. So the next time you find yourself wondering, “How can a single show juggle so many absurd storylines with near-surgical precision—and do so while wearing colorfully flamboyant henchmen uniforms?”—know that you stand in the presence of the creative trifecta that is Jackson Publick, Doc Hammer, and their legion of devoted animators. This is The Venture Bros., dear readers, and “Return to Spider Skull Island” is their cinematic coup de grâce to Season 1, leaving you with the singular choice to do anything but wait, breathlessly, for more.
Make it! Disco fries by Aleka’s Get-Together.