The Venture Brothers
Blu-ray | DVD
Created by Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer
Starring James Urbaniak, Patrick Warburton
Warner Bros Home Video
Release date: March 22, 2011

It’s time once again for another review of a Venture Brothers DVD set, this time with Season 4, Volume 2. I’ve gone on before about my love for this show, but I think this time I’m going to say exactly why I love this show so much. If you’re looking to see whether you should buy this DVD or not, yes, you should buy it. There are 8 great episodes on here that are well worth the money. If you’ve got a Blu-ray player, then definitely pick up the complete Season 4 Blu-ray, also on sale March 22, 2011. It’s very easy for me to recommend this show to anyone who likes comic books, action, old cartoons, new cartoons, and anything that makes you laugh.

I grew up watching Johnny Quest, and the whole show started as a parody of that show. The premise for Venture Bros. is essentially “What if Johnny Quest really existed, grew up, and turned out to be a failure in life.” It’s this central premise that drew me in at first, but it is the expansion of that premise that has kept me watching.

Today was a big day for fans of Adult Swim’s The Venture Brothers. Not only did it see the release of Venture Brothers: Season 4 on Blu-ray and the second half of the season on DVD, but we also found out that the show has officially been picked up for two more seasons.

The announcement was made on series co-creator Jackson Publick‘s blog. By my reckoning, this means we are all set for Seasons 5 and 6, and that is some good news to hear.

The Venture Brothers
Season 4 Volume 1
DVD/Blu-ray
Created by: Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick
Staring: Patrick Warburton, James Urbaniak, Christopher McCulloch
Cartoon Network/Warner Brothers
Release Date: October 26, 2010

I’ll get the easy part out of the way up front; Yes, The Venture Brothers Season 4, Volume 1 is another great set of episodes from my favorite show on TV, so yes, I’m going to give this a guarded recommendation (I’ll explain the guarded part later). The eight episodes on this disc comprise the first half of season four, and while they may not be the best of the series, they are still very funny, and fans of the show are going to want to pick this up. If you haven’t seen the show before I would recommend starting at the beginning, because these episodes are built on a lot of things that have gone on in the show before.

I don’t know if I love the episodes on this disc as much as some of the other seasons. Certainly the absence of Brock Samson (voiced by Patrick Warburton) is a big reason why I don’t enjoy these as much. There are still a number of good episodes, particularly “Hansom Ransom” which features Kevin Conroy (Batman: The Animated Series) playing a very different kind of super-hero. Other standout episodes include “The Revenge Society” which features the return of Phantom Limb and which may be my favorite episode of the season, and “Self-Medication” which has Doc Venture joining a boy adventurer support group and has guest voices by Seth Green, John Hodgeman, and Patton Oswalt. There are good episodes just not as many as in previous seasons.

A fifth season of Venture Bros. will indeed happen, confirmed show creator Jackson Publick on his blog.

Another season of the Adult Swim hit show seemed likely and was hinted in the end credits of last season’s finale.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many details at this point, but then again this is a show where spoilers never really mean much compared to the humor it brings.

The minds behind Adult Swim hit show The Venture Bros. — Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer — decided to meet their adoring fans differently for their Dragon*Con 2010 panel by setting up some comfy chairs, a coffee table and cheesy ’70’s music that played whenever the pair wasn’t speaking.

Call it convention fatigue or boredom, but Publick and Hammer thought it would be better to treat the scheduled time as an old school talkshow — Maury Povich style. They took turns running through the crowded ballroom allowing fans to ask questions and receive a rose if it was deemed worthy of answering.

We captured the whole thing on a shaky, amateurishly handled FlipCam and have subsequently uploaded the videos to YouTube, which you can watch below.

Some of the high points include Bill Hader replacing the voice of Stephen Cobert as Professor Richard Impossible, why a Venture Bros. feature-length film is probably a bad idea and lots of news regarding who will be back for the last part of the season.

Check out the embedded video after the jump.