After 7 seasons and 20 years, The Venture Bros. The Complete Series is finally being released as a box set from Warner Bros Discovery Home Entertainment today, and they sent Cherry the Geek TV a copy of the set for review.
The series, created by Chris McCulloch and Doc Hammer, follows the lives and adventures of the Venture family, including the emotionally insecure and underachieving super-scientist Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture, his teenage fraternal twin sons Hank and Dean, their bodyguard Brock Samson, and their self-proclaimed arch-nemesis, The Monarch. The series features the voice talents of James Urbaniak as Dr. Thaddeus “Rusty” Venture, Christopher McCulloch as Hank, Michael Sinterniklaas as Dean Venture, Patrick Warburton as Brock Samson, and Paul Boocock as Dr. Venture’s deceased father, Dr. Jonas. The show originally premiered in 2004 on the late night programming block Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network and ran for seven seasons. On first glance, it has the look and feels of the old Johnny Quest cartoons. But it soon becomes it’s own thing, with humor and creativity that made it extremely popular with viewers. The show evolved over the years and the world-building from McCulloch and Hammer is fun to watch as the show progressed.
The seasons were all released individually over the years, but this is the first time that they are all together in one set and the packaging is beautiful. The Complete Series release spans 14 discs, 2 per season, which are placed overlapping on plastic trays in a thick DVD case. The case is placed inside a carboard slipcover, and contains a small insert detailing the episodes and contents of each season. No digital copy is included in the DVD set, but is also available to purchase separately.
The discs contain all 82 episodes, 4 specials, and a TON of bonus features including many commentaries from McCulloch and Hammer, deleted scenes, featurettes, and more. All of the bonus features are the same as the ones included in the previous editions, so there is no reason to upgrade if you already own them, other than condensing them into one cool set that takes up less space.
As far as negatives? Just some minor nitpicking. The set is being released on DVD and Digital only, even though some of the seasons were previously released on Blu-ray. A Blu-ray or 4K set would have been nice. Also, season 7 ends with a cliffhanger ending, and a new movie that finishes the series called The Venture Bros.:Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart is coming out next month–so it would have been nice to just wait and include EVERYTHING in the set with maybe some new bonus features. But again, that’s just minor nitpicks to what is really an amazing set.
This set is highly recommended for those who want to relive favorite scenes and episodes and to new viewers who want to deep dive in and explore the series from the beginning.
THE VENTURE BROS:THE COMPLETE SERIES DVD
SHOW QUALITY: A
VIDEO QUALITY: B+
AUDIO QUALITY: A
BONUS FEATURES: A+
OVERALL VALUE: A+