The Venture Bros./Past Tense

Past Tense
Season 1, Episode 11
Airdate	October 16, 2004
Production Number	112
Written by	Jackson Publick
Directed by	Jackson Publick
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The Venture Bros. — Season One

Past Tense is the eleventh episode of the first season of The Venture Bros., and the twelfth episode overall.

Guest stars: Steve Park (Mike Sorayama), Steffen Vala (College Student), Christopher McCulloch (Col. Horace Gentleman, The Action Man), Paul Boocock (Priest #1), T. Ryder Smith (Baron Ünderbheit, Otto Acquarius), Lisa Hammer (Jeanie, Leslie Cohen, Lesliebots), Richard Liebmann-Smith (Priest #2)

Plot Overview

When Brock and Dr. Venture are kidnapped from the funeral of an old college friend, the boys enlist the aid of the original Team Venture: a group of superscience adventurers who worked for their grandfather in the sixties. Meanwhile, the kidnapper reveals his twenty-year old grudge through a series of flashbacks to when he, Doc, Brock, Baron Underbheit, and Mr. White were all in college together.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Dr. Venture attends the funeral of one of his college friends, Mike Soriyama. The event turns out to be a trap to ensnare him, Brock, Baron Ünderbheit, and Pete White. The still-living Mike proceeds to tell them why he hates all of them so much.

• Hank and Dean contact the original Team Venture to try and rescue their father and Brock. The attempt is moderately successful, as Brock manages to escape on his own and mistakenly ends up beating the members of Team Venture savagely.

• Mike Soriyama actually is dead; he programmed a robot to carry out the kidnapping.

Characters

• Dr. Venture and Brock were roommates in college, but never actually met until Brock had to leave the school. Brock was a freshman; Thaddeus Venture was most likely a junior.

• As a child, T.S. Venture was kidnapped roughly once every two weeks. As a result, his father implanted a tracking device in one of his molars. The tooth was knocked out by Brock when he attacked T.S. Venture in college.

• Brock got laid often in college; T.S. Venture didn't lose his virginity until the age of twenty-four.

• Mike White's roommate was Baron Ünderbheit. Manservant lived in his closet.

• The Monarch was in Dr. Venture's Creative Writing Class.

• Brock accidentally killed Tommy the quarterback, causing his scholarship to be cut. Brock then left school and joined the army.

• Brock was the one who told T.S. Venture that his father had died, as an offhanded comment.

Referbacks

• The backstory of Brock's football vision in Eeny, Meeny, Miney... Magic is finally revealed here.

• This semester was the one where T.S. Venture had Professor Impossible, since he previously mentioned that he squeaked by with a "C-" because his dad had died.

Trivia

References

• Jolly Rancher: Dr. Venture complains that the ant people only offered them a used Jolly Rancher as a reward. Jolly Rancher is a type of ultra-sweet, clear hard candy currently manufactured by Hershey's. The most common flavors are cherry, strawberry, grape, and sour apple.

• Mike Yanagita: The character of Mike Soriyama is a parody of the character of Mike Yanagita from the movie Fargo. Fargo is a movie directed by the Coen Brothers about the kidnapping of a local woman that degenerates into a murder case when the kidnappers kill three people. The murders are investigated by a local police chief, who is seven months pregnant. The film is set in Minnesota. At one point in the film the police chief meets with an old high school classmate, Mike Yanagita. Mike is of Japanese decent, but has an extremely heavy Minnesotan accent (such as a propensity to say "ya" instead of "yes"). The producers of Venture Bros. hired the actor who played Mike Yanagita, comedian Steve Park, to perform the voice of Mike Soriyama.

• Hajime Sorayama and Heavy Metal: Mike Soriyama is named after the Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama. Hajime Sorayama is known for realistic, sensual illustrations of female androids (gynoids) that appear in magazines like Penthouse and Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal is an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine that often features violent or pornographic content, including fanciful pin-ups of female subjects.

• Coco from Fame: Dr. Venture mentions that Mike Soriyama was obsessed with "Coco from Fame" the year before he was obsessed with Leslie Coen. Fame was a film (and later a television show) about a group of teenagers attending the fictional New York City High School for the Performing Arts, where they received specialized training in acting, singing, and dance. Coco Hernandez was one of the principal characters, played by Irene Cara.

• Jehovah's Witnesses: Otto Acquarius is a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Jehovah's Witnesses are a denomination of Christianity known for its members traveling from door-to-door to preach their beliefs. These visits are often unwelcome. The Jehovah's Witnesses have a subtantial and extensive publishing concern including The Watchtower magazine, used to both promote the religion to outsiders and disseminate information to members of the church. A publishing plant for The Watchtower is located near Brooklyn Heights, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York noted for historic brownstone dwellings. Otto Acquarius is preaching there when he gets the call from Col. Horace Gentleman.

• Dungeons and Dragons: T.S. Venture, Peter White, Verner Ünderbheit, and Mike Soriyama played Dungeons and Dragons regularly in college. Dungeons and Dragons is a role-playing game, where players take the role of a character in a medieval fantasy world and act out a story with several other players, their actions determining the outcome. The abilities and traits of each character are represented by numbers. The outcomes of significant actions, such as attacking, require a dice roll. Certain traits and abilities may add a bonus to these dice rolls, altering the number and affecting the result. When T.S. decides to seduce the "Leslie-golem" (a golem is an animated being crafted from inanimate material from Jewish folklore) to annoy Mike, he must make a roll to determine if his attempt is successful. His character's high charisma trait gives him a substantial bonus, ensuring his success. Dr. Venture later mentions having sex on graph paper. Graph paper is a type of paper with a grid printed on it. It is often used to draw environmental maps for role-playing games, since a player's movement is limited per turn. Drawing out the schematics of a room on graph paper allows a player to know where everything is, and where their character can go.

Behind the Scenes

• This episode was temporarily banned from the airwaves due to the designs of the Leslie-bots bordering on copyright infringement towards Hajime Sorayama's original designs. The episode was finally returned to the air in Fall 2005, with an addition of a link to Sorayama's website in the credits.

Quotes

Dean Venture: Funerals are creepy.
Hank Venture: What's the big deal? You see dead guys all the time.
Dean: When?
Hank: Dude, just the other week Brock killed two dervishes with a pillowcase full of Cokes, right in our bedroom!
Dean: He just knocked them out.
Hank: Go sing yourself another lullaby, baby Dean. The police took them out in body bags.
Dean: Sleeping bags! Those were sleeping bags!

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