At this year's New York Comic-Con, we had the opportunity to sit down with Venture Bros. brain trust Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer to discuss their upcoming Halloween special and fifth season (which hits in 2013). Here are nine assorted facts we learned about the Adult Swim, purposefully arranged in no particular order.
1. Is another Venture Bros. soundtrack in the works? Mayhaps.
Jackson Publick: We would love another version of the soundtrack. J.G. Thirlwell would love to do another version of the soundtrack, but he's trying some darnedest to try to work something out. I'll put in a request for the Orpheus theme. Certainly a medley of favorite themes would be good. That's never been a whole song. It's just a "DUNHHHHH."
Doc Hammer: It's good to have if you want to [pretend to be] Doctor Orpheus. If you want to make mundane information sound great!
2. With regards to the show's televisual absence, Jackson Publick noted that "nobody counts Jacket as an episode" and "you can expect [the new season] to start exactly where it left off." He also elaborated on the episode count.
Jackson Publick: The order was for ten. Technically, it's going to be nine, as the premiere was an hour long. The Halloween special is one of those ten. That doesn't sound like a great deal! Waiting two years for eight episodes! But we're getting back to writing really soon and will do a long-form episode between Seasons Five and Six.
3. A Very Venture Halloween Special channels It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
Doc Hammer: I went on Wikipedia to find out how many shows had Halloween specials. It's in the hundreds. Every show that ever existed made a Halloween episode! Show's that I've never heard of made a Halloween episode. Mostly what they are are just the horror version of that show, with a ghost or something. We wanted a real special that could be played every Halloween.
4. io9 asked the guys if they ever write "forty pages of Shore Leave," only to realize they've completely misplaced Hank and Dean. Their response?
Doc Hammer: We're more disciplined — we don't have enough time to be undisciplined. It's getting pretty absurd now, with color-coded outlines.
Jackson Publick: We're also at the point five seasons in where we could go, "The boys aren't in this one."
Doc Hammer: We're more diligent about making sure Doc is always around.
Jackson Publick: We feel like we didn't give him enough screen time.
Doc Hammer: Also, the show has so much to do with him. It's a very Doc-centric show, even though we go off on tangents about people and events that have no bearing on the show. That happens. We can't stop ourselves.
5. Apropos of nothing, what was up with that guy in a bloody bear costume wielding a knife during Phantom Limb's supervillain auditions?
Jackson Publick: I call him "The Scare Bear." He's probably just a psychopathic killer. I wanted to slip him into the background all over that season and kind of forgot to. I was writing a scene for another episode that I had to cut. To me, he's always there, breathing and watching. Maybe we'll remember to stick him around. I like any time the villains on our show have to deal with the true face of evil. It makes them uncomfortable.
io9: Then who do you consider the true face of evil on the show?
Jackson Publick: Doc.
Doc Hammer: He didn't take that career path!
Jackson Publick: The Investors might be. They appear to be something nobody else knows how to comprehend.
6. David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Klaus Nomi, and (hopefully) Jarvis Cocker are members of The Guild of Calamitous Intent. What other musicians would the guys like to recruit for The Guild?
Doc Hammer: We always talk about [Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister] joining The Guild [of Calamitous Intent]. But we always talk about Lemmy as Brock's greatest friend because they could both wear those hot pants shorts and nobody could say a fucking word to them. Like those cutoffs with the pockets hanging out!
7. Characters on the show are allusions — even when they guys don't intend them to be!
Doc Hammer: I just invent a guy and somebody goes, "Oh, is that based on whoever?" And I go, "Yeah!"
Jackson Publick: Yeah, like, "The Outrider is Solomon Kane!" And I go, "Who?"
8. Also, the Venture Bros. T-Shirt Club might be making a comeback.
Doc Hammer: We really want to do Shirt Club again but have to figure out the logistics. There's a lot of work. The fun about Shirt Club is to do as much of it yourself as possible. The first time we did it, we did it ourselves because we're idiots.
9. Finally, here's Doc Hammer's advice for those who require music when they write.
Doc Hammer: I always write to the same thing: Placebo or Catherine Wheel. They have a lot of albums and all of their songs are good. None of them are great, none of them suck. You get six hours of competence. Since it's one band, it takes time, rolls [time] up in a little ball, and crams it up the universe's poop-chute. So it feels like minutes have gone by because I've been listening to the same band for a long time. That's how I do it. I hypnotize myself with rock music!
A Very Venture Halloween Special airs on Sunday, October 28 at 11:30 PM on Adult Swim.