THE VENTURE BROS. / Dia De Los Dangerous - 2004

The Venture Bros. was my favorite show on Adult Swim, this is the first episode from this series. I personally like the earlier stories as it got too glossy and overly complicated near the end.

Our adventure starts with the gang down in Tijuana Mexico where Dr. Venture is giving a lecture at the university. He's accompanied by his sons Hank and Dean and their body guard, the baddest ass in the universe, Brock Samson.

Dr. Venture is lecturing the students on how there is no such thing as a chupacabra. The students are paying no attention to his ramblings...

After his WTF lecture, Dr. Venture would like to get paid for his services. The administrator hands him a check for 9,000..... Pesos!!

Then a Monarch butterfly lands on Dr. Venture's shoulder and he wants to know if it's poisonous.

Thing is, the butterfly is actually a mechanical tracking device sent out to spy on Doc. The Monarch there on the right is Dr. Venture's sworn rival, although, Doc seemingly has never even heard of The Monarch! He tells his henchmen to go out and keep an eye on the Ventures and watch out for that psycho Brock Samson!

In the meantime, Dr. Venture has gone to a Tijuana doctor and requests some uppers from him. The Tijuana doctor tells him that he has scruples, so Dr. Venture holds up a hundred dollar bill.

Doc gave Hank and Dean some spending money and Dean wants to spend it on their robot, Helper. 

Dean says, let's get him a new paint job!

While Helper is being redone, Monarch's henchmen decide to take Hank and Dean hostage and take them back to their palace, rather than just keep an eye on them.

The boys communicators tell Brock exactly where they are and he sprints to the scene!

Brock chokes the instigator of the kidnapping with an iron grip while the others look on in horror.

Brock has been hit with like a hundred tranquilizer darts with no effect!!

So, one of the henchmen guns the truck and rams Brock in reverse, finally knocking him out. The kidnappers go back to the palace.

When Dr. Venture wakes up, he's in a tub of ice with a note pinned to his dickey.

Doc calls Helper to come and get him.

Helper hones in on Brock's communicator and they find a gravesite where people have paid their respects to the fallen god.

But, Brock springs up, still holding on to the dead henchman. Doc asks him why he was being so brutal and Brock replies... Doc, they hit me with a truck! By the way, Brock is voiced by that awesome dude, Patrick Warburton!

Back in their private jet, the X-1, Brock has found the boys' location and puts a plan into action. But just before that, Dr. Venture is attacked by a chupacabra that was hiding in Brock's car. I hope you see the irony here.

Brock guns the car in reverse and backs it out of the X-1.

The car drops into the Monarch's lair where Brock demolishes all the henchmen and grabs Hank and Dean from the Monarch's clutches.

At the end we find out that Dr. Venture is just fine with two new kidneys! This series is just the best for twisted humor, my fave.

THE TREE IN A TEST TUBE - "Pete Smith - Interlocutor" (1942)

 

Now here's a right Weird Wednesday item that everybody should see at least once. It's called "The Tree In A Test Tube," and was an American made propaganda film promoting the appreciation of wood in 1942. The amazing Pete Smith is the "Interlocutor" which is a three dollar word that basically means anybody having a conversation. Other completely useless words for the same thing are conversationalist, dialogist, middleman, and in this case interviewer or narrator.

 

The first thing that throws you off is that this short piece of film is in colour. 99% of the work of Laurel and Hardy is in black and white.

Pete Smith starts asking the boys if they know how useful wood is. To me it seems like an odd subject to have to sell the general populace on, but then again, these days we have to have billboards telling guys to be good Fathers, because they can't figure that out on their own!

 

But instead of talking about how good wood is in general, like construction, Pete goes into this whole esoteric diatribe about plastic objects like glasses frames that are made of 60% wood flour.

 Pete Smith Produced 150 short films from the 1930's until 1955 called the "Pete Smith Specialities." What you're seeing here is a shot from his 1941 short called "Murder In 3-D," that included a witch, various monsters, and as seen here, a Frankenstein monster. 

If you'd like a really good dose of what Mr. Smith was doing, and what a great sense of humor he had, then proceed immediately to YouTube and watch this ten minute short from 1944 called

"Groovie Movie."

Trust me, if you like swingin' music and amazing dancing you won't regret it!

The sweat bad in Stan's hat is imitation leather made of plastic.

Stan hands Ollie his pipe, and the bowl is made of wood, and the stem is made of plastic.

Matches and the cover on the matches are both made of wood pulp.

Even when he doesn't have them on, there's wood in Stan's rayon shorts!

The Ski Patrol would be lost without some good wood!

Hopefully, when the war is over, wood will provide a lot of jobs for these heroes when they come home.

Interestingly enough, it's stated on IMDB that Laurel and Hardy's parts for this little film were shot eight days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Not quite The End, here are a couple more of Pete's shorts for your enjoyment!

From 1935, "Donkey Baseball."

From 1944, "Movie Pests."

WHITE ZOMBIE In Color - 1932

Allied Artists just colorized a number of old horror movies available on Prime. Besides this one they also did THE SCREAMING SKULL, THE MANSTER, MONSTROSITY, THE BAT and others. I'll be posting these as we go along. Of course this is a redo of our original black and white White Zombie version which we have already posted.

It stars Bela as 'Murder' Legendre, zombie master. Other stars are Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Fraser, John Harron and Brandon Hurst. The story is about a rich young man who seeks the help of a white witch doctor to lure the woman he loves from her fiancé, but she ends up as a zombie slave instead.

Madeline Short and Neil Parker are in Haiti to have their wedding at Charles Beaumont's plantation there.

After getting through a night of the dead ceremony in the middle of the road, Madeline and Neil are approached by a sinister character who ends up snatching Madeline's scarf from her.

At Charles Beaumont's home, Madeline and Neil have arrived, and a friend, Dr. Bruner, is there to greet the young couple, whose wedding is set for the next evening.

But something is screwy, Charles has set up a meeting with the witch doctor, 'Murder' Legendre that same night. When Charles gets there, he sees zombies turning a huge stone grinding sugar cane as Beaumont watches with disbelief as to what he's seeing.

He's instructed by a zombie to follow him...

Beaumont explains his problem.. He's madly in love with Madeline and wants Legendre to interfere with the wedding tomorrow, so that he can hide her for a month and persuade her to change her mind about Neil.

The only thing that Legendre gives him is this vial and tells him that just a drop of the liquid in a drink or a drop on a rose will put her in a trance and that they can bring her out it later.

And of course, Charles is desperate and puts a drop on a rose before the wedding. Madeline thinks he's just a friend after she met him earlier during a vacation.

As Neil and Charles stand at the door of the crypt, Madeline is put to rest.

I mean, like, Neil is nearly insane with grief and just stays drunk all the time.

Lagendre then has his zombies bring Madeline to his place in her casket.

Neil goes to Dr. Bruner's place for help, and the doctor tells him that his wife may not be dead, she has most likely been put in a zombie state by Legendre.

Beaumont is staying at Lagendre's place and has been trying to get Madeline to respond to him, but to no avail. Charles is confused and frustrated.

When Legendre pours Charles a drink and toasts to the success of their deception, well, Charles has sipped down some zombie juice, poor sap.

Dr. Bruner has been taking care of Neil, who's resting near this location, that's Legendre's castle looming over the Haitian shoreline.

Now the evil double-double crosser has Beaumont as his first 'thinking' zombie, which was probably a huge oversight on his part.

Neil has wandered in and collapsed upstairs. Legendre orders Madeline to go upstairs and stab Neil with a big old knife!!

As she's ready to plunge the knife into Neil's heart, Dr. Bruner grabs her hand, breaking her spell for a moment.

After Neil and the doctor get rid of the zombies, of all things, Beaumont, still thinking, grabs Legendre and tosses him over the edge of the castle.

And we get to watch 'Murder' Legendre plummet to oblivion!! Well, hope you enjoyed this colorized classic, breathing a little more life into it... It was a treat for me.