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Master Billy Quizboy
The Venture Bros. character
200px-Billy
Master Billy Quizboy
First appearance

"The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay"
Last appearance

"Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart"
Voiced by

Doc Hammer

Christopher McCulloch (only in The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay)
Information
Full name William "Billy" Whalen
Nickname(s) Little Nemo
Aliases Master Billy Quizboy
Dr. Whalen
Dr. Phil Donahue
Blue Leader
Hobbit Oppenheimer
Gender Male
Occupation Neuro-geneticist
Family Rose Whalen (mother)
Notable
Characteristics

Hydrocephalic
Eyepatch
Self-proclaimed "boy genius"
Bionic hand
Speech impediment
Current
Alliances

Pete White
Venture Techno Industries
Team Venture
The Order of the Triad (honorary member)
Prior
Alliances

Conjectural Technologies
Student of Prof. Hamilton G. Fantomas
The Revenge Society (forced member)
Enemies

Augustus St. Cloud (archenemy)
Henchman Zero (deceased)

Master Billy Quizboy (real name: William Whalen) is a supporting character appearing on the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros. He is a friend and ally of Dr. Venture and Team Venture, as well as the business partner and close friend of Pete White. He is voiced by Doc Hammer.

Character history

Prior Life

Billy is the son of Rose Whalen and an unknown father and was born hydrocephallic, which he says is caused by spinal fluid that he absorbed into his head while in his mother's womb. He was born with a high intelligence, but an abnormally-proportioned body. Growing up, Billy was a big fan of the Rusty Venture franchise to a point where he thought of him as his real-life hero, becoming one of the foremost experts on the Venture legacy and all things related. Being a super genius, Billy attended high school by the age of 12, though he looks back at this period of his life as unpleasant.

During Billy's teenage years, he meets and befriends Pete White. They go on the quiz game show circuit together where Pete would rig the programs to give Billy the answers to win. The scam would eventually be uncovered, leading all of Billy's assets to be frozen by the FCC and his reputation ruined. With no money left, Pete suggested that they go see his friend Rusty, Billy's old hero Dr. Thaddeus Venture, for jobs. A prospect that excited Billy, but was disappointed after Rusty rejected him and turned them away. With no options left, the two would eventually enter the underground game show circuit for money. Despite their success, this endeavor came to a crashing halt after White unknowingly entered Billy into an underground dogfighting area instead, which left Billy maimed and missing his left eye and left hand. Furious and again broke, Billy abandoned White.

Billy was then immediately captured by Hunter Gathers and Brock Samson, who gave him a new bionic hand and eye in exchange for spying on Phantom Limb, who then was going as "Professor Fantomas" in order to prove that he was a member of The Guild of Calamitous Intent. Billy agreed to the mission and began to pose as one of Fantomas's students, as Fantomas was under a false impression that Billy was a genius thanks to a forged science paper. When Billy realized he was being used as bait to trap Fantomas, he rebelled against Hunter and Brock.

Billy returned to Fantomas who was waiting for him to help him with his experiment to fix his tiny limbs. During the experiment Fantomas revealed to a shocked Billy that he was in fact part of the Guild of Calamitous Intent, proving Hunter and Brock had been correct all along. Fantomas' machine started to malfunction, and Billy revealed he wasn't a real science genius to a shocked Fantomas, but by then it was too late. The machine created a portal that sucked Fantomas and Billy's left bionic eye into it, the latter of which caused it to explode, seemingly killing Fantomas. With the mission a failure, Billy had his memory of the incident was wiped. Billy was going to be used as a guinea pig for further OSI experiments but was rescued by a guilt ridden Brock who brought him to back to a disheveled and despondent Pete that had moved into a trailer in the desert. Pete had also made an agreement with Brock, the OSI, and Dr. Venture to ensure that Billy never remembers his past to the point where whenever Billy regains his memories from that time, Pete knocks him unconscious and sends him back to have his memories wiped again.

Later Life

Billy first appears in The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay, where he mocked Dr. Venture for his Ooo-Ray as his appearance then was even more abbreviated than it usually is. He then appeared as an invitee to Prof. Impossibles government think-tank in the episode Ice Station – Impossible!, awed at the fact that Impossible invited him. He helped Dr. Venture, Sally Impossible, and White develop an antidote for the Goliath serum that Hank had consumed (although Prof. Impossible later claimed the serum was never tested on a human, it was supposed to be used on a "dog or something"). He also featured prominently at Dr. Venture's tag-sale — he and White gossiped about some of the other people attending, whom they later attempted to woo into becoming their arch-enemies. Billy and Dr. Venture also fought over a Shrink ray, and Billy criticized Venture for a redundant decal on the ray. In Escape to the House of Mummies Part II, the shrink ray caused some problems for Billy when he, White, and Dr. Venture attempted to repair it. White and Venture forced Billy to be their human guinea pig, and instead of fully shrinking him, it seemed to do one body part at a time (at first his lungs, then his head). He eventually forced them to reverse the ray to make him normal again, but it merely made a giant out of him without making his clothing bigger. Billy has shown a fondness for the high five…and is always 'left hanging'.

In Escape to the House of Mummies Part II, Billy admits that he is a virgin, and at the end of the Season 4 episode The Revenge Society it is suggested that he inadvertently loses his virginity to Sgt. Hatred. However in The Silent Partners Hatred reveals he merely cuddled with him; Billy loses his virginity in the same episode to three prostitutes whom he believed to be vampire brides.

In The Silent Partners he manages to be hired as a doctor at a hospital by faking and lying about his education and background. After he is found out and caught, he tries to hide only to witness The Investors stealing the heart of King Gorilla, and is later kidnapped by Monstroso. It's revealed that The Investors had loaned him and Pete money through an insurance scam, and had helped Billy get the job at the hospital. Monstroso and The Investors offer Billy the real medical credentials to be able to practice medicine in exchange for Billy to transfer Gorilla's heart into Monstroso. Billy goes ahead with the surgery and gets his medical credentials in order to officially become a doctor, but is rescued by Brock.

In season 4's Handsome Ransom, Billy and Pete White try to aid Dr. Venture in rescuing Hank from the Monarch (none of the three knowing he had already been rescued by Captain Sunshine). During these events, Billy reveals that he was 35 years old after Sgt. Hatred mistakes him for a child. Later, in "The Revenge Society," he is kidnapped by his former teacher - now insane and calling himself "Revenge" - and forced to participate in the activities of Revenge's "team." He is left out cold in Dr. Venture's study and eventually found by Sgt. Hatred, as described above. Also in The Better Man, he becomes a member of The Order of the Triad, but this was because they didn't want to pay his steep medical fee.

In Season 6, Pete White and Billy have achieved their dream of becoming super heroes, calling themselves Billy Quizboy and The Pink Pilgrim. With their robot sidekick Robobo, they battled it out on a regular basis with their arch enemy Augustus St. Cloud who used his vast fortune to torment them. The latest confrontation with Augustus leads to them selling their company to him which leaves Billy and Pete White homeless. However, as it turns out that St. Cloud sold their company to VenTech Industries, and as a result, the two move to New York where they become Venture's only inventors and employees after had laid off the whole company. Billy and Pete come up with all kinds of inventions that turn out to be useless or dangerous such as the God Gas. However, they achieve a breakthrough in inventing something useful and successful with the Teleporters.

In Season 7's The Venture Bros. & The Curse of the Haunted Problem, Billy, Pete White, and Rusty try to resolve the strange problems the VenTech Tower was having by hacking into the building's computer databases. This triggers the building to react more violently and dangerously and sends Billy and Rusty out of the lab they were in. In Arrears in Science he finally learns the Blue Morpho is not Dr. Venture and is shocked when the real one shows up.

During The Bellicose Proxy he and Pete White scramble to defend themselves after receiving a Declaration of Villainous Aggression from arch-nemesis Augustus St. Cloud, which ultimately results in a verbal showdown in front of the VenTech Tower where the three of them pass out from laughing gas.

In the The Forecast Manufacturer, Billy finally achieves his dream on going on an adventure with Rusty to stop and retrieve the The Guild weather machine causing the blizzard over the city. In order to stop the machine, Billy wears JJ's hover belt to descend through the purple cloud of silver nitrate surrounding the Guild weather machine. From the safety of the X-12's cockpit Dr. Venture coaches Billy, coaxing him into defecating the Thermal Regulation Suppository that Billy had ingested earlier into the weather machine bringing it under their control. Meanwhile, on the ground, as The Monarch, 21, and The Creep face off, an alternative version of Billy steps out of the Grover Cleveland's Presidential Time Machine dressed as a Confederate officer from the Civil War followed by Dr. Venture dressed in a tuxedo and top hat with a life preserver from the RMS Titanic around his neck. The index finger on Dr. Venture's right hand is bandaged, as if his fingertip is missing. When this distracts and kills The Creep, alternative Billy and Dr. Venture return to the time machine.

In Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, Billy and Pete White assist Dr. Venture with the product launch of the Helper Pod. Billy acknowledges that the Pods are too faulty and shouldn't be released, but Rusty desperate to keep VenTech from going bankrupt, ignores Billy's advice and orders Billy to do an all nighter to fix the problems. Billy and Pete were back at home trying to repair the HelperPods when Mantilla activates them to launch the building into space. They are not again for the rest of the film, but it's possible after the venture family moved back to their old spot in the Rocky Mountains, Pete and Billy either still or quit working for Rusty.

Personality

Due to his appearance and size, people often mistake Billy for being a boy. While he is not actually a boy, being in his late 30s, he is in fact a genius as he is often shown repairing or inventing mechanical devices as well as being a self-taught neurologist and master surgeon, performing otherwise impossible feats of medical surgery. Because of his medical skills and knowledge, he has become the go to doctor and surgeon for The Ventures and the supervillains. Despite this, Billy wasn't a formally educated and legally licensed Doctor until the episode The Silent Partners, as he hadn't attended college and never received a PhD or Doctorate. In that episode, in exchange for performing a heart transplant on Monstroso, Billy received legitimate medical credentials from The Investors, making him legally a doctor.

He continues calling himself a "boy" genius because "nobody's really impressed with 'Master Billy Quizboy, Adult Genius.'" He took the "quizboy" moniker due to his earlier history as champion on a game show at a young age.

Despite his longstanding friendship with Pete White, he is frequently frustrated with Pete's similarly flippant and nonchalant attitude and incompetence, resulting in Billy often making passive-aggressive gestures to him that ultimately go unheaded. Billy is also rarely taken seriously by his doting Mother, who incorrectly assumes he is gay due to his close friendship to Pete.

Abilities and Skills

According to Pete White, Billy is a "neurogeneticist," and is generally more competent than his colleagues. He operated on Dean to help his testicular torsion and fitted Jonas Venture Junior with a bionic arm similar to his own in the season two premiere, Powerless in the Face of Death. He also reattached Dr. Venture's arm at the end of Victor. Echo. November. despite it being detached for some time, in The Revenge Society Billy attached Councilman 8's head onto Councilman 3's body creating a 2 headed man as well as giving Monstroso a new heart. At the very least, Billy is an exceptionally skilled surgeon despite lacking any sort of training.

In Rapacity in Blue, Billy, along with Dr. Venture, was able to create mind control gas which causes rats or people to suffer from hallucinations. The effects of the gas wear off in a day but leaves those exposed with confusion and a severe headache.

Billy's mechanical arm is complex enough to allow him to perform intricate surgery work, but by his own admission tends to get buggy after precision work. He is also able to launch the hand from his wrist, which stays attached via cable. Despite this, he cannot retract his hand automatically due to the lack of any pneumatic motor function, and any weight placed on the cable causes him extreme pain due to it being directly attached to his nervous system.

Relationships With Other Characters

Family

Rose Whalen

Billy had not seen or spoken with his mother for many years, most likely due to the OSI mind wipes coupled with a misunderstanding about his friendship with Pete White. Upon reconnecting with The Action Man in Boca Raton and meeting his godson Hank Venture for the first time, Rose explains to them she believes that it is because Billy thought she may disapprove of his living with a man for so many years. She incorrectly assumed he and Pete were gay, with him not correcting her because the situation was hard to explain. When she is introduced to Pete White, she mentions that Billy had once told her that he thought he was handsome. She calls Billy her "little water baby" and sings the lullaby "Hush, Little Baby" to him in its entirety when she wishes to soothe him, something that openly frustrates Billy. In All This and Gargantua-2, Billy is exasperated with his mother babying him and her relationship with Action Man. However, he is in awe at her defeating Fat Chance, asking about her moves but she excuses it as dancing. She and Billy live together with Colonel Gentleman at his New York City apartment and is still very protective of Billy such as when she defeated Augustus St. Cloud when he came over to arch them.

Friends

Pete White

Pete is Billy's best friend, life partner, and are the co-founders, and sole employees, of Conjectural Technologies, which they run out of an old trailer which is also their home. They also are a superhero duo and go on adventures together. Despite their lifelong attachment to each other, their relationship can be seen as love/hate considering they have had major falling out and separations with each other throughout the series, only to find themselves back together. Nearly all of Billy's misfortunes in his life such as being banned from the quiz show circuit and losing his arm are directly Pete's fault, but because of the OSI mind wipes, Billy will never remember as it would surely end their friendship if he did. Despite that, their combined high intelligence and super-science skills complement each other, but it appears as if White bosses Billy around, forcing Billy to do housework and company-related tasks while he plays video games (Billy retaliates by passive-aggressively leaving post-it notes reminding Pete of what he should do). The two are considered co-heads of their business, although people often incorrectly assume one works FOR the other, which often causes them to argue. In tune with the series tone of failure, the two tend to be bumbling, broke, inept, failures in a similar vein to Dr. Venture. Like Rusty, most of their ideas and inventions tend to breakdown and backfire.

Dr. Venture

Billy has always been a massive fan of The Rusty Venture Show as a child, and it was his life long dream to meet him. The feeling wasn't mutual as Rusty had rejected him and sent him off when they first met. Now they are considered friends, with Dr. Venture often calling on him and Pete White for favors such as when he reattached Doc's arm after it got cut off in Victor. Echo. November. appears as his Eros in his mind, and hiring him to be his chief inventor and doctor at VenTech. Their long friendship hasn't prevented him from arguing with and insulting Dr. Venture when the latter's flippant attitude frustrates him. Despite seeing what a failure and letdown Venture is, and how badly Rusty sometimes treats him, he still idolizes Rusty, and wishes Dr. Venture would make him a formal member of Team Venture and bring him along on adventures which Rusty sometimes, albeit, grudgingly does. In certain events, they are seen hanging like A Very Venture Halloween and getting along.

Dean Venture

In the episode Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II), Billy appears as Giant Boy Detective in Dean's hallucination sequence aboard The Monarch's Cocoon. Dean must hold Billy in high esteem, as Giant Boy Detective is Dean's favorite literary character.

Enemies

Augustus St. Cloud

Billy has had a "decades-long" rivalry with Augustus St. Cloud, as expressed by the latter. The source of their rivalry is presumably the result of St. Cloud losing to Billy on a game show, since in "What Color is Your Cleansuit," it was revealed that St. Cloud spent a small fortune reproducing the set of Quizboys. Their rivalry includes things like who is most proficient at trivia, and who is the bigger "fanboy" based on merchandise acquisition. Obviously having more money at his disposal, St. Cloud especially enjoys defiling precious collectibles in front of Billy, such as his Henrietta Pussycat soap mitt, and the Goldfinger outfit he had modified to fit him. At one point, St. Cloud demands Billy eat a dollar in pennies, since that's how much he sniped a collectible for in a recent bidding war with St. Cloud. Because he wanted to make his long-time feud with Billy Quizboy official, St. Cloud bribed The Guild to let him arch Billy and Pete White.

Appearance

Before the origins of Billy's eye-patch and bionic arm were revealed in the episode The Invisible Hand of Fate, he once claimed the arm was a weapon, which no one believed. In the episode Victor. Echo. November., #21 and #24, The Monarch, and Hank and Dean gossip about the origins of Phantom Limb, all of which tangentially involve Billy losing his eye and/or hand. Though each of the stories is portrayed as being false, it is implied that at least some of the information in Monarch and #21's stories is true:

  • The Monarch's Story: When Billy was twelve, he invented a machine which accelerates muscle growth and tried it out on his roommate at the time, Phantom Limb. The machine malfunctioned, driving Phantom Limb insane as well as rendering his limbs invisible and giving him the power to kill by touch. In the aftermath, Limb apparently mutilated Billy out of revenge. The story is notable in that it implies Billy may well have been a boy genius in his childhood, though the Monarch could be referring to Billy being twelve facetiously. The muscle enhancer is later seen being used by Phantom Limb to accelerate the healing of Brock Samson's gunshot wound, which also supports the Monarch's account.
  • 21's Story: Billy and Limb won money on Card Sharks which they used to invent a time machine, which transported Limb's limbs and Billy's hand into the future. The results of the story, however, while humorous, (Phantom Limb's limbs and Billy's hand traveling to the future) are also false based on the fact that Phantom Limb's limbs are simply invisible, not absent.
  • Hank's Story: Phantom Limb was a renowned stage magician who accidentally transported his own limbs to the moon in a botched trick. In a fit of rage, he then sliced off Billy's arm and ate it. There is no veracity to the first part of the story, as Phantom Limb's limbs are invisible, not absent, though the part about Limb slicing off Billy's hand does apparently mirror the end of The Monarch's version, in which Phantom Limb harms Billy off-screen, perhaps depriving him of his appendage.

Episode Appearances

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

Season 6

Season 7

Movie

Christmas Songs

Gallery

Trivia

  • In earlier seasons, Only Billy's hand from the wrist-down was cybernetic. In later seasons, his entire forearm is shown to be cybernetic.
  • Billy admitted he was a virgin and it was implied he lost it to Hatred in ORB. However, Hatred revealed that he only cuddled Billy, meaning nothing happened. Billy later lost his virginity for real to prostitutes ordered by Monstroso, who he mistook for vampires.
  • Despite his medical and scientific backgrounds, Billy has never tried to address the issue of his missing eye.
  • He may be aware of Dermott Fictel's true parentage, since he was the one who gave Hank and Alchemist a tip.
  • He is an unofficial member of the Order of the Triad.
  • Billy is responsible for Phantom Limb gaining his powers, though he was unaware of this until regaining his memory and Phantom Limb reminded him.
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