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"Now Museum-Now You Don't!"
The Venture Bros. episode
Museum
"Okay, everyone, say, 'Go Team Venture!'"
Episode no. Season 3
Episode 9
Directed by Jackson Publick
Written by Jackson Publick
Production code 3-35
Original air date 27 July 2008
Guest Stars
Episode Chronology
← Previous
"Tears of a Sea Cow"
Next →
"The Lepidopterists"
List of The Venture Bros. episodes

Now Museum-Now You Don't! is the ninth episode of Season 3 and the overall thirty-fifth episode of The Venture Bros.

Plot

The episode begins in 1969, at Spider-Skull Island. However, at this date, the island is the headquarters of the super villain Scaramantula, who leads the Fraternity of Torment (which includes Manotaur and a large-headed villain named Brainulo). The Fraternity is welcoming a new supervillain into their fold, the Japanese Dr. Fangdragon from Japananawa (actually Jonas Venture Senior in disguise) and are planning to kill Rusty. Dr. Venture reveals himself and Team Venture bursts onto the scene in the Excavator Car. Following a melee, the villains and their henchmen are soundly defeated, and only Scaramantula escapes via an underground tunnel. In his escape, he activates the self-destruct mechanism to blow up the island, as he continues down the deep subterranean passage. The mechanism inexplicably shorts out before the countdown completes, and the victorious Team Venture, topside, declare Spider-Skull Island their new headquarters. A young Richard Impossible (addressed as "Dickie") is on hand to photograph their triumph.

Fast forward to the present, Dr. Jonas Venture Jr. has decided to open Spider-Skull Island to the public by setting up a Jonas Venture Museum. Among the dignitaries are both the current Team Venture (Thaddeus, Brock, Dean, Hank, and H.E.L.P.eR.) and the former Team Venture (The Action Man, Kano, Otto Aquarius and Humongoloid (Dr. Entmann), as well as Swifty and Hector, while Ook Ook is frozen in a block of ice). Col. Horace Gentleman arrives to round out the team, explaining that he was not dead when the Venture boys previously found him in Twenty Years to Midnight, but that he was in a diabetic coma; he also punches Thaddeus in retaliation for "breaking [his] stepdaughter's heart". Also at the party is Conjectural Technologies (Master Billy Quizboy and Pete White), various government dignitaries, and the Fraternity of Torment themselves (excluding the deceased Manotaur).

Although they are retired and officially at peace with each other, The Fraternity and the original Team Venture still bear deep ill-will towards each other. They spend most of the evening bickering over old scores.

Additionally, the Pirate Captain is run ragged around the island by order of Jonas Junior. Much annoyed by the consistent order giving Jonas Junior, the Pirate Captain unintentionally walks into Sally Impossible's room where she is changing. The Pirate Captain sees Sally naked while she is changing clothes, which causes the two to scream frantically.

A disheveled Professor Richard Impossible arrives, whom Jonas Junior invited as a dignitary. Not only is he drunk and bitter, but his estranged wife Sally is furious that he was invited without her knowledge. Meanwhile, the Pirate Captain and his ex-ghost pirates (who now work as butlers and valets) are getting more and more fed up with Jonas Junior's condescending method of management. On top of everything else, Thaddeus/Rusty gets annoyed that Jonas Junior seems to be trying to erase him from the Venture legacy.

Unbeknownst to all, Brainulo, while pretending to be senile, is using his psychic powers to amplify the bad feelings of everyone in the room. Richard awkwardly tries to commit suicide in front of everyone by jumping off a catwalk (the fall doesn't injure him at all, but embarrasses Sally), while Jonas and Sally begin to have a series of unseemly arguments in front of the guests, and finally, the Captain and his crew attempt a mutiny (and are immediately set upon by the Original Team Venture). Brainulo has little effect on Pete White because, apparently, Peter's major thoughts at the time are about the mother from the TV show Growing Pains, played by Joanna Kerns.

Meanwhile, the current Team Venture prudently leaves before the fracas reaches a fever pitch. Brainulo tries to activate Futuro, his old attack robot (on display in the museum), with his psychic energy but is unsuccessful. During the melee, a projector is knocked on, which shows a quick film describing what a positive impact Dr. Jonas Venture Sr. had on the world. This display of sentimentality causes everyone to stop fighting. Still trying to activate Futuro, Brainulo overexerts himself and short-circuits his neural implants. Jonas Jr., seeing that his party is back online, asks Rusty Venture to speak only to find that his brother has already left. This surprise is cut short by the re-activation of the Spider-Skull Island self-destruct mechanism. Brainulo and Scaramantula escape after unsuccessfully trying to disarm it and the current Team Venture leaves just as the countdown begins, with Thaddeus mocking the situation. The countdown continues as the credits roll.

In the epilogue, Spider-Skull Island seems covered in Professor Richard Impossible's expanded body. It is revealed that he put his mouth over the device and contained the blast within his own elastic body, saving everybody. Sally and Jonas Jr. thank him for his selfless act and welcome to their home anytime. As they leave, Professor Impossible retracts back to normal and lies on the floor, the Pirate Captain appears and tells him to admit he was trying to kill himself.

Episode Cast

Museum Opening Attendees

A variety of people attended the grand opening of the Jonas Venture Jr. Museum of Jonas Venture on Spider-Skull Island, all connected to Jonas Venture Sr. in some way. Attendees included:

Boys Brigade

Brisby Corporation

Conjectural Technologies

Fraternity of Torment

Gargantua-1

Miscellaneous

Original Team Venture

Super-scientists

The Venture Family

Venture Techno Industries

Connections to Other Episodes

Twenty Years to Midnight

Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman

Spanakopita!

  • Colonel Gentleman claims astronaut Wally Schirra was one of his lovers. In a flashback to 1968 in Spanakopita!, when L. Ron reveals his plans to interfere with the splashdown of Apollo 7, Colonel Gentleman exclaims "Wally's on that mission!"

Cultural References

A Christmas Story (1983)

  • Dean dares Hank to press his tongue to the block of ice encasing Ook-Ook, betting him that it will stick. Hank's tongue gets stuck to the ice, freezing him to it, similar to the character Flick in the 1983 film A Christmas Story, who became stuck to a freezing cold flagpole after he pressed his tongue to it on a "triple dog dare".

Andre The Giant

Brainiac

Dick Cavett

Gore Vidal

Growing Pains (1985-1992)

He-Man

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

  • Jonas Junior explains to a group of party-attendees that a weapon on display is the "real atomic secret" the Rosenbergs tried to sell to the Russians. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who in 1951 were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Mallomars

  • Colonel Gentleman blames his consumption of an entire package of mallomars (graham cracker and marshmallow coated with dark chocolate) for previously putting him into a diabetic coma and causing his "tits" to come back.

Menorah

M.O.D.O.K.

Spider-Man

Supercar (1961- 1962)

  • When Ned jumps into the Impossicar he shouts, "Yay! Supercar go-car!" This may be a reference to the Gerry Anderson supermarionation children's show, Supercar, that centered around the titular Supercar, a vertical-takeoff-and-landing craft.

The Great Gazoo

The Man With The Golden Gun (1974)

The Omen (1976)

  • When Richard Impossible jumps off of the balcony, he yells, "Sally! It was all for you!" This is a parody of the nanny's suicide from The Omen, in which the nanny says, "Look at me, Damien. It's all for you," before hanging herself by jumping off a roof.

V for Vendetta

  • Rusty's comments about childhood memories where The Action Man would wake him up in the middle of the night by putting an empty gun to the boy's head, pulling the trigger, and stating "Not tonight, Rusty..." mirrors the actions and threats of Derek Almond to his wife Rosemary in V for Vendetta.

Wally Schirra

Wilhelm scream

Yoo-hoo

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Production Notes

Trivia

References

  1. James Urbaniak's LiveJournal. James Urbaniak: "Sadly, his name was misspelled in the credits."
  2. TV.com cast list for Now Museum-Now You Don't!


Preceded by:
"Tears of a Sea Cow"
The Venture Bros. episodes
Original Airdate:
July 25, 2008
Followed by:
"The Lepidopterists"
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