This post was submitted by Michael

Michael takes a break from environmentalism and vegetarian cooking this week to share with you one of the gayest programs on TV.

Just starting off into its fourth season, the Adult Swim program The Venture Bros. is hands down one of my favorite TV shows, quite possibly of all time. I own all previous 3 seasons on DVD. I had Venture Bros. artwork as my computer desktop at work for quite some time. Friends and I watched all of season 3 in two sittings once, in preparation for the season finale. I’m sick for Venture!

Here’s the basic skinny. Imagine that Johnny Quest’s father had a contemporary, a super-scientist, who had a boy-adventurer-son of his own. Now imagine that said boy-adventurer is all grown up (Dr. Thadeus “Rusty” Venture) with two dorky kids of his own (Hank and Dean Venture), and he’s also a miserable failure at all aspects of his life. The only thing keeping the three of them together, besides his addiction to diet pills, is their bulky, blond-mulleted bodyguard, Brock Sampson, assigned to them by the Office of Secret Intelligence (OSI).

In the Venture universe, there is a legion of costumed menaces called the Guild of Calamitous Intent who antagonize supposed “heroes” for sport, mostly, but with very strict guidelines on what they can actually do. Killing their arch-nemeses is very forbidden, for example. They are just supposed to harass those they “arch” full-time. Our Dr. Venture has an annoying and pesky arch-nemesis named The Monarch, the orphaned heir to a great fortune, who is constantly trying to get back at Dr. Venture for some reason that is somewhat unclear. There is a whole history and mythology to the entire cast of characters who make up The Guild, their competing agency OSI, and the other characters in the program.

On to the gay. There are so many gay or queer characters in this show that it’s hard to recount. However, I have some time so I’m doing the research for you.

Confirmed* Homos

Action Man & Major Tom: Two members of the original Team Venture (centered around the father of our Dr. Venture), who according to my recollection were hinted at being in a relationship. Action Man sobbed after watching Major Tom’s test flight crash into the ocean, but ended up marrying Major Tom’s widow. *There’s a chance I’m remembering this wrong, hence the asterisk.

Colonel Gentleman: Yet another of the original team, Colonel Gentleman likes his men young and Asian. He claims to have had a threeway with Gore Vidal and Wally Schirra.

King Gorilla: A friend of the Monarch’s while they were in the same cell block in prison. He admits to trying to rape the Monarch, but couldn’t go through with it because the Monarch is “built too much like a girl“.

The Ghost of Abe Lincoln:  The boys are visited by the ghost of Abe Lincoln who needs to use one of their bodies to prevent the assassination of the president.  He possesses Dean, and almost immediately tries to make out with Hank, who punches him, knocking Abe out of Dean’s body.  Abe’s ghost exclaims: “Sorry! Sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It was just a bit overwhelming to have a body again. All those hormones. Whoo!”

The Alchemist: A dumpy gay wizard who dresses like a Christian monk and, when on hiatus from The Order of the Triad, has devoted his career to finding a cure for AIDS.

Ginnie: The “crass, towering and rather masculine” female bodyguard of Dr. Tara Quymn, childhood friend of Rusty Venture, who confesses her love to Dr. Quymn in the episode “Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman.”

Gender Benders

Dr. Girlfriend: Deep-voiced girlfriend of The Monarch (who eventually marries him, changing her name to “Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.”) It is widely discussed and rumored that she is a MTF transsexual, mostly due to her deep voice. An ex of hers, Phantom Limb, denies this fact, stating: “Look, she is all woman. I have explored every supple inch of her and have found nothing but nectar.” We discover that she’s a secret smoker midway through season 3.

Colonel Hunter Gathers: Former OSI agent and mentor to Brock who leaves the agency and receives a sex-change operation to ensure that Brock cannot track him down and kill him, as he had instructed Brock from the beginning of his OSI career that women and children are off-limits as targets.

Shore Leave and Mile High: Two stereotypically gay former OSI agents who strike out on their own, forming a religious-themed duo, adopting the new names “Holy Diver” and “Sky Pilot”. They use some “ex-gay” nomenclature when revealing to Brock their new identities and jobs. Any actual homosexual activity on their part is never discussed, but boy are they flamers!

Baron Werner Ünderbheit’s Eunuchs: A pair of faggy-acting toga-clad eunuchs who apparently left their small hometowns looking for same-sex love and excitement but ended up castrated in Ünterland.

Now, the thing that makes The Venture Bros. so remarkable as a relatively mainstream television program is their undeniably respectful treatment of such a plethora of sexual minority characters. The sheer number is incredible. Excluding pedophiles and rumor, we have 11 characters who bend traditional gender roles and get laughs while doing it. But none of these laughs are at the expense of the characters. The Alchemist is a riot not because he’s gay, but because he stalks his boyfriends on MySpace and refers to genital lice as “crotch crickets.” Ginnie inspires laughter not because she’s practically a man, but instead because she, for some reason, decides that she needs to hit on Brock one evening in a look-out tree fort with a six-pack of beer.

There are also other pro-gay moments in the show that inspire giggles as well as a sense that the writers are respectful of queer people. For example, in one episode Dean decided to put on a performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan to “entertain” the goth chick, Triana, who lives next door. Hank is forced to don a dress to play his role, but when Triana disappears from their in a flash of brimstone-and-diaper-scented smoke, the pair drop the production and investigate. The rest of the episode features Hank in an elegant, ruffly dress. At the end of the episode, The Alchemist expresses appreciation to Dr. Venture for accepting Hank for who he really is.

Now, after such a love-fest, I have to express some trepidation for the beginning of Season 4. I’ll try to convey my concerns without spoiling too much. A new character is introduced in the second episode named Captain Sunshine,  a legitimate super-hero-type, who can fly and shoot sunshine at people. However, his costume is covered with rainbows, which I don’t need to say has been a symbol of gay pride for decades. Through a series of hints, we are lead to believe is a pedophile.  Obviously the writers are trying to explore the potential humor of the gay Batman and Robin dynamic, but it just wasn’t working for me.   The reason I was so queasy the entire episode is that they seemed to have a lot of fun blurring the line between gay and pedophile, and every time they smudged that line a little more, I felt a little more nauseous. In the end, I think they did a pretty good job of un-blurring that line, but is surely wasn’t a comfortable ride for me.

I greatly appreciate the show’s writers for being so respectful of its plethora of queer characters. I just hope they don’t continue to have too much fun with the, what is in my mind, very bold line between gay and pedophile.

The Venture Bros. airs Sunday nights on the Cartoon Network.

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