| Thaddeus S. Venture | |
|---|---|
| The Venture Bros. character | |
 Dr. Venture, Opening Card. | |
| First appearance |
The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay |
| Voiced by |
James Urbaniak |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Rusty, Rust, Doc |
| Aliases | Rusty, T.S., Dr. Venture |
| Occupation | Super-Scientist |
| Relatives |
Hank Venture (son) Dean Venture (son) Dermott Fictel (son) Jonas Venture Sr. (father) Lloyd Venture (grandfather) Jonas Venture Jr. (brother) |
| Notable characteristics |
Self-proclaimed "super-genius", endless amount of cynicism, amphetamine addiction |
| Current Alliances |
Team Venture, Venture Industries |
Dr. Thaddeus S. "Rusty" Venture (voiced by James Urbaniak) is the son of late super-scientist Dr. Jonas Venture Sr. and brother of Jonas Venture Jr.. He is also the father of the Venture twins, Hank and Dean, as well as Dermott Fictel. He could be considered the protagonist of the show.
Background
Ostensibly a super-scientist, Dr. Venture is a neurotic, emotionally insecure, cynical, and amoral drug addict. He lives - and is effectively trapped - in the shadow of his famous father, Dr. Jonas Venture Sr., an incredibly renowned and universally respected genius in virtually every field of science and engineering who built a space station, fought diseases, solved mysteries and is usually indirectly linked to most of the advanced technology on the show. Dr. Venture, however, is a sad failure of a man in every fashion, crushed under the weight of the expectations placed upon him, equally imprisoned by his crippling feelings of inadequacy and self-imposed incompetence caused by intense sloth. Despite being the supposed protagonist of the show, Rusty is extremely self-entitled and a narcissist, believing he deserves better than his fate, and often is prone to bouts of Pollyanna-esque confidence when he believes he has the upper hand. Often this backfires as he is generally unskilled and completely unwilling to take the advice of anyone. He is a prisoner not only of his circumstances but of his own myopic behavior.
In fact, Dr. Venture is not even a doctor of anything (as first revealed in "The Incredible Mr. Brisby") - his "doctorate" is an honorary degree from a Tijuana community college he threw a bunch of money at ("Pinstripes and Poltergeists"), which is occasionally brought up by those in the know to spite him.
Sadly, it does appear that Rusty is definitely talented in science and could be his father's equal if he applied himself. He has proven extremely capable of building incredible feats of technology and engineering - in the second episode, "Dia de los Dangerous!", he was able to jury-rig his robot servant HELPeR into a into a fully operational portable dialysis machine, and has built several kinds of robots including a "walking eye", heavy ray shields for a space station, a nuclear-powered impenetrable forcefield that could only be stopped by club soda, and more. However, an oft-recurring theme in his own work is that he cuts corners, again because he is lazy and self entitled. Problems arise and mayhem often ensues from his inventions, not out of sheer incompetence but due to his own personal failings.
Rusty has few friends - namely his former bodyguard, the daring OSI agent Brock Samson, his tenant Dr. Byron Orpheus, and Billy Quizboy and Pete White of Conjectural Technologies.
A recurring theme throughout the show is his feelings for his sons. While he is too self-absorbed to consider his children the most important thing in his life (as discovered by Dr. Orpheus when he entered his psyche to rid him of possession by the Monarch), and often he seems to resent them, he does seem to value them deeply, taking steps to protect them from physical and psychological harm. While utterly blase about the cloning of his children, this stems more from the fact that he considers the clones to not be mere copies of his sons. While he seems to obviously favor Dean, the more intelligent twin, considering him the "successor" to his "legacy", Hank reminds Dr. Venture of who he used to be as a child - the legendary boy adventurer, Rusty Venture.
To this day, his closest friends still call him Rusty. Although he deeply resents his past, it is also perhaps his greatest source of pride, as there really was a time where he actually was a public and deserved heroic figure, and everyone knew it.
While despised by Baron Werner Ünderbheit, Dr. Venture's Guild approved arch-nemesis is The Monarch.
History
Rusty Venture, the Boy Adventurer
Thaddeus Venture was born to Dr. Jonas Venture Sr. and an unknown mother. Thaddeus was supposed to be a twin, but devoured his twin in utero, causing a fetiform teratoma to grow inside of him. He would be haunted by terrifying dreams of eating a baby until the teratoma became an issue.
Thaddeus would later gain the nickname Rusty due to his copper-rust hair, and become a renowned traveller alongside his father and his dynamic team of action heroes, Team Venture. On the surface, his life was incredibly exciting, as a sort of idealized version of Jonny Quest. In truth, he was constantly terrified from the horror of monsters, non-stop violence and super-science, as well as almost entirely isolated from other children (with the noted exception of Tara Quymn, although he also befriended a Mexican child named Paco). Only H.E.L.P.eR. remained consistently there for him. The horror, violence, and casual death imbued him with a deep and severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Furthermore, despite his all-American attitude, Dr. Jonas Venture Sr. appeared to be a lousy father with no serious concern for the welfare of his child - even inventing a "learning bed" to simply stick Rusty in to brainwash with an education rather than actually teach or mentor his child. Before Rusty was an adolescent, he at least seemed fatherly but (as pointed out by Dr. Henry Killinger) he shifted from protector to tormentor. As Rusty reached puberty, the rest of Team Venture began viciously hazing him. For example, the Action Man would point an unloaded gun at Rusty's head and fire, saying "Not today, Rust." This culminated in Rusty's 16th birthday party, where Dr. Venture Sr. invited beautiful models and actually hired prostitutes for the party, and Team Venture pulled down his pants and shrank his penis in front of the crowd of women.
While he eventually came to terms with the "good" part of his childhood - that he was an incredible boy adventurer who did amazing things, whose own life story as a child was so impressive that a fictionalization of it in cartoon form was the smash hit cartoon of its' day - he overall despises his past, and most people who know of that Dr. Venture and Rusty Venture are one and the same view him as a sad, washed up bum mooching off his own past.
College Years
Rusty then left home to attend State University, where he met his future enemy Baron Ünderbheit and his friend Pete White. He was in one of Professor Impossible's science classes, which he would have failed if not for the D that Impossible gave him out of pity when Rusty's father died. He later shared a room with Brock Samson, until Brock killed a member of the football team and went on a rampage assaulting Rusty, Pete, Ünderbheit, and Mike Sorayama. Brock would apologize the morning after, then bluntly inform him his father died. Rusty did not return to State college after this until trying to enroll Dean as a 'legacy.'
Rusty was blamed for an explosion in a school lab that blew off Ünderbheit's jaw. The Monarch actually placed the bomb in an attempt to murder Rusty.
Adult Life
After leaving college, Rusty took his father's place as head of Venture Industries, which quickly fell into ruin. The OSI assigned Myra Brandish as Rusty's bodyguard as part of Operation Rusty's Blanket, a missioned designed both to protect him and the ORB.
At this point, the Monarch began to attack Rusty frequently, but Myra thwarted him every time. Rusty and Myra soon grew closer and ended up sleeping together. Rusty eventually lost interest in Myra and began to leave the compound without telling her, causing her mental stress.
At some unknown point Rusty had twin sons with a unknown woman, although he let Myra believe she was their mother. He named his two sons Hank and Dean Venture. Myra soon had a mental breakdown and was forced away by the OSI. At the same time, Pete White soon showed up with a young Billy Quizboy looking for work, but they are quickly turned away.
Myra was replaced by Brock Samson. Rusty gave him a tour of the compound, including his cloning facility. At some point in the past both his sons died, forcing Rusty to clone them to bring them back.
Hank and Dean would eventually be killed multiple times as they got older, which forced Rusty to repeatedly clone them. They can no longer be cloned as all of the "slugs" were destroyed in The Family That Slays Together, Stays Together (Part II).
A few years after Hank and Dean were born, Rusty fathered Dermott with Nikki Fictel, the president of his fan club who told him she was 22, when she was actually 15. Nikki's mother refused to let Rusty be involved with Nikki and their child's life, threatening to bring the incident public. As a result, Rusty did not know his other son until Dermott was in his teens.
The Pilot
Rusty would then be invited to a science expo for his new invention, but before they go a meteor lands in their yard (Which at the time had three of The Monarch's Henchman in it). Rusty decides that they can check it out when they get back and proceeds to fly the X-1 to New York. Rusty, Brock and the twins then go to the hotel for the night. During the night a ninja known as Otaku Senzuri attempts to steal the invention, but ends up kidnapping Hank and Dean. Brock then leaves Rusty to find them much to Rusty dismay. Rusty then goes to the expo to show off his Oo-Ray, which basically is just a death ray. This angers the the UN representatives, which confuses Rusty since he says you do not need to use it for evil. Otaku eventually then shows up and begins to masturbate to the Oo-Ray, which reveals he is a techno-fetishist who can only get aroused by advanced technolgy. Rusty then sells his Oo-Ray to the military unsure why they would want it.
Skills/Powers
- Genius Intelligence - Rusty is genius in his own right able to do complex equations and build advanced device, but seems to lack the motivation and patience to make his inventions work. It was implied by Rusty's Superego that if Rusty just stop taking the easy way out and applied himself, he would be the man he wants to be.
- Creativity - Rusty has shown to be able to come up with creative solutions to his problems, such as cloning the boys repeatedly to keep them alive, creating a powerful Oo-ray, and hooking himself up to Helper after his kidneys were stolen. If he used his creativity more often, he would be much more successful as a super-scientist.
- Compassion - Although he rarely displays it, Rusty is shown to occasionally to care for his sons, attempting to cheer Dean up when he was feeling overwhelmed by his life of constant villain attacks, and even confiding to Hank about his humiliating 16th birthday. He has few friends but is on relatively good terms with them, as Pete White considered Rusty to be his best friend in college and Billy looked up to the young Rusty Venture on TV. He was also very nice to Charlene (Dr. Girlfriend in disguise) when they were dating, and she later even remarked that he's "not so bad once you get to know him."
Weaknesses
- Drug Abuse - Rusty has been known to abuse various prescription drugs, most notably 'diet pills.' The drug use has left his body "toxic with chemicals" and causes multiple health problems like breathlessness and impotence. His body chemistry is so messed up that when Mr. Brisby used a truth serum it made him act in an erratically effeminate fashion; Mr. Brisby chalked it up to his habit of "pill-popping".
- Impatience - Rusty has a habit of putting off his work until the last minute, often leading to rushed, malfunctioning inventions. His narcissism doesn't help either, as he believes he can get what he wants without putting in a corresponding amount of effort.
- Overly Analytical - While this is also one of Rusty's strengths, he tends to be analytical to the point where even close friends and family members see him as cold and uncaring. For example, when Dean is clearly in pain from his Testicular Torsion, his father does not comfort him but approaches the problem in a purely rational and scientific manner, which was not very helpful in this particular situation. Another sign of this is his approach to raising his sons like he is conducting an experiment, cloning them when they die, and treating them like problems needing to be solved rather than sons.
- Emotionally Insecure - His failure as both a scientist and a father has made Rusty incredibly insecure to the point where even the slightest insults provoke a very strong reaction. Rusty's reserved and confident façade hides this weakness, but those close to him know he is not as strong as he would like to appear to be. Ironically, if he would express his emotions more openly rather than making sarcastic comments, he might not be such an emotional mess.
Trivia
- A running gag in the show is that nearly all the women who find Dr. Venture attractive are shown to have a mental instability (these women include Sally Impossible, Myra Brandish, and Nikki Fictel)
- Rusty did not lose his virginity until he was 24.
- Of his two sons, Dean is his favorite.
- Even though he is not very professional,he has proven that his intelligence and capabilities are above average in Science. Examples are him being able to re-clone his sons multiple times, reviving a person who had been blown up and using his past experience with Team Venture to kill a GUILD henchman.