The Venture Brothers: Handsome Ransom

I am happy to see this show get back to its roots. You seriously could not ask for a better episode than the one from this week. I love Brock Sampson's character in this show, but you didn't need him at all to make this story so unbelievably funny.

To start off, Rusty was back in this episode, and he was as funny as I had hoped he would be. Since he was barely in the season premiere, I was hoping he'd have a bigger role in the next episode. Another one of my favorite characters was back in this episode: The Monarch, who is the perfect arch-nemesis for Dr. Venture. They are both so unbelievably incompetent that they compliment each other very nicely. This episode starts off with the Venture boys getting captured again by the Monarch who is trying to negotiate a ransom with Dr. Venture. What was funny that the Monarch was asking for money this time, which caught everyone off guard. Then Venture tries bartering off some old equipment, Hank sides with the Monarch to not be stiff with money, Dr. Venture telling the Monarch to keep Hank, and everyone finally negotiating a transaction location. This scene couldn't have worked any better. Everyone was hilarious and it is scenes like this that make Venture Brothers the funniest show on Adult Swim. I was happy to see Sergeant Hatred being just as funny as he was in the premiere, with the sort of incompetence that fits right into the Venture family. The transaction scene was also fantastic, which ended with the Monarch kicking Venture in the balls and stealing his forged money.

This episode was also great cause it included the voice of Kevin Conroy, who has done the voice for every Batman series since the early 90's. I was in typical nerd worship when I heard his voice in this episode, but his character was nothing like Batman. Though he was a superhero, he was a very fruity superhero who uses radiated light to attack his enemies. So anyone who gets attacked by him ends up with a sunburn. What was amusing about this character was his latent homosexual and pedophiliac tendencies when he recruited Hank to be his "Wonder Boy" after the Monarch killed the original Wonder Boy in a drunken stupor. You could see his character being an obvious reference to Batman, what with the butler and the secret lair.

I also thought the new Number 21 is awesome. I think it's funny that he became this huge, ripped and badass henchman after 24 was killed. What is amusing is that he still is a nice guy when he paid a cab driver rather than killing him like the Monarch ordered. He has become a nice asset to the Monarch, now that he can kick people's asses. The episode basically ended with the Monarch failing to re-capture Hank, and Hank leaves the superhero to go back with Dr. Venture. They give a little homage to Batman at the end of the episode, which was a funny way to end it.

This episode was fantastic, and really had everything you could want out of this show. This is one episode I could watch again and again, and I suggest you do the same.

I'm giving this episode a 9.8

If I could have any voice, it would be Kevin Conroy's. ...... or Ian McShane's.

South Park: W.T.F.

South Park had a good couple of episodes to start their Fall run, but their third episode, titled W.T.F., really lacked the quality the first 2 had. I knew it was a matter of time before South Park took a jab at the WWE, and since I used to watch wrestling, I was excited to see what they would do. I know wrestling has a lot of acting involved, so I figured they'd make that their focus.

So the episode focused on how the boys, after seeing a WWE show, decide to put on their own wrestling show. This attracts the attention of all the stereotypical rednecks that the WWE does. Say what you want about the WWE, but they sell out shows every week. I love that they brought back the "Took our jobs!" line that I loved so much. Other than that line, the episode wasn't that good. Their wrestling event became more of a Broadway play by the end. I thought the fact that the event had intermissions and the audience were drinking wine during it was a funny little addition. The making fun of real wrestling was also an interesting commentary.

Other than those few points, this episode really lacked the comedy that made previous episodes so great. They tried so hard to make fun of wrestling that they forgot to make it really funny in the process. There really isn't much else to say beyond that.

This episode gets a 6.5

And yes real wrestling is totally gay.