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An effort to organize the artists at Burbank, California-based Stoopid Buddy Stoodios has gained momentum in recent weeks.

The post Exclusive: Artists At Stoopid Buddy, Studio Behind ‘Robot Chicken,’ Are Uniting To Unionize appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Creator Genndy Tartakovsky gives a preview of his darker, grittier "Samurai Jack" reboot for Adult Swim.

The post Go Behind-The-Scenes of The ‘Samurai Jack’ Revival With Genndy Tartakovsky appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Two new seasons of the beloved anime series are headed to Adult Swim.

The post Production I.G To Produce New Seasons of ‘FLCL’ For Adult Swim appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

A new episode, a marathon, and a vinyl LP will mark the 5th anniversary of the Adult Swim gem "Off the Air."

The post ‘Off The Air,’ The Best Animation Anthology Since ‘Liquid TV,’ Is Celebrating Its 5th Anniversary appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

"Regular Show: The Movie" will debut on digital platforms and DVD before it airs on Cartoon Network.

Doctor Mike Tyson is giving the people what they want, and speaking his mind because everyone knows his secrets. The former boxing heavyweight champ returned to San Diego Comic-Con to promote the upcoming season of his Adult Swim animated comedy Mike Tyson Mysteries. He couldn’t really get into the details on what we can expect because then it wouldn’t be a mystery now would it. “We are about to get really, really explosive. I like to use that word: explosive,” Tyson said. “Some dignified offenses. It will be offensive but dignified.”

Tyson expressed his dream real life celebrities and cartoon favorites he’d like to see in the animated series. “Foghorn Leghorn,” Tyson confessed. “I’d want Bishop Magic Juan, Snoop Dogg, Eddie Griffin, Flavor Flav in the show. We are going for mainstream celebrities like Howard Stern.”

So, I was curious him if there was a Presidential candidate he admired or wanted to get in the ring with. Tyson fancies himself as a political pundit and had a couple things to say about Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump.

“I like Donald Trump,” Tyson said while laughing and covering his face.

ICYMI, Trump has been making headlines and climbing the polls because of the outlandish comments made about the Mexican migrants crossing the US/Mexico border during his Presidential bid announcement.

“He has balls. (Trump) is taking all those guys on. You gotta respect those kind of merits. We are all human, and we are going to make mistakes. We got a lot of emotional vampires in the world we’re living in.”

The Mike Tyson Mystery Team will be back at it again with all-new episodes on Adult Swim this fall.

Press rooms at Comic Con are both great fun and sometimes a bit of a tease in that you get face time with some of your favorite television creators, but it’s in such a short burst, you have to really make the most of it.

This afternoon, I joined a group of other members of the Press Corps for a set of roundtable interviews with the creators behind the Back to the Future/Doctor Who/Twilight Zone parody series Rick & Morty: Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland (who had a drink in hand that I was hoping was scotch, but was instead apple juice, I learned), and Ryan Ridley.

Harmon, who developed the show with Roiland, first addressed a question regarding the fact that the first two episodes of the new season, the first of which is set to debut on July 26th, had leaked out onto torrent sites a month early:

It was a mixed blessing, Justin and I were worried about the first episode frankly, because it was very complicated. So the silver lining of the leak…is that it was sort of like a soft roll-out. And the other part of the mixed blessing is that people would want your show that bad, that your trucks are being hijacked on their way to the city. It’s good marketing, I guess.

Though Roiland was quick to point out that the episode was also still unfinished.

Roiland: There’s still little animation mistakes and things I’m fixing.

Harmon: We have to add all the d*cks.

Roiland: Right, and the version that leaked had no d*cks, and the final version is supposed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty d*cks. *laughter* But I was shocked by how many people loved that episode.

Given some the content that makes it onto the screen from the series, and there’s quite a few examples that I’m blushing to even describe, I was curious about what sort of network restrictions they might face and if there was anything that was just too raunchy to make it on the air.

Roiland: Very little (motioning to Harmon), didn’t you post to Instagram some of the edits they asked for?

Harmon: Yeah, I always think S&P memos are hilarious.

Roiland: “Remove Worm Jerry’s butthole”

Me: “Anus”

Harmon: Right! It’s just so funny to see a list and go…”Jesus Christ!” (laughter)

Roiland: But usually we get to do what we want, aside from notes that go “censor the use of f*ck here”, it’s all the ones where we go: “yeah, we knew that”.

After a discussion of events that occur in the leaked episode (that frankly, didn’t make much sense out of context to me, but good job to my fellow journos who admitted they watched a torrented episode to the creators), Roiland teased one tid-bit that there’s a really great moment coming where we meet an alternate reality step-dad for Morty named Paul Fleischmann, a character who Ridley (who is Jewish) described as a “highly anti-semitic selling out of my people”.

Before time ran out, the team addressed how the popularity of the show affected the development of the second season:

Roiland: Going into season two, we realized the stakes were raised and were blown away by how well received season one was. We wanted to keep the bar high. I think that kind of stuff swimming around in the back of your head can make stuff harder.

Harmon: I think, well-received or not, the part that’s difficult is doing a second season of a show that’s out there. You can’t put a mirror in front of a parakeet without changing the entire environment of the cage.

Roiland: Yeah, there’s also a number of sweater threads and things we purposefully left open…

Ridley: Lots of debates about “should we do more Mr. Meeseeks episodes? Or let’s bring back Evil Mortie!”…

Harmon: You’ll realize that you’ll never regain that initial joy (of the first season).

Additional details we learned are that Mr. Meeseeks (that great blue character that I love doing an impression of) will indeed be making a cameo next season and there will be another television episode in the vein of “Rixty Minutes”, though it will not have quite as clean an “A” and “B” plot as that initial entry. Roiland calls it very “balls to the wall”. The team also revealed that Beth, Morty’s mother, will finally go on an adventure and we’ll also meet one of Rick’s ex-lovers.

During the panel that followed afterward, the same trio mentioned that this upcoming season will also introduce Morty’s Uncle Steve as well as a new creature that resembles a banana wearing a top hat that is referred to as “Mr. Poopy Butthole”.

Rick and Morty, folks! It’s great!

For the past number of years that I’ve attended SDCC, the fine folks at Cartoon Network and their brand Adult Swim have put on some rather enjoyable programming for the show. Most notably, I’ve greatly enjoyed the Children’s Hospital panels that were held in previous years, and the 2015 iteration of their lineup looks to be a good deal of fun with back-to-back panels for series like Regular Show, Uncle Grandpa, Adventure Time, and Steven Universe along with some screening opportunities.

One million years Dungeon!!

FRIDAY, JULY 10

Cartoon Network presents a back-to-back Fandemonium Panel Extravaganza featuring Regular Show & Uncle Grandpa followed by Adventure Time & Steven Universe. Both panels are hosted by Bobby Moynihan (Saturday Night Live) the voice of Panda on Cartoon Network’s upcoming animated series We Bare Bears.

CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS: REGULAR SHOW & UNCLE GRANDPA

10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Hilton Bayfront – Indigo Ballroom

You love us!  You really love us!  But guess what….we love you too!!!  Cartoon Network has the best fans in the world, which is why we’re hosting the most FAN-tastic, FAN-centric, FAN…uhhh…MAZING panels SDCC has ever seen!  Join cast and crew of hit shows Regular Show and Uncle Grandpa as we celebrate YOU with major announcements, first looks, contests, and special appearances.  The panel features Regular Showsuperstars JG Quintel (Creator, Voice of Mordecai), William Salyers (Voice of Rigby), Sean Szeles (Supervising Producer), and Sam Marin (Voice of Benson, Pops, Muscle Man), alongside Uncle Grandpa mega-talents Pete Browngardt (Creator, Voice of Uncle Grandpa), Eric Bauza (Voice of Bellybag), and Kevin Michael Richardson (Voice of Mr. Gus). 

CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS: ADVENTURE TIME & STEVEN UNIVERSE

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Hilton Bayfront – Indigo Ballroom

Comic Con is the ultimate destination for amazing fans in Finn hats and crystal gem bellybuttons, which is why Cartoon Network is celebrating YOU in a one-of-a-kind Fandemonium celebration!  We’ve got BIG NEWS you’ll want to hear first, behind-the-scenes access, and special musical performances by the cast and crew from hit shows Adventure Time and Steven Universe!  The panel features Adventure Time legends of OooJeremy Shada (Voice of Finn), John DiMaggio (Voice of Jake), Olivia Olson (Voice of Marceline), and Adam Muto (Co-Executive Producer), alongside Steven Universe gems Rebecca Sugar (Creator), Zach Callison (Voice of Steven), Estelle (Voice of Garnet), and Ian Jones-Quartey(Supervising Director).

 

CARTOON NETWORK SCREENINGS

THURSDAY, JULY 9

 

CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS: ADVENTURE TIME ROYAL BALL

8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Room 7AB

It’s the 2^nd annual Adventure Time Royal Ball!  Last year Cartoon Network filled a ballroom with the most righteous of warriors and the fairest in all the Land of Ooo, and this year we are returning with more fan-favorites, another first-look Adventure Time episode, and a very special world premiere screening of the newest Cartoon Network hit series We Bare Bears!  Don’t forget to dress up in your most inspired outfit for the royal procession and your chance to win righteous prizes! Now come one, come all (until we reach capacity!) for a night of mathematical magic!

FRIDAY, JULY 10

CARTOON NETWORK PRESENTS: CLARENCE & FRIENDS PAJAMA PARTY

8:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Room 7AB

Clarence throws the best parties and you’re invited!  We ran out of pizza poppers, but we’re making up for it with Spencer Rothbell (Head of Story and Voice of Clarence), awesome episodes of your favorite Cartoon Network shows and super cool pwizes!  But hey, hey, guess what, there’s more!  Clarence invited his new friends Grizz, Panda, and Ice Bear, and they’re going to show an episode of their brand new show, We Bare Bears, for everyone to see for the very first time!  HOW COOL IS THAT?!  So put on your favorite pajamas and maaayyyybe you’ll get a swing at our myyystewy piñata!

CARTOON NETWORK SIGNINGS

FRIDAY, JULY 10

 

2:00 p.m.               Regular Show, Uncle Grandpa & Clarence

                                Autograph Alley (AA04)

                                                                                               

4:00 p.m.               Adventure Time & Steven Universe

                                Autograph Alley (AA04)

 

SATURDAY, JULY 11

 

1:00 p.m.               We Bare Bears

                                Cartoon Network Booth #3735

During this year’s C2E2, Comics Beat was #blessed to be able to sit down for a quick roundtable interview with Brad Neely, Daniel Weidenfeld, and Dave Newberg – the driving force behind Adult Swim’s hit show China, IL. What happened next was mostly laughing, carefully edited to read like a real conversation.

CB: Okay so China, IL! What can we expect from the rest of the third season?

Weidenfeld: Well, we have an episode coming up where the mayor bans eating anchovies on pizza in town – you can only eat pepperoni. It sort of becomes our take on the idea of a “gay gene.” We’re showing that now because of everything going on in Indiana. The pizza laws.

Neely: And at the end of the season we have an hour-long musical, kind of in the style of a Disney musical like Lion King, with thirteen original songs by me. We’ve got Cat Power singing, Rosa Salazar, Evan Peters, so we’re real excited about that. Otherwise we’ve got three or four other episodes in there.

CB: You’ve got an extensive cast of voice talent this season. How hard was it to round up all these people? There’s Hulk Hogan, Danny Trejo, Christian Slater, etc. Did you have to come to these people, or did they seek you out?

Neely: Yeah, no one comes to us, haha. We have to go to them. We just aren’t shy about asking, all they can do is say no. There’s an equally long list of people that we have asked that were either busy or thought we were disgusting. We’re very lucky to have these folks.

Weidenfeld: Yeah, Christian Slater has a monologue, and he just kills it, it’s so funny. He was so great, and such a pro, just amazing to record. We did it over the phone in like 15 minutes – it was perfect. And Danny Trejo was the same. We’re just really lucky to have all these talents that bring their own voices and their own style of comedy to keep it varied.

Neely: We have Donald Glover this season, which has been great. We like to think that he came over from Community and moved on to regular college. Stayed in school.

CB: What was it like to get Hulk Hogan onboard as the Dean?

Weidenfeld: Once we got Hulk Hogan, we re-wrote everything because we knew we now had America’s dad as the Dean. The father of masculinity. So everything changed for the better, for us. He’s very fun.

Neely: He recorded for an hour, how many 5-Hour Energy’s did he drink?

Weidenfeld: He brought three and slammed them all. But when you think about how big he is, the ratio kind of works out. He’s something else.

CB: I know in previous seasons the show is sort of done piece by piece and brought together at the end. Are you approaching the production differently this season?

Neely: Well, there’s a plan always. But you know, you have to stay on your toes to adapt to whatever is the funniest or working the most. We bring in every actor individually, we don’t record in an ensemble – to facilitate greater dexterity in editing. But we encourage the actors to read the lines in their own words, and improvise after we get what’s on the page.

Weidenfeld: Brad writes every episode, so we tend to write them a little long, so it’d be really hard to bring everyone into a room and have them all feeding off that energy. It’d be a lot harder to cut as a result. And with Brad doing three of the main voices on the show, we always have the luxury of re-recording. It’s incredible to have that flexibility, especially on an animated show. If we have to cut something, we can salvage lines that are important for story.

Neely: Yeah, we fix things by changing my characters’ stuff, because we don’t want to have to call somebody back in, especially after they’ve done something that’s great, and we’ll work around that and re-work my lines.

CB: Are there limits placed upon you by the network? Do you find that you have more or less creative space either way?

Neely: Strangely – you wouldn’t suspect this of a network with the reputation Adult Swim has – but they insist on us making sense on a emotional and character level. The story has to have an appropriate escalation and resolution. They’re pros about holding us accountable to those standards. They’re very involved when it comes to that.

Weidenfeld: Sometimes they’ll have a very specific thought of something they wants us to do, and we’ll have a conversation about it. There’s a real back and forth respect. We always try to meet in the middle in some capacity.

Neely: It’s a healthy working relationship. They don’t hold back when they think something isn’t working, or could be more forceful.

Weidenfeld: We can say shit now five times per episode. Never a fuck though. They don’t give fucks. Or dicksucker… or cocksucker.

Neely: But we can have an extended pause in between those two words.

CB: So do these episodes start with a joke, or does the joke come together after?

Neely: Every episode starts differently. Some of them just come from a nugget of, “I want to talk about Listerine strips,” or, “Don’t you hate it when you have to order food from a counter?” Sometimes we start with, “Alright, we need to see Frank in this kind of situation.” So we try to keep it balanced where there’s half that come from big stupid ideas and half that come from real deal emotional necessity.

Weidenfeld: But the main thing that has to happen in any given episode, is there has to be one big visual funny that Brad sees.

China, IL airs Sundays at 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT) on Adult Swim.

– My favorite discovery from the 2014 television season has to be Cartoon Network’s Rick and Morty, which takes the character relationship of Doc and Marty (more or less) from Back to the Future and transplants them into Doctor Who style adventures with some the sharpest humor I’ve seen in an animated program since Archer first hit the air. The series, created by Dan Harmon (Community) and Justin Roiland, has had its first season available on Blu-ray for awhile now. If you can handle some cruder, gross-out moments, I highly recommend it.

This week, Cartoon Network announced that Rick and Morty will return on Sunday, July 26th. Additionally, Roiland and Harmon guest-wrote the couch gag for the upcoming season finale of The Simpsons, which you can watch below:

– Speaking of The Simpsons, yesterday saw the news that Harry Shearer, the longtime voice of characters like Ned Flanders, Principal Skinner, and many other members of the show’s rich world, would be parting ways with the series. According to some reports, there’s still a chance that Shearer may come to terms with the show’s producers, but the roles are expected to be recast at this point.

I haven’t watched The Simpsons in years, but I’m hoping this paves the way for a Spinal Tap reunion.

– From the set of Captain America: Civil War, via JustJared, here’s the first image of Crossbones’ costume:

– Seth Rogen tweeted out the first on-set image from AMC’s Preacher last night, which sees Dominic Cooper’s Jesse Custer talking with Ian Colletti’s Arseface:

– According to Collider, the sequel to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes now has a title: War of the Planet of the Apes. It’s a bit of a mouth-full, but I guess no one would go see a movie called “Monkey Fight”, which I was lobbying pretty hard for.

– Lastly, there’s a pretty great True Detective Season 2 teaser out now via HBO. I may be more excited about this premiere than any other show this year, even the Mad Men finale!

Cops, carnies, and a Cretaceous Caligula are coming to your screens.

Hundreds of hours' worth of animation is newly available to stream online.

The "Ren & Stimpy" creator makes an unlikely promo for an Adult swim show.

"Don’t spend any money, but be more encouraging of risk," says Adult Swim honcho Mike Lazzo.

Scholastic will close the Boston-based animation studio as part of a restructuring effort.

Today we look at the work of Drew Tyndell, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

The overworked and underpaid artists on Adult Swim’s "Rick and Morty" ratified a new labor agreement last week, and 'Rick and Morty''s co-creator doesn't like how it happened.

The crew of the Adult Swim series "Rick & Morty" ratified a new labor agreement last Monday with the Animation Guild.

Warner Bros. Animation's "Mike Tyson Mysteries" is a throwback to the celebrity-endorsed TV cartoons of the 1970s and '80s, but the comedic twist is that the "celebrity" is a wife-beating, drug-abusing, flesh-biting, convicted rapist.

Last night Adult Swim premiered its first exclusively online animated series "King Star King." A punk psychedelic space adventure about a He-Man-esque sci-fi figure who works in a waffle restaurant, the show was created by J.J. Villard, a former DreamWorks story artist ("Shrek the Third," "Monsters Vs. Aliens") who's also known for his CalArts student films "Son of Satan" and "Chestnuts Icelolly."

It was recently announced that, after a nearly four-year hiatus, the Adult Swim animated series "The Boondocks" would be returning on April 21st for its fourth and final season. However, any excitement that fans of the show experienced when hearing the news was cut short when they learned that the show’s creator, Aaron McGruder, would not be involved.

by Pam Auditore

The Fourth and Final Season of the  Boondocks  animated TV series will premiere Monday, April 21 at 10:30p.m (ET/PT) on Adult Swim.

The beautifully produced animated series based on Aaron MacGruder’s Boondocks Comics Strip (but done without MacGruder’s involvement) follows the adventures of the Freeman family: cantankerous Robert “Granddad” Freeman and his rambunctious grandkids Huey and Riley.

Boondocks Comic Strip

Boondocks Animated

Moving from the South to a suburb of Chicago, Granddad Robert is hoping to enjoy his golden years in peace.  But 10-year-old revolutionary Huey, and 8-year-old member of contemporary Rap culture Riley, are not about to just lay down and enjoy their affluence.  As always, they will be  torturing each other as well as challenging and provoking their neighborhood.  John Witherspoon (Friday After Next) voices Robert “Granddad” Freeman with Regina King (Southland and Ray) voices both grandkids Riley, and Hughie.

The Final Season’s storylines will inclue Granddad dating a long lost Kardashian sister; obsessing over his i-Phone and Siri; as well as a lethal involvement in a black market of  the hair-care industry ala “Breaking Bad.”

There will also be a healthy helping of familiar Big Names lending their voice talents:  Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, Ghostface Killah, CeeLo, Lil Wayne,  Aisha Tyler (Archer), Tavis Smiley, Katt Williams,  Marion Ross (Happy Days)  and Cedric the Entertainer among others.

Identifying the next Jeffrey Katzenberg or George Lucas isn’t something easily done, but a columnist at the Washington Post has figured out who it is: Nick Weidenfeld.

Weidenfeld, the former Adult Swim development executive whose recent move to Fox has the industry buzzing with anticipation, was the recipient of a glowing profile in last Sunday’s Post, in which his grand plans for the animation industry were revealed.

Post columnist Thomas Heath details Weidenfeld’s career path, starting with his humble beginnings in Washington D.C. where he was raised by an estate lawyer and Betty Ford’s former press secretary—the latter being the daughter of a presidential confidant and ambassador to Italy. Educated at Georgetown Day School and then Columbia University, the Post recounts Weidenfeld’s hardscrabble upbringing where he bounced from an internship at the Pentagon to writing about hip hop and rap, and then clawed his way to a writing gig at Esquire. It was at the last job, while researching a piece about Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, that he ‘bonded’ with CN exec Mike Lazzo over a mutual love of William Faulkner, which was the obvious qualification for a career in animation.

“You wake up one day and you are head of development at the number one ad-supported network on cable TV,” Weidenfeld told the Washington Post. “The nice thing about my story is about the connections I made, but not family connections. I broke into this business myself through friends.”

Weidenfeld attributes his inspirational trajectory from scion to media mogul to his ability to “be open.” When pressed for an explanation, he clarifies, “It’s just being open… to be open to know what you are good at, and know what value you bring to something, you find a way to fit it into whatever job it is. I’m good at making connections or putting an organization or putting pieces together. I’m a good global thinker.”

This unequivocal business acumen was refined by reading the biography of Steve Jobs, the history of Pixar, and Clayton M. Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. “These guys had these ideas and figured out that the old systems don’t work anymore,” Weidenfeld said. “The first thing I said to Fox is I don’t want to just make shows. I want to build a business for you that takes advantage of the best parts of animation.”

Using only the choicest parts of animation, Weidenfeld is ready to reinvent how cartoons are made. He is putting all phases of production for Fox’s upcoming animation block, ADHD (Animation Domination High-Def), from development to animation, under a single roof at his new 120-person Los Angeles studio, generously provided by Fox. From there he intends to usurp the young male demographic from YouTube and Saturday Night Live by producing loads of animated content and writing off the costs. He told the Post that when he presented this foolproof business plan to Fox, they said, “Okay, here you go.”

“It sounds like a parallel universe to me,” writes Heath, “but he’s the one who is becoming the next Jeffrey Katzenberg or George Lucas, not me.”

Following the misadventures of a family of fourth generation super scientists and the villains and associates they have picked up along the way, Adult Swim’s The Venture Bros., created by Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick, has been treating its fans to an intelligent pastiche of adventure fiction and the teen sleuth genre since 2004. With each passing season, the popular animated series, which exposes the bleak future of boy detectives and the failed dreams of the 1960s space race, adds to a constantly evolving collection of characters from the male-dominated catalog of secret agents, boy geniuses and action figures.

Women however, are frequently portrayed as, albeit appropriately for the tone of the program, cynical sex workers, emotionally disturbed shut-ins and hapless bystanders. However, there are a handful of female characters, all of which that walk the line of masculinist fantasy and post-feminist strength, that have risen to the top as fan favorites. For those of you who need a refresher before The Venture Bros. returns for its fifth season tonight at midnight, here’s a recap of the show’s previous seasons through the eyes of these sometimes misunderstood, always popular ladies of the Venture-verse.

Dr. Girlfriend
Occupation: Number Two for The Mighty Monarch
AKA: Lady Au Pere, Queen Etheria, Dr. Fiancee, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch
First Appearance: Episode 101: Dia De Los Dangerous!
The lover/second in command for Dr. Venture’s relentless arch-nemesis, The Monarch, and the most prominent of all the female characters in the series, she has had a string of male bosses intent on exploiting her sexuality rather than take advantage of her professional acumen and top level efficiency. Due to her bass-y, gravel inflected voice her actual gender is called into question on numerous occasions, including rumors that she is MTF with a surgically implanted baboon’s uterus.

In Episode 102, Mid-Life Chrysalis she goes undercover for The Monarch to seduce Dr. Venture and infect him with a deadly serum, only to ultimately be slut-shamed by her boyfriend and driven back into the arms of her old boss, Phantom Limb. After some soul searching, she and The Monarch reunite and are granted duo-ship by the evil-doers bureaucracy The Guild of Calamitous Intent. It appears that their villainous bliss is put in jeopardy when in, episode 414, Assisted Suicide, she makes out with Henchmen #24, but when The Monarch finds out, he simply shrugs it off, pointing out that bad guys are pretty much all swingers.

Sally Impossible
AKA: The Visible Woman
First Appearance: Episode 109: Ice Station: Impossible
Rival scientist, Professor Impossible’s long oppressed wife, she is kept hidden from the outside world and her husband’s investors due to her invisible skin — a result of one of his laboratory accidents. Trapped in a loveless marriage and desperate for sexual intimacy she is constantly looking for a way out through the few men she comes in contact with, like in episode 205, 20 Years to Midnight where she mistakes Dr. Venture’s self-serving behavior for affection and desire to rescue her from her imprisonment.

Eventually, by episode 309, Now Museum – Now You Don’t, she is living with Dr. Venture’s parasitic twin brother, JJ, on Spider Skull Island as part of his defense team. Her absence from her husband’s life drives him into a deep depression and leaves him in such a low emotional state he can be recruited into the new evil guild, The Revenge Society as seen in episode 411, Every Which Way But Zeus.

Molotov Cocktease
Occupation: Siberian Mercenary
Group Affiliation: The Black Hearts
First Appearance: Episode 104: Eeney, Meeney, Miney… Magic!
A deadly opponent of the Venture family’s bodyguard/nanny, Brock Samson, the two are locked in a pre-coital tête-à-tête that, due to her titanium-clad chastity belt, she ultimately always wins. She is truly the only woman he has ever loved, which is proven in episode 207, Assassinanny, where she discovers while babysitting the Venture family in Samson’s absence, that he kept her eye as a memento.

Publick and Hammer make up for Molotov’s shameful underuse in the show by weaving her into major plot points in the most clandestine of ways; take for example episode 313, The Family That Slays Together, Stays Together, pt. 2, when she stages an elaborate assassination attempt on Samson in order to guarantee success for her own mercenary squad, The Black Hearts. In the season 4 finale, Operation P.R.O.M she reveals that while she is no longer chaste, her heart belongs to her new boyfriend, Monstroso and she lets herself fall to her apparent death rather than stay with Brock.

Triana Orpheus
Known Relatives: Dr. Byron Orpheus (father) Tatyana (mother)
First Appearance: Episode 104: Eeney, Meeney, Miney… Magic!
The daughter of the magical Dr. Orpheus, she and her father rent an apartment on the Venture property after her mother left them for a young necromancer named The Outrider. She is unaware that, because of her father’s involvement in the dark arts, her own sanity is teetering on the brink of instability, this is made most clear in episode 204, Escape to the House of Mummies where he alludes to having to wipe her memory every time she goes into her bedroom closet, which is actually a porthole to “the burning nowhere”.

When faced with a future of being married to Dean and mothering his deformed offspring in episode 407, The Better Man she decides to go and live with her mother, where she finds a new boyfriend, a dreamboat paraplegic named Raven.

Colonel Hunter Gathers
Occupation: Secret Agent
First Appearance: Episode 207: Assassinanny
Brock Samson’s government agent mentor, after dedicating his life to the secret agency OSI, he undergoes gender reassignment surgery to escape assassination after he goes AWOL.

He is frequently seen providing professional and spiritual guidance to Samson in flashbacks and, in the case of episode 211, Showdown at Cremation Creek, pt 1, a peyote induced fever dream. After spending some time working undercover as an exotic dancer and in an all-female mercenary squad, it is later revealed that he had been undercover for the splinter terrorist group S.P.H.I.N.X. all along, where Samson rejoins him as his charge. Though he is no longer living life as a woman (from the waist up, anyway) he reveals in episode 415, The Silent Partners that he misses his breasts: “Inside of me there’s a woman screaming to be heard!”

The Venture Bros. season five debuts on Sunday, June 2, at midnight on Adult Swim.

Adult Swim has announced its new lineup of 2013-2014 programming, which includes returning favorites like Black Dynamite, The Boondocks, Robot Chicken and The Venture Brothers as well as new acquisition, Bob’s Burgers, a Halloween special from Tim & Eric and various live-action pilots from, among others, Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks), Paul Scheer (The League, Human Giant) and the creators of Space Ghost Coast to Coast.

Here’s a summary of the new animated content they’ll be offering to stoners throughout the 2013-2014 season:

Rick and Morty, Dan Harmon (Community) and Justin Roiland’s (Disney’s Fish Hooks) pilot about the adventures of a “genius inventor grandfather and his less than genius grandson” will go to series for a late 2013 premiere.

King Star King, about an amnesiac modern-day he-man “who falls from the realm of the gods” and lands a job as a waffle fry cook, by JJ Villard (The Son of Satan, Monster Vs. Aliens).

Mr. Pickles, a new show featuring “ a deviant border collie with a secret satanic streak” in a polluted old-fashioned town, created by Will Carsola and Dave Stewart (Funny Or Die Presents Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time).

Mike Tyson Mysteries, a new series by Warner Bros Animation that places the ex-boxer in a problem solving premise alongside a talking pigeon and a magical face tattoo.

Ghostbags, a pilot produced by Hayes Davenport (Eastbound and Down) and Guy Endore-Kaiser (Allen Gregory) about the afterlives of three “douchebag” frat guys who die in a horrible car accident.

Metalocalpyse: The Doom Star Requiem, a one-hour special picking up where the Metalocalypse season 4 finale left off, created by Brendon Small and airing in October 2013.

Robot Chicken DC Comics Special II, the 2014 sequel to the Annie Award-winning Robot Chicken DC Comics Special made in partnership between Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation.