The Incredible Mr. Brisby

Infobox Television episode
Title=The Incredible Mr. Brisby
Series=The Venture Bros.
Season=1
Episode=4
Airdate=28 August 2004
Writer= Jackson Publick
Director= Jackson Publick


Caption = "This is that ridiculous giant beehive next door to your study, isn't it? You knocked me out and put me in a bag to bring me "fifty yards"?!"
Production = 1-05
Guests =
Prev=Home Insecurity
Next=Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!

"The Incredible Mr. Brisby" is the fourth episode in the first season of "The Venture Bros."

Plot

Hank and Dean are ecstatic at the prospect of visiting "Brisbyland" (a theme park that is an obvious parody of Disneyland). Dr. Venture quickly crushes their enthusiasm, however; the boys are to stay onboard the jet while he and Brock see to some business with Roy Brisby, owner of the park. Brisby's personal assistant Mandalay, a huge, silent man wearing a turban and business suit, escorts Brock and Venture to Brisby's office in an electric cart.

Brock is forced to wait in the hallway with Mandalay as Venture meets Brisby - an aged man confined to a wheelchair with his face locked in a horrible grimace. Brisby explains that he was trapped in an accident beneath an animatronic Lincoln for several hours; he suffered a stroke during the ordeal. He engages Venture in small talk for a while, introducing his "longtime com-panda" Li-Li, who he won from David Bowie in a trivia contest some time in the early 1980s. Soon, however, Brisby tells Venture the reason for his invitation: a keen interest in cloning. Brisby offers a generous payment for Jonas Venture's notes; Venture, offended by the lack of interest in his work, feigns ignorance on the subject.

Outside Brisby's office, Mandalay provides Brock with a cigarette and lights it for him. Inside, Venture rejects Brisby's final offers of employment; on the old man's signal, Li-Li throws a large bag over Venture and subdues him. Brock hears the scuffle and overpowers Mandalay, but collapses after breaking down the door. Brisby gloats over the chloral hydrate with which he laced Brock's cigarette, until he rolls too close to the fireplace. His lap blanket bursts into flame, but Li-Li quickly rolls her master on the carpet to extinguish him.

Hank and Dean, wrestling with each other on board the X-1, fail to notice two figures dressed in paramilitary uniforms sneaking onto the jet. The intruders easily subdue the boys with what appear to be orange halves.

Venture is released from the bag inside the "Brisby-dome", a huge beehive-shaped structure (a reference to Epcot's Spaceship Earth) located a few yards from Brisby's office. He steadfastly continues to refuse Brisby's offers until Mandalay knocks him out with an injection.

Brock regains consciousness as a cable pulls him from a tar pit. He finds he is being rescued by Molotov Cocktease, a scantily-clad woman with a Russian accent whom he obviously recognizes. She gives him a brief greeting before knocking him out again with a kick to the head.

Inside a community college gym, Hank and Dean wake up surrounded by people wearing commando-like uniforms. Their leader explains that they are the Orange County Liberation Front - a covert organization dedicated to overthrowing the Brisby empire. Its members are repulsed by the "entertainment complex" that has overtaken their once-peaceful home. Hank and Dean, longtime Bizzy Bee fans, refuse to believe that Brisby is evil. The rebel leader produces two Bizzy Bee beanies he says were stolen from Brisby's secret laboratories, intended for mind control. The two boys will make ideal test subjects...

Brock comes to again in a motel bathtub. He and Molotov abruptly engage in hand-to-hand combat, which just as quickly turns into passionate kissing. Brock slams her onto the seedy bed and rips off her clothes... to reveal a chastity belt bearing a hammer-and-sickle logo. Insane with frustration, he excuses himself to the bathroom with a large erection that is visible through his towel.

Venture finally wakes up from the sedative, connected via wires to a polygraph. He has been injected with truth serum while unconscious, and Brisby begins to question him. Instead of answering truthfully, however, Venture engages in bizarre behavior due to the interaction of the injections and his so-called "diet pills."

After Brock has "taken care of business", Molotov tells him that she knows where the boys are and agrees to help him find them. Inside the gym, the beanies seem to be quite effective as the boys beat the hell out of a Bizzy Bee effigy. Brock and Molotov infiltrate the community college grounds just as the stolen X-1 takes off. Molotov says that she knows where the OCLF are headed and that she will drive Brock there.

The OCLF reaches the Brisby-dome and a chaotic battle ensues between the soldiers and bee-suited workers. As Brock and Molotov arrive, the mercenary abandons Brock to pursue her own objective. When Venture groggily emerges from a room stories above, an explosion hurls him over the railing. Brock grabs a nearby rivet gun and secures Venture's pant leg to the wall in mid-fall. Hank and Dean, under full hypnosis by their hats, point weapons at Brock without recognizing him. The cloth holding Venture rips and Brock pins his other pant leg to the wall.

Brisby prepares to escape the battle but is confronted by Molotov, who says he knows what she is there for. Before he can refuse or comply, he catches fire again.

The staredown between Brock and the boys continues as Venture falls once more. Samson fires another rivet which pins the doctor to the wall though the impact is not seen yet. The power of Brock's intimidating stare finally overpowers the brainwashing, and Hank and Dean drop their weapons. Brock then responds to Dr. Venture's drugged moans, as it is revealed that he was pinned to the wall by the wrist this time, and only a few feet from the ground at that. The team heads home after Brock releases the impaled and woozy Venture.

After the credits, Molotov assures her employer, Mr. Bowie, that everything went as planned as she speeds down the highway with Li-Li as a passenger.

Cultural references

* The episode's title comes from the 1964 film "The Incredible Mr. Limpet".
* The Name "Mr. Brisby" is a veiled reference to the 1982 animated film "The Secret of NIMH", whose lead character was a mouse named Mrs. Brisby. "NIMH" was the first full length feature directed by former Disney animator Don Bluth after leaving the company. With that movie, Bluth became a direct competitor to Disney in the animated film market.
* Roy Brisby is an obvious parody of Walt Disney, and Brisbyland a parody of Disneyland. Specific similarities include:
** The plan to create a new society in the Brisby Dome is a reference to EPCOT's original intent as a futuristic model community.
** Brisby's desire to stave off death through the science of cloning is a reference to the urban legend that Disney's head was cryonically frozen upon his death.
** His belief in panda's milk as an elixir echoes Disney's own conviction that drinking tomato juice was greatly beneficial to one's health.
** Disneyland is located in Orange County, California, and Walt Disney World is located in Orange County, Florida.
** Roy Oliver Disney co-founded Walt Disney Productions with his brother Walt Disney.
** At one point, Brisby screams "Jiminy Cricket!", the name of a protagonist in Disney's "Pinocchio". At another, he refers to the finances of Venture Industries as having gone "zip-a-dee-doo-dah", a reference to the "Song of the South" song of the same name.
* Mandalay's character was inspired by both Manute from "Sin City" and Punjab from "Little Orphan Annie". Mandalay is named after his theme music, "Mandalay" by J. G. Thirlwell from the Foetus record "Flow".
* The scene where Brock is pulled out of a tar pit by Molotov Cocktease is also a direct reference from "The Big Fat Kill" from "Sin City", where Miho rescues Dwight as he is slowly sinking into one of the Santa Yolanda Tarpits after the attack of the Irish mercenaries.
* The Orange County Liberation Front also parodies complaints of people in the parks' area over the development problems the parks brings.
* When the OCLF member says "What, did you turn them all the way up to Patty Hearst?" he is referring to the young woman who was infamously kidnapped in the '70s and allegedly brainwashed to commit crimes with her captors.
* The OCLF's attack on the Brisby Dome closely resembles the climax of the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice".
* While being interrogated by Brisby, Dr. Venture is asked his name. Venture's reply - "Reading from top to bottom, Lisa Carol Fremont" - is a direct quote from Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rear Window".
* Dr. Venture's quote "I've always depended on the kindness of strangers" is a direct line from the play "A Streetcar Named Desire". The joke of a brainwashed man believing himself to be Blanche DuBois was also used in Woody Allen's "Sleeper".
* The "Unstoppable Metal Lincoln" that trapped Roy Brisby, causing his stroke, is a reference to a famous malfunction in Disney Land that involved the speaking Abraham Lincoln animatronic statue.

Connections to other episodes

* We find out in this episode that Dr. Venture is not a real doctor. A partial explanation is revealed in the later episode "Past Tense". [Episode "Past Tense"]
* David Bowie is later revealed to have even more villainous connections, revealed as the Sovereign of the Guild of Calamitous Intent in "Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II)". [Episode "Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II)"] Furthermore, this implies that Molotov Cocktease does freelance work for the Guild of Calamitous Intent.
* Dr. Venture's reluctance to clone Brisby is less likely to be due to legal limits - Venture has rarely let the law get in his way - and is probably more to do with the fact that such work would risk potential revelation to the world and his sons that they themselves are merely clones, as revealed in "Powerless in the Face of Death". [Episode Powerless in the Face of Death"]

Production notes

* One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "The Incredible Mr. Brisby" the credit reads Kimson "Companda" Albert.

Goofs

* Contrary to Dean's wildlife cards, it is Asian elephants and not African Bush Elephants whose females lack tusks.

References