Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!
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| The Venture Bros. episode | |
|---|---|
| “Eeeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!” | |
 "What the hell is this thing made out of?" |
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 5 |
| Writer(s) | Doc Hammer |
| Director | Jackson Publick |
| Production no. | 1-04 |
| Original airdate | 4 September 2004 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| "The Incredible Mr. Brisby" | "Ghosts of the Sargasso" |
"Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!" is the fifth episode in the first season of The Venture Bros.
[edit] Plot
A booth-like machine in Dr. Venture's Lab opens, from which ominous green light and smoke pour. A figure silhouetted by the light comes into view from the depths of the gadget. H.E.L.P.eR. moves towards the newcomer, beeping and waving its arms, but is subdued with an arcane gesture. In the compound's living room, Hank and Dean are playing with a Ouija board. Dean asks if he will find true love and the planchette moves under its own power to indicate "YES". Immediately afterwards, a strange gray-haired and bearded man silently enters the room. Before the boys can react, the stranger renders them unconscious with a twitch of his fingers.
The next morning, Dean wakes his father to tell him about the previous night's events. Dr. Venture explains to Dean that the stranger is merely renting out space in the compound because "Venture Industries" could use the money. He takes Dean to see the man, who introduces himself as Dr. Orpheus, a necromancer. When Orpheus's teenaged daughter, a goth/punk girl named Triana, arrives Dean is immediately smitten with her. Orpheus sends the younger duo off to eat breakfast while he and Dr. Venture discuss the difficulties of being single parents.
Meanwhile, Hank wakes Brock from a nightmare concerning a dead football player and is nearly strangled to death as a result. After some discussion Brock and Hank head to the lab to repair H.E.L.P.eR.. When Hank spots the booth, he is entranced, walking towards it in a dazed state. He sees a blissful vision of his father offering to play catch as his mother (heard but not seen) offers them grilled cheese sandwiches. Brock notices Hank's near-hypnosis and forcibly stops him from entering the booth; he glances towards the machine, however, and walks into it in the same trancelike manner.
Dean and Triana make small talk while eating breakfast, Triana remaining cool while smitten Dean approaches incoherence. Meanwhile, Orpheus and Venture arrive in the lab, discussing the new invention. Orpheus trips over Hank, still prone on the floor after being tackled by Brock. Hank tells them that Brock is now inside the booth, which has no controls on the outside. As Dean fantasizes in his room about saving Triana from a dangerous situation, Hank intrudes and explains that Brock is trapped inside the booth and that they have to save him.
The necromancer learns that the machine probes the user's brain to manufacture hallucinations of his or her deepest desires, or as Venture puts it, "it's a joy can" primarily intended for masturbatory uses. Questioning Dr. Venture further, Orpheus is disgusted at the revelation that the booth is powered by the heart of a "forsaken child", to which Dr. venture replies "well at least I didn't use all of it". Inside the booth, Brock fulfills his dreams, first by receiving forgiveness from the dead football player we saw during his nightmare, who is revealed to be a teammate Brock accidentally killed during a college football practice, and then by fighting ninjas, cowboys, dinosaurs and other manly threats. Finally, as his attire changes from Native American garb to a tuxedo, Molotov Cocktease appears from nowhere to finally consummate their relationship.
While the two doctors are arguing, the boys manage to get inside the machine wearing tinfoil hats. Thinking quickly, they wrap a urine-soaked shirt around Brock's head to block the machine's effects; it works, but they can not find a way to open the machine. Outside the booth, Dr. Orpheus has concluded that true love is the key to opening the machine, but is fruitless at inspiring it. Triana enters the lab, looking for her father. When her voice penetrates the booth, Dean's feelings of love open the doors at once. With Venture's reluctant agreement, Orpheus destroys the foul machine with arcane bolts.
[edit] Cultural references
- Dr. Orpheus is an obvious homage to the Marvel Comics character Doctor Strange. The gesture he uses in the beginning of the episode to subdue H.E.L.P.eR. is identical to the one Dr. Strange typically uses to cast spells.
- Dean wears a Burger King crown in his fantasy of being Triana's hero.
- Triana sarcastically asks if Dean is David Koresh, referring to the leader of the infamous Branch Davidian cult.
- Dean apparently watches reruns of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
- Dr. Orpheus tells Dr. Venture to "be cross with them" when trying to call the boys out of the box, a possible reference a scene in Poltergeist.
- The brothers wrap Dean's shirt around Brock's head after peeing on it. This is a reference to Total Recall where the character wrapped a wet shirt around his head to disrupt a tracking device.
[edit] Trivia
- Hank and Dean see Scamp, their pet dog from "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay", when they are inside the machine.
- The football player seen dead here is revealed to be Tommy the deaf quarterback in "Past Tense." Brock accidentally killed him during a practice session in his freshman year of college, which led to a revocation of Brock's scholarship and his enrollment in the military.
- Among Brock's fantasies while in the "joy-can" involves being attacked and killing cowboys riding dinosaurs, polar bears riding motorcycles, and numerous frogmen and ninja, which is a recurring theme of what Hank seems to believe Brock's life involved before his assignment with the Venture family that Brock consistently denies.
- Dean brags about Brock killing a guy to Triana, yet in Past Tense he refuses to believe when Hank says that Brock kills bad guys.
- One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) gets to have a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "Eeeney, Meeney, Miney... MAGIC!" the credit reads Kimson "In Twain" Albert.
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Preceded by: "The Incredible Mr. Brisby" |
The Venture Bros. episodes original airdate: September 4, 2004 |
Followed by: "Ghosts of the Sargasso" |
 |
| The Venture Bros. | |
|---|---|
| Episode Guide | |
| Pilot | The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay |
| Season 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| Season 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| Specials | Christmas |
| Other | Phone Calls |
