EXCLUSIVE Interview with Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick - Part Two

More good stuff from those fine upstanding gentleman from the Astrobase c/o The Gritty Chimp

How do you keep yourselves amused when you're not working on the show?

JP: Scramble. I play Scramble on my iphone, it's like Boggle but copyright free and digital.

DH: Yeah I just do more work, I have a band and I paint, stuff like that. I don't do anything social except with the ladies. They keep me a little busy.

JP: Watch a little TV

DH: yeah, I like to watch DVDs because then there's no advertisements and the guy next to you eating food he bought at like, Blimpies, you guys probably don't have Blimpies. It's like smelly sandwiches. Smelly sandwiches.

JP: It's a bad sandwich shop chain.

DH: Yeah, yeah and they smell and they're in a movie theatre eating dinner! Having a full meal. They're not just having popcorn and twizzlers which emit no odour, they're having an oniony dinner next to you. It drives me mad.

JP: I'll go to movies.

DH: You love going to movies.

JP: I'm so happy I have the power to bring myself to a movie. I think in my childhood I just wanted to see movies so bad and I'd go once every month or something and your parents would bring you and then you hit 15 and it's like “I can just go to the movies, I can do that, I can make that happen. I can get Chinese food whenever I want”. So I'm still thrilled every time I go to the movies. I like to go to big superhero movies on opening night because everybody's an idiot in the audience. It's great.

See over here they're just annoying so I tend to wait till three weeks in to the run of a film and go on a Tuesday afternoon when there's only five people. Even then I'm one of those people who needs a row to myself.

JP: We have the worst movie theatre in my neighbourhood. It was obviously brand new in the 80's so the seats were once very nice you know, like the ones they had at Union Square? But now like, half of them are missing or they have pavement gum on them, gum that's turned black and it's not sticky any more so you can sit on it but not be happy about it or there's a plastic bag on the seat next to you...

DH: Euww!

JP: ...that says 'Out of order' so what's great is that often you don't have to sit next to anyone but it's a filthy, horrible movie theatre that's going to close. I'm sure of it.

DH: and it plays new releases or..

JP: yeah it plays new releases, 3D movies, the whole nine.

DH: ha! It just plays Aguirra, the Wrath of God 24 hours a day.  

How aware are you of your global fan base? Have you cracked Japan yet?

JP: I have no idea about Japan.

DH: I have no idea about our fan base unless they send me cookies. I mean people recognise me in the street. Look at me for Christ's sake, you could recognise me from a helicopter.

JP: I think recently we've become aware as we've been selling t-shirts on the internet and sold a bunch of t-shirts in Australia. We were like 'oh, people are watching it'. We assumed people are downloading it but I think we're on in Australia because they want us to go to Australia.

DH: I think also they are downloading it and sharing it. It's kind of cool, but it's a weird thing because we lose money when you can find torrents of our show free and it never goes to ratings. It never goes to our pockets but it spreads the word in places where the word wouldn't be spread so it's kind of a mixed bag.

I must be honest, I've done it myself on occasion because we had so little Adult Swim a few years ago but now, the UK especially - the website has really taken off so we're basically up to date with the American site in terms of scheduling.

JP: We were a bit upset that we weren't in the UK, like you couldn't get our DVDs there.

Well we've got the DVDs now, we're currently up to season 2 with season 3 coming out at the end of the year. Also the UK team look after the Scandinavian wing of Adult Swim so this interview may also  get seen by your Scandinavian fans too.

DH: You seem to be more aware of our global fans seeing as you’re on the other side of the globe. How do people in your neck of the woods know The Venture Brothers?

I think mainly through the Bravo block a few years back and then recently the fact that Adult Swim UK has really kicked up a gear, especially with the social networking sites. News has spread and now we get all the new episodes as well as all the old ones. We've got a lot of regular viewers online rather than having to solely rely on TV. A lot of UK fans also go over to the US boards so it's one big international community we've got here.

DH: So if we go over there..

JP: Will they recognise us?

DH: Have parades?

If you wander round London I'm sure there would be a few people that would recognise you..

DH: Attractive women? I will give up my US Citizenship for a knighthood. I'm throwing that in right now. I have zero allegiance to this country. My parents happened to have sex in it. If I go over there and they offer me a knighthood, I'm taking it. Sir Doc!

Well everybody here knows the Queen, I'll just give her a ring. Shouldn't be too much of a problem. You just go to Buckingham palace, they've got a big doorbell. You just state who you are.

DH: I'm here! I'm accepting my knighthood.

Just say 'Liz, Jon sent me' and she'll know who you're talking about.

DH: I won't even have to drop your name, trust me. The power of Adult Swim will propel me into the palace.

But like I say, there's a lot of fans this side of the pond and growing.

DH: We're always looking for more people to let down. Can we spread the disappointment?

JP: How many more people can we make wish we'd go back to how it was in the first season?

DH: How many more countries can go 'Where's Brock?'

JP: 'Enough with the paedophilia already'

DH: ‘You're killing us’

Do you get that a lot? We're just glad to have it. We don't pick it apart that much, we're happy with it.

DH: You should come here! Nobody's satisfied with what they get. It's always 'This is what I'd do because I'm a fucking genius, I'd do this and that'. You guys are clearly thinking of this in the better light...

'Entertain Me!'

 DH: Yeah

JP: 'Put the thing that was in my head on TV instead of what you wanted to do'

DH: 'But surprise me!'

You fellas are fast shaping up to be the cover boys of adult swim and a big hit with the ladies. What's the strangest request you've ever had from a Venture fan?

DH: I can't tell you. It's pretty weird stuff!

JP: One offer of a threesome at a comic convention and one offer from a dungeon mistress who offered me a free session.

DH: He's the one whose going to talk about this, I'm not going to say..

JP: Is that inappropriate?

DH: What ever you say is appropriate. Are you asking me the strangest thing I've done or the strangest thing that's been offered me?

Well the strangest thing that's been asked of you basically.

DH: I can't speak of such things.

JP: Signing the odd tit.

DH: A lady never tells and a gentleman never asks. I'm just saying that.

Ok, that's fair enough. The Doc and the boys travel all over the world. Would you consider sending them off to merry ol' England on a jaunt?

DH: Absolutely

JP: Sure. It's about time we got them in the plane and sent them off somewhere. We actually started a conversation about that. 'Oh they should go to Europe, they should go to England. I want to go to England and write the trip off as research' and then it turned into a story about Greece. So sorry, but we'll try to figure it out.

How would you approach it? Would you be going for the old smoky, foggy London or modern England?

JP: Gosh..

DH: It's story dependant.

JP: Millennium Wheel and all that? That big wheel you have right? Ferris wheel, eye...

DH: What's it called?

The London Eye. We've got a small one here in Manchester as well, they seem to be all over this country now these big wheels.

JP: That's ridiculous. We could toss the Tate in there.

DH: Maybe. Depends what kind of adventure they're on

Your merchandise is something us British fans are incredibly jealous of as we don't have an Adult Swim shop over here...

DH: You should be! It's awesome, we have dolls!

What piece of merch are you most proud of?

DH: Our fashion dolls [points to a massive Fashion Dolls poster behind them]. That's Carrie, we've got our own little thing here.. We're making this up.

JP: It's the dolls. Dolls are the thing, when we started this and daydreamed about merchandise - which was not often - we wanted stupid dolls. Action figures. Even in season one we were thinking 'we should make the classic ones we had in the 70's, so we're pretty happy that we made that happen. The Monarch is my favourite so far but the ones coming out soon..

DH: The Orpheus one looks awesome!

JP: Yeah, the Orpheus one is going to be really good.

We got the tiny Kid Robot ones that come in the little eggs. I've got a little Monarch one sitting on a speaker over there.

DH: He's reclining right? Is he perched?

JP: Isn't Dr Girlfriend reclining?

DH: Dr Girlfriend's reclining. Yeah, those are the tiny, no play value un-posable toys. We have the ones where you can take off their clothes, were you wanting to, giant snap in the back..

JP: Just like on the show..

DH: Built-in underpants, just like on the show. Everybody's got a six pack abdomen just like on the show. Head colour slightly different from the body colour, just like on the show.

JP: Vinyl gauntlets...

DH: Just like on the show. Yeah, they're awesome.

Can you set up some kind of UK amnesty where you can forgo the really expensive shipping charges?

DH: We have so little control over these things.

JP: I had no idea you couldn't get them.

DH: I thought you guys had them.

JP: Can't you go on the computer and order them from Entertainment Earth?

I did take a look at Entertainment Earth and it was something like $36 shipping..

DH: Oh fuck that! Why don't we sell them in the UK?

JP: We don't want to choke English kids.

DH: Yeah, there are a lot of little parts. I don't know a lot about your kids but Americans love to put things in their mouth and nose and they choke on it and we don't want to send that terrible export to you. We're concerned about your youth. Save the children!

I'm a big fan of your musical numbers. What are your favourite musical highlights of the show so far?

JP: I think the one we mentioned earlier, the 'Mars' thing with 21 and 24 is my favourite thing we ever did on the show.

DH: I liked the Butterglider but you have to really love dopey musicals, or despise them and want to see them parodied. I think we were able to do it effectively. You know, a parody is the thing that it's parodying, the best parody is actually that thing just removed from its original context. A bad parody is when you don't recognise it and I think in that scene it works without even knowing what we were playing with and that to me feels really kind of good.

JP: We just finished one that's pretty good, in the finale. We can spoil that, the fact that Dermot and Hank's band plays. That's a pretty good one.

DH: Yeah, Dermot and Hank who are in a band that they couldn't come up with a name for, Hank wanted to call it Lip Glossary and Dermot wanted to call it Goat Blood Sacrifice because Dermot was more metal.

JP: So in the Prom, the finale episode they finally figured out their name and their sound and have a single. We're currently excited about that.

DH: You get to see them perform their ridiculous song and their weird amalgamation of their tastes.

Was H.E.L.P.eR on the drums for that one?

JP: Always!

DH: H.E.L.P.eR is the entire band actually

JP: Drums and keyboard actually, everything apart from the bass and vocals

DH: Yeah, they figured out how to program H.E.L.P.eR. He's like an old Casio but they can get much better sounds out of him than the crappy one they had before.

A lot of folks out there may be unaware of your Christmas contributions to Quick Stop Entertainment's 'Holiday Havoc'. Your version of Fairytale Of New York is firmly cemented in my yearly Christmas tunes play list. What was your favourite tune to work on and will there ever be any more?

DH: That's one of them!

JP: That's the one I really, really wanted to do.

DH: It was the one where we found the most applicable pairing of our characters to a song.

JP: Right, and to the message of the song. Pissed off old lovers

DH: Pissed off old lovers and Dr Girlfriend could sing with The Pogues. All you'd have to do is knock out a couple of teeth and nobody would notice, it'd work fine. So that was good. I liked the first one we did which was the David Bowie/ Bing Crosby Drummer Boy..

 

JP: Because of the painful four minute intro.

DH: We did the whole talk up and took out none of the discomfort of the original which was basically a coked up David Bowie..

JP: Hanging out with a boozed up Bing Crosby..

DH: Bing Crosby, who just didn't want to be there and didn't understand the new kids and it's one of the most uncomfortable things that was ever on television. We didn't take any of that discomfort out.

 

They still show the full version of that every year on the music channels over here.

DH: It's hard to look at. You expect him just to call him a wretched ponce. Clearly Bing Crosby does not want to be next to David Bowie and quite possibly David Bowie might not know he's next to Bing Crosby.

So are you going to do any more then?

JP: We always get forced into doing more, we're really running out of songs though.

DH: I'm not going to lie to you, it's excruciating having to do those because they always come at a time when we're swamped in production, the holidays are coming up and you don't want to be doing this...

JP: Ken Plume starts asking in October.

DH: and we don't start working on it until three days before Christmas..

JP: and it takes us a while, and then we find a song and then one of us will hate it, we'll do it anyway. Always one of us will hate it.

DH: yeah, it's a nightmare.

JP: You were really opposed to the Paul McCartney one.

DH: I hate that song! It's awful and I didn't want to hear that terrible “waw waw waw waw...” “onc onc onc onc...” It's awful! I'm the one who actually records them and stuff so hearing that shitty keyboard in your head phones over and over again makes me want to claw your eyes out.

JP: Well the first couple you actually recorded all the music for and then we started having to cut corners with karaoke versions, then sometimes you'd add a string arrangement.

DH: Some of the karaoke ones were so bad that I'd have to put extra guitar and stuff on it or a string arrangement: Fairy Tale of New York was terrible, it was a stripped down arrangement. Then sometimes I'll do it entirely, like when we did the Dolly Parton one, I did all of that. And of course I had to do the entire David Bowie one because that version of the song only existed on the show so we had to re-record it because there was no karaoke version. I bet we could find one if we tried, maybe now.

JP: Maybe we made it more famous and now there's a karaoke version.

DH: Oh yeah, we really made it more famous.

It'd have to be a karaoke version with all the intro I think.

JP: With just silence! But it's on the tape.

DH: Well there's a doorbell sound effect. The beginning of the song runs all the way through the beginning.

JP: Oh, that's right *sings the beginning string section of Drummer Boy*

DH: Do you have another question so we can stop talking about this?

One of my favourite parts of season 4 was The Monarch and his beloved Butterglider. The Monarch seems to have a habit of finding himself in compromising positions with machinery. Do you think he would have installed a 'happy hole' on the back of the butterglider or is he saving that for the Mark 2 model? Also will we ever see it again?

DH: You're assuming there is none by the way.

JP: Yeah, I think it pops up, probably from that little tear-drop gas tank. Not in the back, because he'd get exhaust, but on the top where it's still warm.

DH: He probably called it a glove compartment and then had it silk lined.

JP: (in the voice of The Monarch) “I want it lined with condom!”

DH: So he had it lined with silk and condom

JP: (still as The Monarch) “Silk condom! Only the best”

DH: ...and that's the only area he pours mineral oil in that acts as a lubricant for the entire butterglider but possibly it's to not chafe his err...

JP: ..his little Monarch. Will we see it again? I don't know.

I've had visions of it being held together with bits of tape, spluttering everywhere.

JP: Na, he can buy another one, if we need it...

DH: ...and it's funny, then we'll bring it back.

Could you sum up the season finale for us in one spoiler-free, media friendly sentence?

JP: Heartbreak. It is kind of heartbreak. We watched it with a group the other day and they were moved.

DH: Heartbreak and I would say a lot of character development brought to you by swearing. Any time somebody swears it has this code of movement, not movement in the bowel sense.

JP: A lot of strangely, smallishly tied up loose ends.

DH: A lot of questions you probably asked yourself a long time ago and stopped giving a shit about, tied up and a few questions that you really should be thinking about. A lot of development. Instead of ending with a great big explosion it ends with a great big question mark. “What next?” Which is one way to end a season.

JP: We were trying to avoid the 'two armies warring against each other on the lawn again' thing, which we've done a few times.

DH: We thought this would be the season where we end it with characters and end it with the development and the change and the hope of characters...

JP: And love!

DH: And love... which sounds like an awful show! Didn't we just sell you the world's worst ending?

JP: Yeah, you don't want to see armies fighting, you want to see the love and the sadness... and the quiet!

DH: You know what you want to see? Two cartoon characters talking to each other about feelings. So it's touching. That's an action show!

The whole show is a bit of a journey, though, and anyone who has watched it from Season 1 will love the development of the characters, especially after this season revealed so much back story. I think this is what people want. "We've seen them go out all guns blazing so why not?

JP: The ones who stuck around, yeah, they want this.

DH: It's what they're going to get and they'll get an awesome fucking car chase. It's not like we're just going to drop the ball on things moving around in cartoon world but for the most part it really is character development and ends and beginnings and touchy feely crap that most people who watch cartoons don't want to deal with. And some jokes.

JP: ...and lots of swearing, lots of bleeping.

I know you took a lot of the bleeping out on the DVDs, is that correct?

JP: We usually do, yeah.

DH: Some of the stuff is really foul.

JP: In this one, yeah. It's the most explicit we've ever worked in service of what I think is an adorable joke.

DH: It's a very sweet joke actually but I think what's actually coming out of their mouth is the most foul thing ever aired on Adult Swim, guaranteed.

JP: So we don't know whether or not to keep it bleeped on the DVD because some of it's even funnier when it's bleeped.

DH: Much funnier when it's bleeped and somehow gets a lot fouler when it's bleeped too.

JP: We can bleep two words in a sentence and it makes you sound like you cursed twice and really you didn't. The second word will be 'face'

DH: or 'dry'

JP: but in that context…

 

Well that's the end of all my questions, thank you very much for your time.

JP: Thanks for yours

DH: Enjoy the rest of your night, what's left of it.

[It's now 1:20am in Manchester]

 

Venture Bros Seasons 1 to 3 are available in Box Set form from Dec 20th.

Seasons 1 & 2 available seperately. Season 3 out Dec 20th also.

Tell Santa... (providing you HAVE actually been good. Otherwise, don't risk it).

MASSIVE THANKS to AS Central regular Sara Brandau for the Doc Hammer pic - nice profile!