Episode - Season 3, Episode 9 (Production Code: 3-36)
First Aired - July 27, 2008
In a Flashback to 1969, we see a meeting of the Fraternity of Torment at the lair of the supervillain Scaramantula: Spider Skull Island. The meeting includes Manotaur, a large-headed villain who claims to be from the future named Brainulo, and their newest member: Dr. Fangdragon from "Japananawa." The Fraternity has kidnapped Rusty Venture and are planning to kill him.
Suddenly, Dr. Fangdragon removes his wig and "supernumerary nipple," revealing himself to be Dr. Jonas Venture Sr. He orders Team Venture to strike, breaking into the lair with the drill machine (from What Goes Down, Must Come Up.) Venture, Kano, Col. Gentleman, Ook Ook (an unfrozen cave man,) and Swifty fight Scaramantula's henchmen while Otto Aquarius rescues Rusty from a tank of piranhas. H.E.L.P.eR takes Rusty to safety while Aquarius uses his fish-telepathy to sic the piranhas on the henchmen. Brainulo tries to active his mentally-controlled robot "Futuro," but Humungoloid (a giant version of Dr. Entmann,) bursts through the wall and takes the robot out. Finally, the Action Man comes riding in on a hover bike gunning down the henchmen with his pistols.
Scaramantula flees, activating a self-destruct device for the island located in his secret escape passage. As the victorious Team Venture searches for the device, it shorts out. Team Venture celebrates, declaring Spider Skull Island their new headquarters. They pose for a picture take by a young Richard Impossible, who is part of their "boys brigade."
In the present, the picture hangs on the wall of Spider Skull Island, which Jonas Jr. has converted into a museum dedicated to his father. He is hosting a grand opening and has invited associates of the original Team Venture, new and old, to attend. Rusty, Brock, Dr. Entmann, and the boys arrive while JJ chews out Rusty for failing to adhere to the "Black Tie Affair" dress code.
Aboard the X-2 boat, the Pirate Captain is bringing the Action Man, Kano, Otto Aquarius, Swifty, Hector, Scaramantula, and an apparently dementia-ridden Brainulo to the island for the celebration. Scaramantula and the heroes, though now retired, still harbor a deep resentment and argue the entire way there, much to the Captain's chagrin.
At the event, Rusty gets drunk at the open bar while the Action Man regales Brock with tales of the good old days. Dr. Entmann meanwhile asks the members of old Team Venture if they need a roommate, as the Venture boys keep trying to flush him down the toilet. When Billy Quizboy, a big fan of the Rusty Venture cartoon show, arrives and asks them for autographs, willing to pay for them, the old Team Venture sets up a table selling them. Rusty, now drunk, berates them for dishonoring his father when Col. Gentleman shows up and punches him in the face for "breaking his stepdaughter's heart," in Dr. Quymn, Medicine Woman. He reveals that he is still as alive as ever, and that he was merely in a diabetic coma when the boys found him "dead" in a previous episode (Twenty Years to Midnight.) He begins selling copies of his memoir at the table.
Scaramantula sees Brainulo trying to mentally command Futuro, now an exhibit at the museum, and figures out that he isn't really senile. They agree to "get back at the Ventures," so they set up their own autograph booth. Scaramantula is enjoying himself, but Brainulo thinks it's a stupid idea.
The Pirate Captain is being run ragged by JJ. He accidentally walks in on Sally Impossible naked and is then forced to chase Ned down, who is running around the party naked. A disheveled (and drunk) Richard Impossible then arrives, invited by JJ. Sally is furious that he was invited without her knowledge as they are in the process of getting divorced.
The Pirate Captain and his former "ghost pirate" crew are stuck working as servers for the event. They complain about their treatment by JJ and want their Captain to take command once again.
Meanwhile, Rusty notices that he is all but absent from the museum displays as if JJ is trying to erase him from the Venture family legacy. He is left out of the photo JJ wants to take and is prevented from even being able to take the shot when JJ asks Richard to do it, since he took the original. JJ asks the Pirate Captain to stand in the photo for Ook Ook, which the Captain refuses to do. He tells JJ that he is tired of being his "trained monkey," so Col. Gentleman punches him for mistakenly thinking that he was calling Ook Ook a monkey.
Fed up with Scaramantula's plan, Brainulo goes around the party using his telepathy to put destructive thoughts in all the guests. Richard tries (and fails) to commit suicide by jumping off the catwalk, thanks to his super stretching powers. After the incident with the photo, the Captain gets his pirate buddies to mutiny. Sally and JJ have an unseemly argument in front of the guests. At Brainulo's suggestion, Billy starts to steal some of the Rusty Venture cartoon original merchandise on display.
Rusty and Brock, realizing that things are about to get ugly, decide to leave with the boys. Not long after, a riot breaks out, during which Brainulo tries to activate Futuro once again. A projector is bumped on during the fracas and it shows a film showing the great things that Jonas Sr. did. It ends with him in an interview talking about how his son (Rusty) is actually his greatest invention and adventure. The sentimentality causes everyone to stop fighting. In a panic, Brainulo tries harder to activate Futuro, but overexerts himself and blows out his neural implants.
With peace restored, JJ asks for Rusty to say a few words only to find that Rusty is already gone. Brainulo's failed attempt to activate Futuro did, however, reactivate the island's self-destruct mechanism. Scaramantula recognizes it and flees with Brainulo through the escape tunnel. Rusty, Brock, and the boys are just leaving when the countdown kicks back on, with Venture mocking the situation as they fly away. The credits roll as the countdown hits zero.
The Stinger shows an inflated Richard Impossible, with him having put his mouth over the device to swallow the explosion. His elastic body contained it, saving the lives of everyone on the island. Sally and JJ thank him for his selfless act, but the Pirate Captain quickly realizes that he was only doing it to try to kill himself.
Tropes:
- Call-Back: The two surviving members of the Fraternity of Torment are invited to the event. Manotaur is notably missing, implied to have been killed by a vengeful Phantom Limb at the end of Shadowman 9.
- Captain Ersatz: Brainulo is a parody of comic book villains Brainiac and M.O.D.O.K..
- Foregone Conclusion: Despite the countdown, we know that Spider-Skull Island will turn out fine because the stinger of the previous episode says it took place two weeks after. The "Monarch vs. JJ" plot that stinger teased would begin properly in "The Lepidopterists," the episode after this one.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- The original Team Venture poses for their group photo gathered around the bloody corpse of one of Scaramantula's goons. The version that Jonas Jr. displays at the museum wisely crops the body out.
- Along with Richard Impossible, another member of the "Jonas Venture Boys Brigade" was Hamilton G. Fantomas, before he began using advanced prosthetics to hide his under-developed limbs.
- Heroic Sacrifice: What the Pirate Captain claims Richard Impossible really meant to do.
- Human Popsicle: Ook Ook, who somehow managed to get refrozen between 1969 and now.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Jonas Sr. as "Dr. Fangdragon." Although he is a 6'2" white guy claiming to be "Japanese man from the village of Japananawa", despite dressing like a Chinese person and holding the outer corners of his eyes with his fingertips to make them look slanted, and despite Scaramantula explicitly pointing these facts out, he never fully realizes that he's talking to the man he's planning on blackmailing.
- Red Right Hand: Scaramantula has eight fingers on his right hand.
- Shout-Out:
- The original interior of Spider Skull Island (when Scaramantula owned it) strongly resembles the lair of Ernst Stravro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice, including the trap door/bridge that the young Rusty was on.
- When in his Dr. Fangdragon disguise, Jonas Sr. has a "supernumerary" third nipple, the same physical defect as Francisco Scaramanga (from whom Scaramantula gets part of his name) in The Man with the Golden Gun. It may also be a nod to Sean Connery's attempt to appear Asian in You Only Live Twice.
- As the original Team Venture reads Col. Gentleman's memoir, he mentions having a threesome with Gore Vidal and astronaut Wally Schirra.
- In his Humongoloid form, Dr. Entmann looks and talks like André the Giant.
- Col. Gentleman mocks Scaramantula and Brainulo by calling them Spider-Man and the Great Gazoo, respectively. He also refers to Brock as "Prince Adam" when he first arrives.
- Richard's "I did it for you" suicide attempt is a reference to The Omen.
- Square-Cube Law: Entmann for his giant "Humongoloid" form shows its flaws, getting winded after brief activity and later goes into cardiac arrest.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Action Man, in the flashback, empties the entire clip from two pistols into the head of a henchman at point blank range. Col. Gentleman calls him out on it.
- Tongue on the Flagpole: Hank on the the ice block containing Ook-Ook.
- Villain Team-Up: The Fraternity of Torment comes together in order to kidnap Rusty and get back at Jonas.
- Wilhelm Scream: One of the Scaramantula henchmen in the opening action scene.
- Yellow Peril: Parodied in the opening flashback where Jonas Venture Sr. infiltrates Scaramantula's evil organization in a Paper-Thin Disguise as "Dr. Fangdragon" from "Japananawa".
