Listening to the creator commentary on some The Venture Bros. episodes is kind of sad once you hear how many interesting tidbits had to be cut for time.
- The Freudian dream sequence in "The Doctor is Sin" had a fairly interesting backstory that had to be cut.
- "Doctor Quymn, Medicine Woman" was slated to have a flashback implying that Dr. Quymn could be the boys' biological mother (hence why she resembles Dean so much) as well as some Pet the Dog moments for Dr. Venture.
- The entire show started off as just a one-shot story for the anthology comic book Monkeysuit, but Publick realized that he couldn't fit all the ideas he had into a single short story and set about reworking it into a full animated series.
- The series was originally pitched to Comedy Central, but they passed on it.
- According to the creators, they originally intended the first few seasons to have more "supervillain of the week" plots, with the Monarch and Ünderbheit being the most prominent in their Rogues Gallery. However, they felt that the Ventures were more in the tradition of adventure serials than comic book superheroes and found that every time they tried to create a new supervillain to menace Doc, they ended up defaulting back to the Monarch. They did end up bringing some of that back for the sixth season, making it work by treating Doc as a Fish out of Water in a Marvel-inspired New York.
- The twist of Hank and Dean being clones was planned from the beginning, but the creators originally planned to make it considerably more obvious by having them die multiple times in the first season before returning in the next episode with no acknowledgement of their demise. However, they couldn't find any good places to fit those deaths, especially not with the originally planned Once an Episode frequency.
- The original lineup of the Guild, featured only in flashback, was planned to be very different, including the Goncourt brothers, Sar Peladin, and Rudolf Steiner—the only member in common was Aleister Crowley. Publick talked Doc Hammer into including more figures that people would actually be familiar with.
- According to the artbook, one of the possible cliffhangers between seasons 2 and 3 would have been Dr Mrs The Monarch being pregnant with either the Monarch or Phantom Limb's child.
- The creators intended for the "Morphic Trilogy" of episodesnote to be the finale for season six. However, a miscommunication with [adult swim] over how the "All This and Gargantua-2" pre-season six special impacted their episode order, meant the season ended up being shorter than expected and the "trilogy" instead opened season seven. What else could season seven have contained with three extra new episodes?
- Adult Swim canceled the series in 2020 after initially renewing it at the end of season seven in 2018. Quite a few ideas were generated in that time for what would have been season eight, a few of which (Mantilla/ARCH, Hank's cross-country journey, Jefferson's old associates) were combined and rewritten into the Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart Finale Movie. Some other ideas that have been mentioned either by the creators themselves in the commentary from the movie/podcast appearances, Word of Saint Paul/Dante from people working on the preproduction, or leaked out onto social media include:
- Force Majeure, Sovereign's predecessor as head of the Guild, would have gotten some characterization via flashbacks. According to Doc Hammer, he would've been voiced by Matt Berry.
- The Monarch getting disabled henchmen at a discount, one of whom would have been Blind Rage, having been crippled by the train Red Death left him tied to in "The Terminus Mandate". This was based on Doc Hammer's own experience working with a paraplegic support group.
- A John Wick parody episode featuring Col. Gentleman and Billy after Gentleman's dog, Misha, is found dead while participating in the "seedy underground world of dog shows". (She turns out to have died from old age, which was partially set up in "The Venture Brothers and the Curse of the Haunted Problem")
- A Time Travel episode connected to the future versions of Rusty and Billy stepping out of Grover Cleveland's Presidential Time Machine in "The Forecast Manufacturer". Based on their outfits, it would have drawn from Time Bandits.
- An episode idea where Brock is about to marry Warriana but their wedding is interrupted by Molotov Cocktease.
- Hank's various aliases (Russian Guyovitch, Enrico Matassa, etc) were going to eventually be revealed as not figments of Hank's imagination, but ghosts of dead Hank clones who haunt him. (A play on the line about Hank "channeling dead crazy people" way back in season one's "The Trial of the Monarch".)
Comic Book Storylines
- The Venture Bros was supposed to be a comic. Its stories were going to be published in an indie anthology book called "Action Hair", written and drawn by Christopher McCulloch. But, when the notes became too big and convoluted for a sixteen-page comic, he decided to pitch it as an animated series under the name Jackson Publick.
- Lunk and Dale, became Hank and Dean, and were turned into twins. Their original design also lacked the Generic Cuteness the boys had, bordering on Gonk. Dale was a nerdy, rat-faced weakling, and Lunk a football-loving Dumb Jock with a collapsed chin, almost as big as Brock.
- The comic featured fake continuity nods and callbacks to issues that didn't exist, much like the 1963 Image comics. This idea was revisited in "Escape from the House of Mummies Part II".
- A few plotlines and jokes were recycled from an abandoned Aquaman parody, which would have recycled art from the Super Friends cartoon, expanding on some Adult Swim skits. The Monarch's voice is a Shallow Parody of Black Manta, which was re-purposed when the creators realized Black Manta doesn't sound like that.
- Several villains were designed but never used, or recycled in different roles:
- Roy Brisby was originally Roy Dizzny, creator of Miggy Mouse.
- The Pants Golem of 7th Avenue, a denim elemental. It was later brought back in Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart.
- Girl Hitler was written as a Radical Feminist with an army of followers. She was demoted to Baron Underbhëit's subordinate, and eventually turned good.
- Brock's brother, Joe, believed to be dead, who was brainwashed by a flying imp only he could see. The "brainwashed soldier and patriotic ghost" plot points were recycled with Bud Manstrong and Abe Lincoln in the (poorly-received) "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner" episode.
- Phantom Limb was originally a street-level villain, whose only powers were invisible arms and legs. His name and design were re-purposed when they needed a "pretentious ex-boyfriend" character.
- Augustus St. Claude, a Bond Villain based in Akron. His name was recycled several seasons later for Billy and White's archenemy, St. Cloud.
- All of those villains would share the same Number Two: Doctor Girlfriend. She has that name because she dates all of the villains. Even Girl Hitler.
- Otaku Senzuri was the only ninja seen on the show, but the ninja design was originally meant to be an Easter Egg for the audience, showing up in the background all the time. (Akin to the Visitors in South Park).
- Also, like Kenny from South Park, the boys were supposed to get killed every episode. The revelation that they're clones would be a twist that the show's not just running on Negative Continuity.
- Doctor Byron Orpheus was originally a The Tick character named Dymn Twilight. That surname was recycled for Orpheus' ally, Jefferson Twilight.
