The Internet has replaced campfires, coffee shops, and the halls of academia as the place where mankind's greatest questions about life are debated endlessly, because they are never answered. Although there never has been nor will there ever be any accepted universal truths by the planet's entire population, a great many opinions are presented on a great many websites in a great many languages regarding the existence of God, the ethicality of abortion, and who the all-time greatest guitarist is.
One new argument recently added to canon seeks to determine the greatest cartoon show. The contenders currently put forth for the title by fans are The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy. Neither of these is correct for a variety of reasons. The Simpsons is somehow still coasting off its first four seasons, South Park has a very infrequent good episode in a season, and Family Guy illustrates the corrosive nature of marijuana on regions of the brain no matter how cool the bong looks.
The main reason those shows are wrong is because the actual answer is the Venture Bros. from Adult Swim, a brilliant spoof of boys' adventure stories and superheroes. Aside from being well drawn and presented in Glorious Extra Color, they tell funny stories with surprisingly believable characters under the circumstances. The show is chock full of funny pop culture references that blend into the story rather than stick out like a sore thumb because of a writer's limited skills, a condition the people at Webster's Dictionary aren't sure whether to refer to as Tarantinoesque or MacFarlanesque.
The first season of the Venture Bros. ended dramatically with the deaths of twin brothers Hank and Dean, leaving fans to wonder how the show would proceed. Season Two begins with Dr. Venture going on a worldwide sabbatical from Venture Industries to find life's meaning. The viewer is meant to think the series has moved on as Venture and his brother Jonas Jr. are now shown in the stylized opening credits where the boys used to be. Dr. Orpheus searches for the boys' souls, and ultimately they return in what is quite possibly the smartest resolution to a television show cliffhanger, which won't get the credit due because it's a cartoon.
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