The Point Radio: One More Time For THE VENTURE BROTHERS

THE VENTURE BROTHERS kicks off a new season on Adult Swim this Sunday at midnight. we talk to the brains behind the cartoon to see what is coming up, plus there is more summer TV this week with a new season of AMERICA’S GOT TALENT. Judges Howie Mandel and Mel B tell us why this season has a lot of differences. And Doctor Who…a racist? Really? Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

Hello, it's Mike Raub. Welcome back to The Point, where all parts of pop culture come together. We start our look at all the new summer TV with the Venture Brothers, back for an unexpected fifth season. A adult swim, plus NBC gives us America's Got Talent, and a brand new judge who just

happens to be a former Spice Girl. Plus, Doctor Who a racist? Really? Let's get to The Point. This is The Point.

The Point Radio. The Point Radio. The Point Radio. The Point Radio. The point radio.

The luck has been that the new season of Venture Brothers would pick up right where the last one left off. So to find if that was true, I went right to the source. Creator Jackson Public and executive producer Doc Hammer, who said, we were pretty much on track.

It's exactly like what you just said. It does kind of pick up where everything left off, and it just keeps chugging forward if you're dead off. So what can we expect for the season? You can expect Venture Brothers hilarity.

You can expect Venture Brothers sensitivity. And you can expect better looking animation. Basically. And High Adventure. High Adventure.

The list of guest voices for this season are pretty exciting, starting with a familiar name. No Hater was already kind of in the mix, although he's doing some new voices this time. Padgett Brewster's new. We met her through our friends at the thrilling Adventure Hour.

Anything I noticed on the list? Gillian Jacobs from Community. Yeah, that was a happy accident. She happened to be at Titmouse's studio the day we were recording an episode that we hadn't cast all the voices for.

And so, and I had met her once or twice before. So I was like, hey, you want to jump in and do this character? And she said, sure. So with all the buzz and four seasons under their belt, is it easier to get guest voices for the show?

That has definitely changed. We couldn't get anybody in the beginning. And now either through our agents or happening to get lucky enough to meet people, and because people know the show now, I guess, I guess there's some notoriety there. People are a little more inclined to say yes, but never as much as we think.

So is it hard for the guys to imagine that it's been now five seasons of the show? I certainly, in years, definitely not. In seasons, almost not. Like, our third and fourth seasons got greenlit together. And I think when that happened, like looking ahead at 26 episodes in a couple of years

of our lives, we probably thought that'll probably be enough to accomplish what we want to. But then we wanted to accomplish more. I asked Jackson where the idea for the series first came from. Slowly over years, just like keeping crap in my notebook, I guess.

I mean, I think I just doodled these idiot kids when I was still working on the Tic animated series, and I just didn't touch them until years later when I was trying to come up with some short comic book story ideas for an anthology comic. And then, you know, they just kind of collected some more ideas around them and a lot of other stuff that I had been goofing on just kind of fit under the same umbrella.

As far as inspirations go? I mean, there are things that I watched that made me think, Christ, I would love to do that. You know, like Ren and Stimpy and single digit season Simpsons. I mean, that was kind of like life changing.

But when we're working on the show, we are kind of doing it in a cinematic way. And just the way as writers, we're trying to get these characters to work and be funny and keep moving on. I'm trying to make an hour long drama in a half an hour that's funny and people through it.

Catch new episodes of Venture Brothers Season 5, now on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. Check your local listings or go to CartoonNetwork.com. Let's catch up on the very latest in pop culture. Easily one of the first and perhaps one of the best loved independent comic series of all time.

Omaha the Cat Dancer will come to a conclusion in a few months. It began in a fanzine in 1978 and then creators Reed Waller and Kate Worley began publishing it as individual comics through the 80s and the 90s with several different publishers. Now NBM will publish the complete Omaha the Cat Dancer volume 8, a 160 page trade paperback that will be available in time for Comic-Con and released to comic stores soon after that.

It will retail for just under $16. It's yet another new TV watching tool. It's called Fan TV produced by FanHatton and unveiled a few days ago in New York. The service is a set-top box that allows you to watch live TV and video on demand content as well as use a cloud-based DVR and pick up things like Netflix and Hulu Plus as well.

It does away with the outdated TV grid though and lets you search for and discover shows and movies you want based on genre or social recommendation. How do you get it? Well FanHatton says they're planning on partnering with cable companies sometime over the next few months.

If you miss 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan he's back in a new FX comedy series. It's called Death Pact and he plays a formerly lazy pot dealing assistant high school coach who comes back to his hometown as a decorated war hero. Production begins this summer for a premiere sometime late this year or early in 2014. A new academic study has attacked Doctor Who claiming it is thunderously racist in their

words. The work is a collection of academic essays said to be published in July and it takes offense with certain Doctor Who episodes ranging from one from 2011 to ones as far back as 1977. Of course the BBC has responded defending the series according to a strong record of

diverse casting among both the regular and the guest cast of Doctor Who. Better late than never, NBC has now renewed Hannibal for a second season. There was a little concern when everybody just assumed it had been renewed but there was no official word from NBC. By the way to do this the network did not do the standard press release instead they

simply tweeted an image of Hannibal and let everybody put the pieces together. NBC has kicked off another new season of America's Got Talent with a couple of major changes including the addition of an extra judge. I talked to long time judge Howie Mandel about how he thought that a change was going to affect things.

I personally was concerned and I thought maybe this is going to be too much and as it works out it actually heightened the value of people that go through to even Las Vegas and I think I said it before and I'm repeating myself but the fact that they have to get three yeses to say to go through two and two doesn't get you it is virtually a no. You need three yeses so you have to appeal to three people and our four people on the

panel come from not only four different worlds of entertainment but from all over the world and as Howard keeps saying we want to find an international star. We don't want to just find somebody that wins America's Got Talent and gets a million dollars and ends up at Radio City Music Office. We want to find somebody that's going to be an international star and I think that this

addition of these experts who judges from all over the world is going to send us in that direction. And as for other differences in this season? The biggest changes I could be just up hand and I haven't thought of it. We're going to send 55 people to the live shows.

Obviously the live show is going to be on a real stage that means so much more than any of these other talent shows has ever been before because even when you said you're going to Hollywood you were going to a sound stage. Even last year we were going to Newark and we're going to a theater but to be able to perform live on Radio City Music Hall means so much.

Last season's winner was a comedian which kind of broke the mold from the usual singers and I ask Howie how that was going to affect things. Truth be told you know in season two was won by Terry Fader who was a ventriloquist and I think the heart and soul of our show is that we are the last bastion of variety you know and we truly have variety and this year with the advent of adding two more judges

great judges Mel and I'm not saying that because she's on the phone but an international superstar in her own right and Heidi an international marketer and fashion icon and that has made it harder for acts to get through because now we need three yeses instead of just two and it just raised the level of I guess maybe the audience at home seeing what they can do and get away with and they don't have to be just that traditional singer or that

traditional dancer they can do absolutely anything and I don't know if it was about a comedian last year as much as it was about people who like even people like horse who just not that that's a great talent but the fact that he had the nerve to get up and call what he did getting kicked in this program talent we had more dangerous acts more exciting acts more wacky acts and more brilliant you know classic talent than we've ever had before.

New judge former Spice Girl Mel B weighed in on it as well. I think it really has because you know we're four different people we've all come from different backgrounds and we've all experienced a lot in our own professional career so sometimes we all agree when the act is amazing sometimes we disagree more often than not we actually disagree but we've all got valid points because our opinions are coming from a place of professionalism

so I find that really interesting and I've learned a lot of these other three judges especially you I would confess it next to you so it's really I think it's a really really interesting dynamic and definitely the viewer is going to agree with two or more of us of what we're actually saying. I had to ask Mel how does you think the Spice Girls would come out today if they were on

one of the many singing competition shows like hers? Oh god no. I mean the good thing about America's With Talent is it's not just a singing show it's a complete variety show so I mean we harmonize well as Spice Girls and we definitely have some things for everyone I'm not quite sure how it would rank considering that there's

not just singers there there's dancers there's magic acts there's snakes there's danger acts so I'm not quite sure how we would do. Hopefully we would do well but I mean we started out 20 years ago. See more at NBC.com and new episodes of America's Got Talent every Tuesday on NBC. That does it for the podcast we're back on track and back here in a few days in between

now and then keep up on pop culture like you always do and get the point radio dot com where you can listen for free even on your iPhone to your iPad with a free app available in the iTunes app store under pop culture in the point or on your droid your blackberry with the app called tune in radio as well the podcast is produced twice every week by now content media it is seen on great websites like commie mix dot com and Michael Davis

world dot com and in the iTunes podcast directory as well come along with us on social media on Facebook and on Twitter under the point radio and I'll see you back here in a few days. Get the point radio dot com. Get the point radio dot com.