"Eeney, Meeney, Miney... Magic!" is the fifth episode in the first season of The Venture Bros.

Plot

A booth-like machine in Dr. Venture's Lab opens, from which ominous green light and smoke pour. A figure silhouetted by the light comes into view from the depths of the gadget. H.E.L.P.eR. moves towards the newcomer, beeping and waving its arms, but is subdued with an arcane gesture. In the compound's living room, Hank and Dean are playing with an Ouija board. Dean asks if he will find true love and the planchette moves under its own power to indicate "YES". Immediately afterwards, a strange gray-haired and bearded man silently enters the room. Before the boys can react, the stranger renders them unconscious with a twitch of his fingers.

The next morning, Dean wakes his father to tell him about the previous night's events. Dr. Venture explains to Dean that the stranger is merely renting out space in the compound because "Venture Industries" could use the money. He takes Dean to see the man, who introduces himself as Dr. Orpheus, a necromancer. When Orpheus's teenaged daughter, a goth/punk girl named Triana, arrives Dean is immediately smitten with her. Orpheus sends the younger duo off to eat breakfast while he and Dr. Venture discuss the difficulties of being single parents.

Meanwhile, Hank wakes Brock from a nightmare concerning a dead football player and is nearly strangled to death as a result. After some discussion Brock and Hank head to the lab to repair H.E.L.P.eR.. When Hank spots the booth, he is entranced, walking towards it in a dazed state. He sees a blissful vision of his father offering to play catch as his mother (heard but not seen) offers them grilled cheese sandwiches. Brock notices Hank's near-hypnosis and forcibly stops him from entering the booth; he glances towards the machine, however, and walks into it in the same trancelike manner.

Dean and Triana make small talk while eating breakfast, Triana remaining cool while smitten Dean approaches incoherence. Meanwhile, Orpheus and Venture arrive in the lab, discussing the new invention. Orpheus trips over Hank, still prone on the floor after being tackled by Brock. Hank tells them that Brock is now inside the booth, which has no controls on the outside. As Dean fantasizes in his room about saving Triana from a dangerous situation, Hank intrudes and explains that Brock is trapped inside the booth and that they have to save him.

The necromancer learns that the machine probes the user's brain to manufacture hallucinations of his or her deepest desires, or as Venture puts it, "it's a joy can" primarily intended for masturbatory uses (a parody of the orgasmatron). Questioning Dr. Venture further, Orpheus disgustedly demands to know if the booth is powered by the heart of an orphan (which Dr. Orpheus refers to as a "forsaken child") to which Dr. Venture replies "Well, maybe, kind of, I mean, I didn't use the whole thing!". Inside the booth, Brock fulfills his dreams, first by receiving forgiveness from the dead football player we saw during his nightmare, who is revealed to be a teammate Brock accidentally killed during a college football practice. The football player then disappears, Brock's clothing becomes that of a Native American warrior, and ninjas begin to rain down from the sky while Brock is assaulted by cowboys, dinosaurs, and polar bears driving cars mounted with machine guns. Brock proceeds to kill them all brutally; his garb then changes to a tuxedo, a bed materializes, and Molotov Cocktease appears from nowhere to finally consummate their relationship.

While the two doctors are arguing, the boys manage to get inside the machine wearing tinfoil hats. Thinking quickly, they wrap a urine-soaked shirt around Brock's head to block the machine's effects; it works, but they can not find a way to open the machine. Outside the booth, Dr. Orpheus has concluded that true love is the key to opening the machine, but is fruitless at inspiring it. Triana enters the lab, looking for her father. When her voice penetrates the booth, Dean's feelings of love open the doors at once. With Venture's reluctant agreement, Orpheus destroys the foul machine with arcane bolts.

Cultural references

• Dean wears a Burger King crown in his fantasy of being Triana's hero.
• Triana sarcastically calls Dean David Koresh in a reference to the word "compound" when Dean says "So, I'll see you around the compound?"
• When asked about the skull and crossbones on her shirt, Triana replies that she is going for a "retro Adam and the Ants kind of thing", referring to the new romantic band of the same name.
• Dean apparently watches reruns of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
• The brothers wrap Dean's shirt around Brock's head after peeing on it. This is a reference to Total Recall where the character wrapped a wet towel around his head to disrupt a tracking device.
• When Hank is shuffling through a box of Brock's cassette tapes, he finds the Led Zeppelin album "In Through the Out Door" and ask if he and Brock can listen to it, but Brock refuses stating that "Zep sold out on that one", and the album brings back memories of the only woman he ever loved, most likely Molotov Cocktease.
• The beds in the boys' room are nearly identical to the hibernation pods used in the movie Alien.
• Dean's statement that "penguins have an organ above their eyes that converts seawater into freshwater," apparently learned in his subliminal learning bed, is quoted directly from Snapple Fact #131.
• Doctor Orpheus resides in the advanced arachnid research center, a reference to Spider-Man.

Connections to other episodes

• Hank and Dean see Scamp, their pet dog from "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay", when they are inside the machine.
• The football player seen dead here is revealed to be Tommy the deaf quarterback in "Past Tense." Brock accidentally killed him during a practice session in his freshman year of college, which led to a revocation of Brock's scholarship and his enrollment in the military.
• Brock refuses to listen to one of Led Zeppelin's albums because of the strong memories of Molotov Cocktease it brings back. In The Incredible Mr. Brisby the two of them speak of an encounter they had in Akron, Ohio at a Laser Zeppelin show.
• Dean brags about Brock killing a guy to Triana, yet in Past Tense he refuses to believe when Hank says that Brock kills bad guys.
• Dean mentions to Triana that they were kidnapped by pirate ghosts, which actually happens the following episode. It is either a continuity error, or the episode wasn't the first time they have been held captive by pirates.

American Sign Language

The deaf football player is presented with a caption, as well as a deaf man (referenced in the commentary) signing the following:

Tommy: Don't worry "B"

Tommy: You didn't do anything wrong

Tommy: It's Ok that you killed me

Tommy: It was my fault not wanting to give you the football

Tommy: Wrong, wrong, wrong

Tommy: Sorry, Ok? What are you gonna do?

Facial expressions and body language are important in American Sign Language and account for the difference between a literal translation and the above "English" translation. The commentary also mentioned the speaker was leaning and the film was rotated, which might account for the actor's "frantic" tone, as he seemed to have balance problems.

The literal transliteration below is presented for non-signing views, but should not be taken as an English translation:

Tommy: not worry "B"

Tommy: (You implied) not wrong

Tommy: (It is implied) Ok, you killed (literally stab) me

Tommy: my fault not want/give (unclear) football

Tommy: Wrong, wrong, wrong

Tommy: Sorry, Ok? (ending expression palms up implies "what are you gonna do")

It should also be noted that football is signed differently than the interpreter would have been used to seeing it, but which may just be regional differences.

Production notes

• One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "Eeeney, Meeney, Miney... MAGIC!" the credit reads Kimson "In Twain" Albert.

References