Recommended: The Venture Bros.

My favorite currently-running show on TV now is The Venture Bros. It's an animated comedy, but beyond that, it's quite hard to describe. It could be described as a parody of Johnny Quest and similar shows from the 70s, as well as the superhero genre. It is a completely unserious, character-driven comedy drenched in dry humor.

The show centers around the family Dr. Rusty Venture, the son of a famous scientist/adventurer who has never lived up to his father's reputation, despite his own talents. His two dim-witted sons, Hank and Dean, constitute the Venture brothers, who imagine their lives as filled with adventures on their enormous family compound. Super agent Brock Samson is their bodyguard who possesses, literally, a license to kill and uses it frequently.

The Ventures are often pestered by a pathetic, wanna-be super villain named The Monarch (in reference to the monarch butterfly), who is the sworn archnemesis of Rusty Venture. He does so even though the Guild of Calamitous Intent -- the licensing bureau of villany, sort of the American Medical Association or Bar Assocation -- has not paired him with Dr. Venture.

One of the best things about The Venture Bros is that the dialogue is completely realistic in a way that I don't think I've ever seen on TV. Costume-wearing maniacs think and talk like ordinary people about mundane things. It's hard to describe, but it makes the show even funnier because it consists of ordinary people doing bizarre activities without realizing how bizarre they are.

You can catch new episodes as they appear on Adult Swim.com. Here's one of the earlier episodes:

[Video Link]