Pete White

Doctor Peter White is a recurring character on Adult Swim's animated series The Venture Bros.. He is an albino computer scientist and an old college friend of Dr. Venture. He is voiced by Christopher McCulloch.

History and activities on the show
Peter White is a self-proclaimed genius in the realm of computers, capable of instantly recognizing and understanding computer code in all its forms, though he has little else to support this claim. He is a friend and ally of Dr. Venture; the two have known each other at least since their college days.

While in school, White was a disk jockey at the university radio station. He hosted a New Wave radio show called "The White Room," but he was kicked off the air for an obscene joke about one of his classmates, Mike Soriyama. He took a class taught by Professor Richard Impossible, one of the best minds in the Venture universe, but ultimately failed the class.

Sometime after college, White met Master Billy Quizboy and partnered with him, first scamming game shows (Pete hosted a show "Quiz Boys," where it is shown that he helped Billy cheat—against the boy's will—as he felt sympathy for a fellow 'freak.'), and then joining an "underground quiz circuit," in which Pete acted as Billy's manager. By accident, incompetence or miscommunication, one of these "quiz shows" Pete booked Billy into turned out to be a dog fight, in which Billy was badly maimed, losing one of his hands and left eye*. After this debacle, Billy broke up their team and struck out on his own, to be entangled in OSI intrigue.

OSI gave Billy his eye, which is actually a "3D Laser matrix holographic camera" and a mechanical hand which stores all the data. OSI chose Billy to be a spy because, as a deformed and discredited genius, he had the makings of a supervillain.

The plan took a disastrous turn, with Billy losing the bionic eye while spying on the Phantom Limb. OSI wiped Billy's mind clear of the mission and planned to use him for further missions. However, Brock took the recuperating Billy away from OSI and returned Billy to White.

Whether White sticks with Billy out of friendship, partnership, responsibility, or even clandestine supervision of Billy for OSI is unclear.

Presently White and Billy run Conjectural Technologies together; the services offered by this business are unclear, though White identifies himself as computer scientist and Billy as a neurogeneticist. The only instance in which White and Quizboy represented Conjectural Technologies was when Dr. Venture asked them to diagnose and cure Dean's case of testicular torsion ("Are You There God? It's Me, Dean"). Their business appears to be based out of an old trailer just outside of the Venture compound which may also serve as their home. In the same episode, White was shown playing video games (Grand Theft Auto III, by appearance and dialogue references) idly while Quizboy performed most of the domestic chores. How they make enough funds to stay afloat has not been answered, as both were destitute after Billy was mindwiped by OSI.

White and Billy are usually seen together; they attended Venture's tag sale together, where they argued over the purchase of a shrink ray. There they also encountered Doctor Girlfriend, who they attempted to convince to become their archnemesis. The pair were also invited, along with Dr. Venture, to join a think tank led by Professor Impossible, despite the fact that Impossible had failed White in college. While at the think tank he helped Dr. Venture, and Sally Impossible in creating an antidote to the Goliath Serum. In the show's pilot episode, the two were attendees of a scientific symposium being held at the United Nations. The two were also seen arguing about Triana Orpheus at Dr. Venture's Christmas party, leading White to awkwardly flirt with the teenager until her father angrily chased him away.

White has only appeared twice without Billy. The first time was in the episode "Past Tense," in which he, Venture, Brock Samson, and Baron Ünderbheit attended the funeral of their college friend Mike Sorayama. A robotic duplicate of Sorayama captured the four and tried to exact revenge for the ways they had wronged him in college. White's offense was the previously-mentioned radio incident, in which he read on the air a mock-dedication Sorayama supposedly wrote, proclaiming that he masturbated furiously to Leslie Cohen's picture every day and begging her to notice him. The second time was in the episode "What Goes Down Must Come Up", in which he assists The Order of the Triad in defeating a cold-war era doomsday device. Or, more precisely, he assists them in setting off said device through his own incompetence.

Along with Billy, White gives Jonas Venture Jr. a bionic arm to augment his malformed left arm. He also attempted to help Dr. Venture rebuild his shrink ray, which White had disassembled, mistakenly thinking there was a treasure map inside. Conjecture speculates that he destroyed it in a fit of frustration, as he possibly destroys many such items (Billy's disdain for his actions imply that it is a semi-regular happening), and the treasure map was simply a flimsy excuse.

Mannerisms and appearance
White is an albino, which serves to make his surname oddly appropriate. Although Dr. Venture implies in "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay" that his albinism is the result of a malfunctioning experiment, the pilot episode is generally not considered part of the show's canon. "Past Tense" shows that White is an albino by the time he enters college. When out of doors, White can often be seen shielding himself from sunlight with a parasol. He has also alluded to his apparent physical discomfort with Sunlight as an excuse not to be the guinea pig in a shrink-ray experiment (Escape to the House of Mummies Part II). When White was the host of the television show Quiz Boys, he wore gloves, color contact lenses, flesh-tone makeup, and a black wig while on camera to hide his condition. White is an aficionado of New Wave music, and during college adopted the associated hair and clothing style. He is either unconcerned or unaware that fashions and tastes have changed in the twenty-plus years since he left college. His attempt to impress Triana Orpheus in "A Very Venture Christmas" by bragging that he was the first DJ to play "The Bauhaus" does not imply one or the other, as he simply might think that, as a goth, she'd be impressed by his knowledge of Bauhaus. His look is patterned off of Phil Oakey of The Human League and possibly show co-creator Doc Hammer.

White and Billy have shown a tendency to gossip amongst themselves. In the pilot episode they discuss the possibility of a romantic relationship between Dr. Venture and Brock Samson. Later, they question Dr. Girlfriend's true gender.

Some of his mannerisms have caused other characters to believe that he is gay, although he has only expressed romantic/sexual interest in female characters on the show, thus suggesting he's metrosexual. Notably, he is known to fantasize about the mother from Growing Pains.

At some point in his career hosting Quiz Shows, he spent most of his money on a cocaine habit. However he has never been seen doing drugs in the series (a deleted scene from the third season shows White leaving a bar bathroom after snorting cocaine), suggesting he was merely unwise not addicted, or got over his addiction at some point. Certainly Conjectural Technologies doesn't appear to provide the income for such indulgences.

He is one of the five characters to call Dr. Venture "Rusty" or "Rust" (his old nickname), along with his roommate Billy "Quizboy" Whalen (owing to Billy's fixation with the old Rusty Venture Saturday morning cartoon), the Dr.'s late father Jonas Venture, his brother Jonas Venture Jr., and Dr. Tara Quymn. He occasionally calls him Doctor (although he may be well aware of him actually not being one). He often addresses others as "fella."

Trivia

 * In his LiveJournal, Jackson Publick has stated that Pete White's voice is an imitation of his father, particularly the New England accent. Publick also mentions this in the first season DVD commentary.
 * His name may be viewed as a combination of white phosphorus and its military jargon nickname "Willy Pete".