Year: 2017

Adventure Time, Animation

“Evicted!” Review

Adventure Time Reviewed

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Original Airdate: May 17, 2010

Written & Storyboarded by: Bert Youn & Sean Jimenez

Jake tells Finn a spooky “based on a true” story about vampires that really psychs him out. I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this yet, but Finn’s pajamas really psych me out. There’s no way in hell they’re even remotely comfortable, and they must itch a bunch. Finn heads off to bed, but is too scared to sleep, and is intruded on by a worm in his bed. Finn tosses the Enchiridion at it, because that book is only good for killing bugs and sitting on when the grass is wet.

After seeing the shadow of a vampire through his window, Finn rushes downstairs and panics to Jake. Jake calms Finn down by telling him that he made the whole thing up, but just then, Marceline the Vampire Queen pops in! And thus, we have our first appearance of Marcy. Sorta weird how it took 12 episodes to introduce one of the show’s most fleshed out and interesting characters, but here she is! Odd to say, but I especially like the way she’s designed in this episode. She’s wearing the basic gray outfit you see in most promotional pictures and merchandise (ain’t it weird how this is the only episode she wears that shirt?) but there’s something especially fluid and expressive about her movements and facial expressions in this episode. Marceline informs Finn and Jake of all her adventures around Ooo, including riding through a sea of fish in the DAYTIME. You lie, Marcy! Marceline overstays her welcome, however, when she kicks Finn and Jake out and claims that treehouse was her property first. Of course, Finn wants to kick her in the face a little, but Jake’s hella scared of vampires, so the two search for a new home together.

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What follows is one of my favorite scenes from AT’s first season: “The House Hunting Song.” The montage is a fast-paced romp, featuring some of the funniest and most absurd parts of the episode; Finn continuously keeps sticking his foot in people’s houses and a frog barfs a tiger, all perfectly ordinary events in the Land of Ooo. What really ties this scene together is Pendleton Ward’s hilarious singing voice. He gives every line of the song a certain umph and really nails every single delivery that the song never grows stale throughout its entirety. In addition, it even helps build Marceline’s character a bit! She’s 1,000 years old and she lost track of her moral code, but she certainly isn’t a villain of any sorts. After losing her closest friend, her jerky boyfriend, her favorite teddy bear and her father figure going completely bananas, I don’t blame her for losing stability in her life. The one small thing that bugs me about the sequence is that it raises the question: why isn’t BMO with the boys?? I know this is before BMO becomes a major character, but it seems like a bit of discontinuity looking at the series now with how close the boys are to their sentient game console.

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After that song is done with, we transition into another one where Jake serenades Finn by telling him that home is where the heart is. Obviously Jake isn’t really taking it seriously and is only having fun with it, but it’s a sweet little moment between the two brothers. After finally finding a home inside a cave, F&J decide to throw a rad housewarming party. A party that’s so rad, it raises back Tree Trunks from the dead!

As all the guests party, Marceline enters the boys’ new home and tells F&J that the cave is also her property. Finn’s like, “fuck this, it’s time to kill us a vampire!” Jake reminds Finn that home is where the heart is, which prompts Marcy to try to kidnap Jake. Marceline transforms into that awesome bat form that she has under her sleeve, as her and Finn begin to fight. Marceline grabs Jake once again, and sucks the blood right out of him. Finn is super pissed and punches that literal homewrecker right in the jaw. Marceline is impressed and kisses Finn on the cheek, causing his 12-year-old boyhood to exacerbate. Jake is revealed to have survived because he stuffed all of his guts in his thumb, and Marceline decides to give the boys their house back. Upon returning, Finn and Jake find that their house is infested by worms. The King Worm enters the room and makes Finn and Jake hug him. End of episode.

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There’s not a whole lot going on in this episode, to be honest. It’s pretty much just Finn and Jake get kicked out, find another house, fight Marceline and return back home. That being said, I think it’s a really great and fun introduction to Marceline’s character. While she actually doesn’t appear much in this episode, you can clearly tell from her brief appearance that Marceline is a very two-dimensional and layered character, and I really like how Finn and Jake work off of her. Jake is obviously terrified of her, while Finn seems equally scared of her, but more of an “intimidated by a hot girl” sort of way. Aside from that, “The House Hunting” song is really what turns this episode from a good one to a great one, and really is one of the most enjoyable scenes in the entirety of the first season.

Adventure Time, Animation

“Wizard” Review

Adventure Time Reviewed

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Original Airdate: May 10, 2010

Written & Storyboarded by: Bert Youn, Peter Browngardt & Adam Muto

Wizardry has always been one of the most interesting topics brought up in “Adventure Time.” Whether talking about the species, religious aspects or the secrecy behind its culture, wizardry has been fleshed out majorly throughout AT’s run, and has given us some of the most thought provoking material and most mysterious elements of the entire series.

“Wizard” doesn’t provide anything too heady, but it’s a great deal of fun and a neat introduction to wizardry itself. Finn and Jake are strolling along in the woods and find a stranger named Reaper, who offers the two boys free magic powers, but Finn is a bit skeptical at first. However, Reaper offers up a keychain with those magic powers, so Finn accepts that offer. I mean, who wouldn’t? Keychains are rad. F&J travel through a portal and end up at a wizard training facility. They meet a magic frog who offers to lead them to a wizard named Bufo, which the frog reveals to be several tadpoles inside of his croaker, all voiced by Tom Kenny. I think it’s really interesting that Tom Kenny voices a majority of the magic users: Ice King, Magic Man, Laser Wizard, Urgence Evergreen, Bufo, etc. As repetitively as he’s used in most animated shows in recent years, he really does a standout job to give each of these magic users their own identity, and Bufo is no exception. His whimsical inflections, as well as the echoing by the tadpoles, real brings life to the character.

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So Bufo brings the boys inside the facility and begins training them to become magic users. Their first trial to achieve “dustomancy” is to eat a broom. Jake uses his stretchy powers to eat the broom with no sweat, but Finn takes quite a while to finish. That poor kid’s gonna have wood in his stool for weeks. The boys achieve dustomancy, which allows them to control dust particles in the room. Magic is neat-o! The next trial is to touch a bowl of eyeballs blindfolded, but Jake’s peaks and see’s that the eyeballs are just peeled grapes, so the boys have no trouble. I’m just wondering who has the time to actually peel a bowl of grapes. A very amusing montage of the many trials Finn and Jake had to get through follows. I love how inconsistent the difficulty is of some of the trails; after about thirty trials, Jake has to put an orange slice in his mouth, and then proceeds, yet he had to eat a broom in the first trial. The spells are especially silly as well, who would’ve thought that wizards could shoot mayonnaise from their fingertips?

The boys reach the final trial, but Jake backs out and casts a sleep spell on himself because he already has everything he needs, what with his unlimited mayo supply. Finn’s still in it to be an ultimate wizard, and takes “The Pledge of Ultimate Responsibility” to proceed. Little does Finn know is that he agreed to shoot his magic at an orb with two other old wizards to prevent an 847 year old meteor from hitting for the rest of eternity. The philosophy of “magic, madness and sadness” wasn’t yet introduced into the series yet, but it could easily be applied to this episode. The idea of hanging by a rope and using magic to prevent a meteor from hitting a castle for an entire lifetime is certainly mad, and the fact that it’s the sole purpose of these old wizards and Finn is especially sad. But, since Finn is energized and full of youth, his does things his way and tries to prevent the meteor in an anime type fashion where he shows off his various abilities to drag the meteor out of the way.

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The transformation sequence is terrific, showing off some of the many crazy and creative wizard powers, as well as some superb animation. Finn tries to get Jake to help him, but Jake is conked out. The old wizards join in with Finn, and successful drag the facility out of the way. The meteor hits the ground and causes a large explosion that blows the clothes off of everyone. Bufo’s all upset because his whole life revolved around giving people free wizard powers to protect the meteor, but now the meteor hit. Finn, with a piece of wood covering his junk mail (the time’s are changin’), tells Bufo to still give out free wizard powers, and then he and Jake run into Reaper again, who offers them a demon heart. But no keychain?

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Like I mentioned, this episode’s a ton of fun. It’s very creative with the unlimited possibilities for wizard powers there are, and really takes advantage of it. In addition, this is a really funny episode! I know I haven’t really mentioned that as being a big factor in the past 10 or so episodes, but the humor in this episode is spot on. I love the little visual gags throughout, such as Jake eating the broom and growing small, only for the broom to be sticking out of his gut. Also, Finn sending a spell to wake up Jake but instead accidentally giving a rock life got a real kick out of me. In addition, wizardry is just a really cool element of the series for me. I love to see all the different layers there are to these characters and species, and this was certainly a delightful introduction to magic users.

Adventure Time, Animation

“Memories of Boom Boom Mountain” Review

Adventure Time Reviewed

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Original Airdate: May 3, 2010

Written & Storyboarded by: Bert Youn & Sean Jimenez

The episode begins in Marauder village, where a group of Marauders rough house with each other. One of the most noteworthy features of these Marauders is that most of them have robotic body parts and head implants, which become somewhat of a major player in the story later on. Probably not intentional, but something that’s still very interesting to take a second look at. It really adds to the lore and backstory of AT’s world. After participating in a fight with the head Marauder, Finn hears someone crying in the distance, and wants to tend to their distress. The head Marauder calls him a chicken, so Finn gets all deep and exposition-y and tells a tale of a time he shit in a leaf as a baby and then fell in it, but no one came to help him, so he swore to help anyone in need from that day on. Sad stuff, man.

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Finn and Jake take off to find the person in distress, but it turns out that it’s a giant mountain who cries boulders that needs assistance. The mountain hates that he has to watch the fighting Marauders all day long because he hates violence, but Jake’s not buyin’ it. Finn relives some traumatic boom-boom memories and decides to help the mountain out. Finn attempts to ask the Marauders to stop their rough-housing, but the head Marauder angrily declines. So Finn decides to tie animals to the Marauders fists, much like that one Giant had animals tied to his limbs (miss you, Enchiridion Giant) to soften the blow. This proves to succeed, but the Mountain is still displeased because now the Marauders are abusing animals. I dunno, the animals look pretty happy to be abused from my perspective. This Mountain’s really pushin’ it.

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So, Finn tries to get the Marauders to stop, but they tell him to get lost because they’re having a good ass time. Finn pats one of the Marauders and then that Marauder likes it so he starts patting another Marauder who then pats another Marauder and they all start… patting each other. Well, alright. The Mountain’s really pleased with the patting, but it goes awry when the Marauders begin to get a skin rash. So, they decide the most logical decision is to turn the Mountain around, but they can’t turn the Mountain around because there’s a female Mountain behind him that likes staring at his “gorgeous back” and so if they turned him around, she couldn’t anymore. Well, alright. Finn really doesn’t know what to do at this point, and then a bunch of different characters ask him for different favors, and everything begins to go completely batshit crazy.

Finn begins to feel distraught because he is overwhelmed with favors, but Jake then questions Finn on what he wants. We flashback once again to Finn’s poopy memory, where Joshua and Margaret, Finn and Jake’s parents, find Finn in the woods. I remember being really confused when I first saw this scene, and I feel like there could’ve been a little more context behind who Joshua and Margaret are. I didn’t know who the hell these Jake look-a-likes were! Finn informs Jake that all he wants to do is help people, so they work together to make sure everyone is helped out. They come up with a solution to all the problems these characters were faced with, which honestly seem more like short-term solutions than long-term solutions, but whatever. Jake mentions that he has a problem, which is that a dolphin fell in love with him, but Finn tells his buddy that it’s the opposite of a problem. The end.

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Honestly, this episode was all over the place. Most of the episode is spent with the Mountain and the Marauders, and so once we jump into the problems with other characters, the episode just seems completely rushed. I’m cool with the Marauders, but honestly, the Mountain wasn’t really a likable character at all, and so spending most of the episode with him isn’t really that pleasurable of an experience. In addition, the moral of the episode seems confused. Season one is a really good platform at teaching Finn actually pretty well thought out lessons not only from a heroic standpoint, but from a human standpoint. Aka, fears are normal and necessary, some people are just jerks for no reason, etc. I feel like this episode could’ve had a solid “it’s impossible to make everyone happy all the time,” but it sorta missed that opportunity. In addition, I’m usually down with AT’s absurd and random humor, but most of it in this episode just seemed weird for weird’s sake. The Marauders patting each other was just kind of an awkward and nonsensical solution, and the idea that the lady Mountain wanted to stare at the male Mountain’s back made little to no sense. There’s like, 12 mountains in sight! Pick another back to stare at!

If there’s one thing I like about this episode, it’s the brief bit of lore regarding Finn’s past. Again, I would’ve like if the episode was a bit less subtle about who Joshua and Margaret are, but it’s a nice little flashback that helps us connect with Finn a bit more. And also, Finn and Jake are officially brothers! It’s nice to know their definitive relationship. But yeah, this episode is somewhat scattershot and a bit too arbitrary for my liking. It’s weird to find myself complaining that AT’s humor is too random, as 9 out of 10 times I’m completely fine with absurd humor, but when it affects the strength of the plot, it can really hurt the episode.

Adventure Time, Animation

“My Two Favorite People” Review

Adventure Time Reviewed

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Original Airdate: May 3, 2010

Written & Storyboarded by: Pendleton Ward & Kent Osborne

Finn and Jake are battling with Science Cat and the late Sword Shark (R.I.P., brother) when Jake realizes that it’s 4 o’clock and that he’s late for viola practice with Lady Rainicorn. Jake’s upset that he’s leaving because he’s missing out on Finn decapitating Science Cat and Sword Shark’s heads only for them to re-grow them the next day. I wonder why Science Cat and Sword Shark would ever put themselves in that position. That just sounds very uncomfortable. Jake shows up to play viola with Lady, but she’s hecka tired, so Lady goes right off to bed. Man, Rainicorns go to sleep super early. So Jake sadly rides home on his bike while venting to Shelby, the worm that lives inside of his viola, about how he wishes he could hang out with both Finn and Lady at the same time. So Shelby’s like, “why don’t you just hang out with Finn and Lady at the same time?” and Jake’s all, “great idea!”

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So Jake, Lady and Finn get together for a super awkward picnic where Finn tries to break the ice. Finn starts up a knock-knock joke with the setup of “diarrhea” but Lady never answers with “diarrhea who?” I really wanted to hear that joke; diarrhea always makes for a funny punchline. Jake asks Lady to say something funny and she mentions a time when her and Jake ran naked through a farmer’s field. If you ever wanna get past the censors kids, just speak in Korean. Obviously, Finn isn’t bilingual so he doesn’t understand what Lady’s saying, so the trio embarks on a journey to find a translator at the bottom of Lake Szelezon. The scenes underwater are especially a highlight; the animation is fast-paced and energized, and the music packs a feeling of thrill and whimsy. There’s also these really cool creatures called the Lake Knights that look like a mixture between a fish and a garden gnome.

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Once receiving the translator, the only settings on it are alien, nightmare and grandpa, so naturally they choose grandpa. Finn gets a real kick out of it and he and Lady begin to bond. Jake slowly starts feeling left out when Lady and Finn leave him behind to go collect some choice cursed rings from Forest Wizard, and jealousy ensues. It’s interesting that only two episodes we were dealing with Finn’s jealousy toward PB and now we’re more so entering into Jake’s jealousy revolving around his love interest. I find that throughout season one, there’s a couple of episodes where Finn and Jake individually experience the same or similar situations to one another, and it’s interesting to see the different ways they handle it. In this instance, Finn seems more inclined to hide his feelings while Jake is a bit more brash and a bit more honest. It’s a good deal of character building that may or may not have been intentional, but helps flesh out the characters so that they don’t exactly seem like carbon copies of each other.

Cut to Lady and Finn playing on BMO in the tree house, whilst Jake watches. It’s kinda weird how this is BMO’s second appearance and he’s still just sort of a lifeless console. BMO’S MORE THAN JUST AN ITEM, DAMMIT. Jake’s jealous gets more and more obvious and he refuses to join Finn and Lady at a Cloud Kingdom party. A couple hours later, the two have neglected to return, so Jake calls the Cloud Kingdom and finds out that Finn and Lady had left an hour earlier. Jake shows up to Lady’s house and finds out that the two of them are hanging out without him, leaving Jake devastated. In a fit of rage, Jake looks through his phone contacts for some he can call to make his friends jealous. It’s fun to look back and see that most of these characters in Jake’s phone return later on, whether it be his old gang members or Card Wars tourney participants. And uh oh, Jake calls Tiffany. Finn and Lady hear someone shredding it on the viola, and find Jake and a mysterious stranger in the bushes. Finn’s all, “what the fuck man?? You’re cheating on Lady?” but Tiffany is revealed to be a boy, so Finn proceeds to beat the snot out of him. While Finn and Tiffany fight, Jake makes amends with Lady, apologizing for his behavior and realizing it’s sorta his fault. Tiffany runs off and vows to get Jake back, but Finn spits in his face and he runs off crying. Finn, Lady and Jake agree to always be stupid forever and the episode ends.

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I think this one’s a pretty good introduction to Lady Rainicorn. I also like how it sort of goes in a realistic route of what sometimes happens with friends: someone introduces their friend to their other friend, and those two friends end up establishing a strong relationship, leaving the person who introduced them feeling somewhat hurt and betrayed. This is really the episode where Jake is actually starting to sound like Jake as well. The past handful of episodes kinda felt like John DiMaggio was trying to find a direction to take his voice in, but Jake mostly sounds very fluid and natural in this episode. This episode also introduces Tiffany, who we’ll be seeing a lot of later on.