What Time Is It? Taking a look at one of the most popular animated TV series of the 21st Century Adventure Time is a timeless masterpiece, which whilst obviously not perfect, will forever hold a special place in my heart and many others alike. This is thanks to its fantastic writing, outlandish comedy, and iconic characters. The show first aired properly on the 5th of April 2010. The first two episodes to air were Slumber Party Panic and Trouble In Lumpy Space, which whilst not the highest-rated episodes in the series by critics and fans alike, held a viewership of 2.5 million viewers which was a significant increase from Cartoon Network’s 2010 average viewership of 2 million. At the show’s
peak, there were 3 and a half million viewers watching episodes as they first aired, making Adventure Time the most viewed show in Cartoon Network history. With the release of the new mini-series on HBO max, I rewatched the entire series in the span of about three weeks, from slumber party panic all the way to come along with me. In doing this I started to notice just how well the show had aged, from the strong feminine representation in the show to the treatment of trauma that a lot of the characters have by way of living in a world that is the colorful product of a
world-ending nuclear war. Adventure Time is a show that hides deeper meanings under the glossy, bubblegum-like finish of its exterior, this in turn makes its more mature themes digestible in a way that only the best cartoons can really do. I gotta say too, after having watched the entire series, I felt the sudden, insatiable compulsion to ascertain the opinions of literally anyone possible on the show. That being said, in this article I’ll be breaking down the best episodes and songs in the show, as submitted by people I asked, as well as my own thoughts on what make the show so damn good.
Fionna & Cake & Bad Little Boy These two episodes probably were my favorite episodes when I was a kid (Okay if I’m being honest I really preferred Bad Little Boy by like, a LOT.). I had originally seen Fionna and Cake after buying the Jake V.S. Me-Mow DVD. I liked that episode quite a bit. I never really n o ticed how
weird it was that the Ice King made weird gross romantic self-insert fanfiction of the young boy he often fights. And I certainly didn’t notice when I got around to watching Bad Little Boy after I bought the season 5 DVD, how Marshall-Lee was being a huge creep the entire episode, being far too distracted by Donald Glover’s silky smooth voice to listen to the actual words he was saying. But that being said, Bad Little Boy has one of my favorite songs in the whole series in it, and as much of a filler as the episode may be, I still love it to bits. I personally think the design for Fionna is really funny because it pretty much breaks every rule they’d previously set up for how their characters are built. Not many AT characters have actual shapes in their body that aren’t just t h e classic t u b e l o o k ,
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with exception to any muscular characters like Muscle Princess or Billy. Fionna & Cake worked so well for me as a kid because there wasn’t a huge excess of characters like her, I mean even now, Finn and Jake are so unique because of that signature Pen Ward flare. For this I congratulate the show, when I was a kid this was one of the rare places I didn’t let my toxic masculinity get in the way of my viewing experience. In the rest of this article I’ll be talking a little about the season five Ice King and Marceline episodes before moving into a far longer section on the music of Adenture Time. The music section will introduce you to the wonderful artists behind the unique and highly recognisable audio idententity of the show, as well as mini profiles on some of my favorite songs in the show.
All pictures used in this article belong to Cartoon Network, and were taken from screenshots of the show.
