Adventure Time

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 frst aired properly on the 5th of April 2010. The frst 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 signifcant 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 frst 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 fnish 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 nev- er really n o ticed how weird it was that the Ice King made weird gross romantic self-insert fanfction of the young boy he often fghts. 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 fller 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 tube look, 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 fare. 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 fve 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 profles on some of my favorite songs in the show.

When the show was airing, season fve had begun strong with the frst two episodes of the season “Jake The Dog” and “Finn The Human” being direct tie-ins to the previous seasons fnale “The Lich”. After the massive success of the frst two episodes, a lot of people felt the season began to dawdle around with the long slew of fller episodes that happened for the next ten episodes after the premiere, So as you might imagine, after a season starts like that (though I’ve gotta say I really enjoy Adventure Time fller) having Simon and Marcy show would have been like a breath of fresh air. At its core Simon and Marcy is the perfect Adventure Time episode. The way the tone of the episode stays on course desprite all the goofs and gafs in the episode, you still get the emotional connection between Simon and Marceline. One of the more, er, articulate responses I got from asking people they cited the well crafted shift in tone to the darker and yet still palatable post-nuclear war setting as one of the reasons they liked the episode so much saying: “Even though Adventure Time is a relatively bright and bubbly looking show it tackles darker or more serious things quite well, I think Simon and Marcy is one of the best examples of this in the entire show”. That response was very similar to an IMDB review of the episode by Rectangular_businessman who says: “I think that is worth noticing that, despite the very dark setting (Which reminded me post-apocalyptic movies like “The Road”) this episode still manages to have a certain degree of humor and optimism”, The only other episodes that do this so well I’d probably say are Come Along With Me and I Remember You. I Remember You is episode 25 of season 4. It originally aired on the 15 of October 2012 to a live TV viewership of 2.535 million people. The episode

Simon and Marcy & I Remember Youreceived some pretty universal acclaim with many fans and critics alike praising the unexpected depth of the episode along with its exploration of mental disorders, memory and loss. The episode is a notable tear jerker in the series, with Steven Aoun of PopMatters saying in their review “[during the episode] the sound that takes you by surprise may be your own crying”. In the episode itself Marceline collaborates with Ice King to write a song, and Marcy tries him to remember who he really is.” I Remember You paints a powerful image of what I’d consider a daughter watching as her father-fgure forgets her, and eventually, abandons her. The main song in the episode which shares the name of the episode is an intensely emotional climax to the episode, Marceline truly realises Simon has completely forgotten her, having become a crazed shell of the man he used to be. “That’s Going In The Vault”

I really think that a signifcant part of the appeal of Adventure Time comes from the attitude creator Pen Ward had towards making the show when he was still the showrunner, and how that good attitude translated to the rest of the production crew when writing and making AT. Pen had the attitude that instead of making a “kids show” he was just making a cartoon, having fun along the way. Years after Ward stopped being showrunner (though he was still showing up to voice LSP very often) Adventure Time carried that same attitude, I think also the way they went about writing the show really helped the rewatchability was the unwillingness to let censorship get in the way of both the stories and the jokes that they wanted to tell. Adventure Time was constantly pushing the boundaries of what will and what will not get them censored which actually lent to some really good storytelling of darker subject matter, or jokes like that one time Finn saw Marceline naked (which actually did end up censored in a number of countries, New Zealand included). The previously mentioned episodes are all actually very good examples of this. The mushroom war heavily featured in Simon and Marcy and the allegory for Alzheimer’s in I Remember You are both emotionally deep and absolutely morbid. This being so, Adventure Time presents these things in ways that are both highly enjoyable and incredibly poignant at the same time. (I don’t think I’ll ever not tear up at the sound of Simon’s second rendition of the 1982 TV show Cheer’s theme song “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”. And even in the fnale they weren’t afraid to fnally have Marceline and Bonnibel act on their age old sexual tension, something that genuinely surprised me when I watched it.

Before I move on to the music section of my article I’d like to talk about the real reason I love this show so much. Imagine being a little kid, you wake up late in the morning every saturday. Everytime this happens you rush over to the TV cabinet where you pull the most recent AT season out and stick it in your PlayStation. You sit back on the couch and your dad hands you breakfast, And then you sit down and watch Adventure Time together. This routine is stored in a collection in my head of my favorite memories. And sure! Often we’d watch Gravity Falls or Regular Show instead, but nothing was ever quite as snug and cosy and curling up on the couch with a bowl of microwaved porridge and a cup of Milo.

I think it would be safe to assume that for a lot of people, if I started singing the theme song to Adventure Time, they’d start singing along with me. The only shows that may elicit a stronger response would be the Steven Universe theme and Family Guy’s. Adventure Time’s music, all of it not just the stuff with lyrics, is absolutely iconic. Rebecca Sugar, Casey James Basichis and Timothy Kiefer are the main musicians in the show, Casey and Tim in charge of the scoring of the show and Rebecca in charge of most of the character shows right up until she left the show to make Steven Universe.

Rebecca Sugar, Timothy Kiefer & CJB Obviously, there’s tons of music in adventure time, from all of the background ambience that are mostly overlooked to the bigger and more famous pieces sung by characters within the actual diegetic parts of the show. I created a list of six of the best diegetic songs in the show (according to mostly me, but also supplemented by the AT wiki awards winners). Though I do think the lesser-known background pieces deserve recognition for how great they are too and am gonna give you a small list to check out in the link from the QR code to the right. The best songs

Gooey Gangsta from episode “slow love” a song composed by Tim Kiefer featuring famous rapper Biz Markie, known for the song “Just a Friend”, beatboxing over the iconic synths that the show loves to use. I chose this song not because it’s iconic, but because I personally just really like the song and listen to it all the time. I’ll admit that it doesn’t really fit the criteria that I used for the rest of the songs on this list, I mean literally no one even suggested this and it’s not even a song that has lyrics but I still like it enough that I’m putting it on here anyway. Plus, Gooey Gangsta is technically diegetic thanks to Biz’s character in the episode Snorlock using it to attract some honeys.

Lost In The Darkness. Composed by Michael Moynihan, this song appears in the episode “Breezy”. The song isn’t iconic like “Bacon Pancakes” or “What Am I To You?” but it’s an important moment for Finn’s character as he is brought out of a depressive state he’s been in since his father ripped off his arm in one of the previous episodes “Escape From The Citadel”. The soft melody Finn sings in the night is both calming and melancholy and when accompanied by Breezy’s soft, enchanted voice it becomes a love ballad that equals Finn’s rejuvenation.

Time Adventure. Composed by Rebecca Sugar this is the song used to subdue GOLB in the series finale “Come Along With Me”. Sung by BMO to Jake after the destruction of the iconic treehouse causes him to go berserk. The song’s lyrics are lamenting the end of a good thing, songwriter Sugar saying “I wanted to write about how even if something ends, it continues to exist in the past, nothing ever really goes away, you only feel like it does because our mind has to process information one moment at a time in order for us to function as humans”. This message is incredibly fitting for the series finale, and paired with the song itself featuring every character in the show singing, it culminates in an incredible tear provoking scene in the episode.

Good Little Girl. Composed by Casey James Basichis and Tim Kiefer, this song is incredibly iconic and features in the episode Bad Little Boy. Pretty much most of the people I asked immediately said they want this song on the list for nothing other than the fact that it’s a damn good song, and deserves to be here. Good Little Girl is the last thing Rebecca Sugar wrote before leaving the show to make Steven Universe. The lyrics to this song are a little, uh, weird… It’s a two minute song of 1000 year old Marshall-Lee heavily flirting with 14 year old Fionna. Most of Marshall’s lyrics have a vaguely sexual undertone, and Fionna’s do not share the same sentiment, rather heavily focusing on trying her best to successfully friendzone him. And yes, even though this episode was talked about previously I still put the song on here, what of it?

Island Song (Come Along With Me). Written and composed by Ashley Eriksson, this song features at the end of almost every episode of the show and has the series finale named after it. Few television outro songs are as iconic and titular to their respective shows

and Island Song really is an irreplaceable part of the show. The “Adventure Time Ending Theme” is a portion of the song “Christmas Island” or “Island Song” by Ashley Eriksson with slightly altered lyrics. A version of the song also appears on the LP Let’s Build A Roof by LAKE, the band Eriksson is a part of. The end credits sequence does not include the main characters, but instead shows a bee, a Worm, a ladybug, and two butterflies on a grassy field. The song plays in almost every episode’s credits, with notable exceptions being Shh!, The Suitor, Jermaine and Chips and Ice Cream, as well as the eight part Stakes mini-series.

And finally, what would an AT best songs list be without some Marceline classics? I promised myself I wouldn’t put more than one of her songs on here since she really could fill up the whole list. There were some heavy contenders for this spot in the list (I spent about a half hour contemplating “I’m Just Your Problem” v.s. “Fry song” and ended up going for neither). Eventually I had it down to “Monster” (from the recent mini-series reboot episode Obsidian), “Slow Dance With You” or “Everything Stays”. After thinking about it a little I decided on Everything Stays,

Everything Stays is the first song that Rebecca Sugar wrote for Adventure Time after leaving the show to work on Steven Universe. This song was inspired by a stuffed rabbit Rebecca Sugar owned as a child which at one point was lost in her garden. Spinel, a character from Steven Universe, was inspired by the same toy .In a 2019 interview on Cartoon Network’s YouTube channel for SU, Sugar says “The song Everything Stays was about this toy: I left this stuffed rabbit in the garden and I completely forgot about it even though it had been my favorite toy, and I found it maybe half a year later, it had been upside down and sun had faded the top of it which was its belly. So when I picked it up it was like this black rabbit but it had this belly. I had my first existential crisis of realising that even though I had left [it] alone it changed without me.” The song’s lyrics are used to sooth a young Marcy as her mother is singing to her to calm her down when she’s scared in a flashback during a scene in the second episode of Stakes. This song is both really nice and a big part of Marceline’s character, perhaps even fueling her love for music.

Thanks For Reading Homie :]

Adventure Time is very near and dear to my heart, so I’d like to thank you for reading if you got this far. This show was very formative to me as a kid and I think it was pretty much the only thing that made me not completely insufferable as a child. I didn’t really touch on it in this article but the shows gender representation was really good, and despite the level of scrutiny they were under whilst making the show under Cartoon Network, they managed to slip some non-binary rep in with BMO, who switches up their pronouns quite a bit over the show. which they (CN) no doubt only let happen because they’re a robot. As a kid I struggled a lot with internalised misogyny, and yet adventure time managed to have me literally in love with every woman to grace the screen (yes, LSP and Turtle Princess included). As cheesy as it may be, I genuinely think I wouldn’t be the same person without this show and even though I’m sad it’s about to (presumably) end forever after the upcoming release of the Distant Lands final episode Wizard City, I do, however, think it’s good for the show to be left off on the good note that it ended on, lest it get Teen Titans Go treatment.

Waitohi