'Adventure Time' creator talks '80s

Zack Smith, guest blogger for Pop Candy | USATODAY

Yesterday, we talked to JG Quintel of Cartoon Network's Regular Show about the pop culture that had the biggest influence on him as a kid – and today, we follow it up with a talk with another major Cartoon Network mastermind – Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time!

We asked Pen about some of his favorite cartoons and more growing up, and got some hilarious – and heartfelt – answers. Check them out below, along with video of the shows he discusses! And also check out an exclusive image from Season 5, which starts on Nov.12!

So Pen, did you watch a lot of cartoons growing up in the 1980s and 1990s?

Of course, I watched everything! I didn't have cable, so I watched the main channels – Fox, and a lot of the DiC cartoons. The ones that stick out in my mind are Hammerman, the short-lived M.C. Hammer cartoon, and ProStars, which was a cartoon about Wayne Gretzky, and Bo Jackson and Michael Jackson, and they lived with a scientist who gave them weapons – Wayne Grezky had a computerized hockey stick with pucks that would explode and do different things.

I lovedVisonaries. I think anything with powers – that would stick with me when I was by myself without television, because I could imagine that I could be that thing, project out my own hologram eagle or lion. And I try to think about that when I write Adventure Time – stuff that will stick with kids when they're not around the TV, and they can imagine they have powers.

Really, the cartoon I liked the most was The Simpsons. Those early seasons blew my mind out, and those and Beavis and Butt-Head and Ren and Stimpy were the most amazing to me when I was little. Those all had an edge to them. I remember I had to watch Æon Flux at my grandma's house because we didn't have cable.

I wanted to have a VCR there so I could record an hour of MTV and just take it home and watch it whenever I wanted.

You know, it's just kind of pleasant to do stuff like this, to rattle off shows you remembered as a child. And I think about the kids who are going to grow up and be in college and rattle off Adventure Time in their list of all the cartoons they grew up watching. And that's really satisfying to me.

Do you remember going to the movies much, or getting stuff on VHS?

I rented at the video store these tapes you could get for free – the one that had Garfield and the Ninja Turtles and all the stars in a "don't smoke, don't do drugs" special. I never did drugs, so thank you, Garfield!

That was the early 1990s, where everything was very pro-social and there were lots of environmentally-themed shows like Captain Planet…

I didn't know what a Nielsen Family was – I thought everyone had a box in their house that connected to the TV. And I was interested in saving the environment, and I wanted to be a big hero who saved the planet, and I would leave Captain Planet on so it would get good ratings.

I didn't like the cartoon, it was miserable to watch, but I would leave it on and leave the room, hoping that it would somehow help the world be a better place – that if it got good ratings TV networks would care about the environment, and that would help save the world.

I think all these cartoons – maybe they are weird, but they aren't weird to me because I grew up watching them. People tell me Adventure Time is weird, but it's not to me, because it's a mash-up of all these trippy 1980s cartoons, and playing Dungeons & Dragons. Coming off all this stuff as a kid, the real world seemed weird, but all this weird stuff seemed normal to me.

Was there any live-action stuff you enjoyed?

I didn't have cable, so I watched Small Wonder, and the other one, about an alien girl who could touch her fingers together and freeze time (Out of This World). That was fun because it had powers. I'd dream about having powers and freezing time and kissing girls at school.

You mentioned D&D – did you have a regular campaign going on?

I just played a few weeks ago, First Edition. I try to keep up a regular campaign, but it depends on how many people show up that month.

My Dungeon Master is awesome. His name is Riley Swift, and he just had a baby, and he named his baby "Arrow Merlin Swift." I think he's going to be incredibly cool. Riley does a series called "Dungeon Majesty," where he plays D&D with some girls, and does green-screen in the background where puppets act out what's happening in the game.

Did you get into Magic: The Gathering?

Oh yeah, I had a Black Deck. I was talking about Magic with some guys at work, we were talking about bringing in some cards and get a game going. I collected "The Dark," series, the one that came after "Arabian Nights."

There are episodes of Adventure Time that pay homage D&D, like the Lich, or the "Dungeon" episode with the Demon Cat, or Finn asking if Flame Princess is "Chaotic Neutral"…any other references people might not know?

For a while there was a 100-sided die as big as Jake sitting in the living room. That's the only thing I can remember off the top of my head.

Was the waving snail in every episode some sort of homage to this little raccoon-guy on She-Ra who would appear in the background of every episode, then show up at the end and ask, "Did you find me?"

I was just thinking about secrets. I like secrets, because I would freeze-frame episodes of The Simpsons I'd taped on VHS, and there would be all these in-jokes in the background. What I wanted to do was make a game out of every episode of Adventure Time, where you could freeze-frame and find things in the background.

I love the post-apocalyptic stuff in Adventure Time – was that a reaction to any of the nuclear war films from the 1980s, like The Day After?

Sure! I think maybe I just wanted Mad Max, my first introduction to post-apocalyptia. I never planned it – I just saw this world as a magical place. The show developed organically – someone would add an element to the world, and it would stick. At some point, we did an episode about businessmen rising up from an iceberg at the bottom of a lake ("Business Time") and that made the world post-apocalyptic, and we just ran with it.

Dark comedies are my favorite, because I love that feeling – being happy and scared at the same time. It's my favorite way to feel – when I'm on the edge of my seat but I'm happy, that sense of conflicting emotions. And there's a lot of that in the show, I think.

I definitely wanted to ask about video games, because there's a lot of 8-bit music in the show and references to Nintendo and Atari with BMO, and you're doing the video game now. What were some of your favorite video games?

Oh, my gosh…I really liked A Boy and His Blob. The remake is by the same studio that's doing the Adventure Time 3DS game, WayForward. My favorite games were the ones where I would just let them stay on the same screen and I'd stare at them as they stood still. I'd watch their eyeball animation and figure out how to draw like that.

I spent a lot of time in arcades. I liked the Michael Jackson arcade game, Moonwalker. That was just amazing. The Sega Genesis version was great, too. In between levels, you'd get an 8-bit Michael Jackson going "Oooh!"

Anything else you'd like to say about your experiences as a kid, and how they shaped who you are as an adult?

Finn's who I wanted to be as a kid – a hero to the world. I wanted to be a hero and save the Earth. Now, as an adult, I'm more like the Ice King. (laughs) I sit in my apartment and play video games and talk to my penguins…or rather, my two turtles.

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