Why Adventure Time declined in popularity, and what aspiring cartoons like Star vs. the Forces of evil need to learn from it.

SeasI feel like Disney’s Star vs the Forces of evil is trying really REALLY hard to capitalize off of the original Adventure Time when it was in it’s hay day. And I worry that perhaps the show writers are underestimating how much people crave and love plot heavy cartoons. I feel like the staff behind SvtFOE believes that Adventure time declined because the show became too plot oriented and focused less on the comedy, but that was never the case, while Adventure time is still very popular, it’s initial popularity declined BECAUSE of the show’s inability to brave out subplots and show changing events. The most notable example of this was Finn’s arm

the show featured a handful of alternate universe/what-if future type epsidoes, and without fail, in EVERY instance of alternative Finn, one arm was missing/modified

After a couple of these instances, fans finally caught on to the pattern and were rapid with theories and head canons, however, many were skeptical that this would be something that the show ever directly referenced, and then, it happened

Season 5 episode 45

blade of grass

in which Finn acquires a cursed grass sword, that can be conjured at will and takes the form of a bracelet around Finn’s arm.

the catch? It can never be detached from Finn’s arm

the fandom was pUMPED, this was the beginning, the show WAS going to explore the destiny of Finn’s arm. Everyone was hyped,

then we got season 6 episode 2, escape from the citadel

This episode was a big deal in and out of fandom for several reasons,

1. It introduced Finn’s biological father, the only other human character at this point on the show.

2. Finn seemingly faced his destiny and lost his arm as foretold in episodes past

3. Finn, an incredibly popular main-stream children’s cartoon character became physically disabled, and was huge as far as representation goes

long stroy short: everyone was losing their minds over this, in and out of fandom, FINALLY the show proved it had to guts to explore status quo changing events, FINALLY, the show proved it could handle seeing a subplot to completion, FINALLY a mainstream beloved children’s cartoon with a disabled main character for kids to look up to!

and then…the unthinkable happened

Season 6 episode 6, Breezy

Not 4 episodes later, and the writing staff had already chickened out and quickly undid all the progress they had achieved, rendering all the foreshadowing and eventual finn-loses-his-arm subplot as pointless

and to top it all off, the episode highly implies that LSP rapes Finn

needless to say, everyone was pissed, both at the episode, and the show in general, for such a cowardly cop out, and it is still regarded as one of the worst episodes of the show, and the landmark that made a lot of people give up on the series

A direct parallel can be made between the Finn arm subplot on Adventure time, and the Toffee anti-imperialism subplot on Star vs the forces of evil

Look! He’s already missing an appendage!

Like Adventure time and it’s undertones of Nuclear holocaust, Star vs the forces of evil has a ‘to kill a mockingbird’-esq undertone of racial segregation, all from the perspective of the sheltered child of the leaders of the racist society. While only a side character, Toffee (alligator man above), has quickly become both a fan favorite and the most complex villeins on the show, striking a hannibal lecter-esq balance of politeness and brutality. Unlike the main villain Ludo, Toffee has no interest in taking over the world or gaining power himself, but to simply destroy the titular character’s magic wand

this has lead to 2 popular character interpretations, Toffee is a chaotic Joker like character who seeks mindless destruction and anarchy, and the other, Toffee is a political revolutionist, with the destruction of the royal family wand being a metaphor for the destruction of the imperialistic monarchy.

So, this all sounds well and good, interesting setup for conflicts, episode themes, and perhaps a prince zuko-esq redemption

However, out of the 24 episodes in the first season, only 2 really touch upon this subplot, and given how Disney treated it’s other series that tried to strike a balance between plot and comedy

I wouldn’t get hopes up for anything quite the levels of Steven Universe from this show. The only other plot-heavy cartoon Disney has featured thus far was Gravity Falls

and while that show ended on it’s own, it was also insanely popular, to the point Disney begged the show creator Alex Hirsch to continue it. With direct competition from the already established, insanely popular Steven universe, another American take on the magical girl genre, I fear that if SVTFOE doesn’t learn, and learn quickly from other cartoons past mistakes, that it won’t survive long