“Adventure Time” Cartoon Network

There is no other show like Adventure time, and there will likely never be another show quite like it. It’s an incredibly unique and special show in its own way that just can’t be replicated. It is unquestionable, one of the greatest animated series ever created. For almost a decade Adventure Time embraced us with its charm, humor, and heart; without ever slowing down or losing any of its qualities along the way that made it great.

During the eight years Adventure Time was on the air the audience grew right alongside with the “Land of Ooo” and all the characters that inhabited it. Adventure time is really a show that can be enjoyed by anyone. Younger audiences will enjoy the silly characters and be able to follow along with the shows seemly simple story, while older audiences will appreciate the world building, character development, the large plot arches, the darker undertones, subtle adult humor, and the true depth of the overall story.

If you haven’t watched the series yet or you’ve taken a while to getting around to watching it like I did, I cannot recommend it enough. As for most things, it really is best going in knowing little as possible. With this article I’m going to avoid giving anything away or revealing any spoilers for those who haven’t watched the show yet, but while still explaining what it is that makes the show so special. I’d also really recommend not doing any research on the show’s wiki pages or browse the show’s subreddit page until you finish the series, doing so can easily spoiler major plot points or events that happen throughout the show.

Adventure Time may seem overly childish at first glance, with its at times extreme silliness, and how there are people and kingdoms made of candy. But it definitely has a darker side to all of it, which in a way almost makes the lighter side a bit unsettling in a way? Before Ooo was Ooo, it was earth. The following isn’t really a spoiler, as it’s evident pretty early on and you can even pick up hints in the shows opening. Ooo takes place in the future, after a nuclear war had mostly destroyed the planet; all the strangeness that occupies Ooo is the after effects of this war. The characters in the show call it “The Great Mushroom War”, the mushroom being the shape of the nuclear explosions.

The humor is well mixed, sometimes it’s silly just for the sake of being silly, and other times the jokes are super clever and just generally dang funny. Normally when I find something funny from any movie or tv show I’ll just smile or have a small chuckle. But there were definitely a few times during my viewing of Adventure Time where I just lost it from how well a joke worked on me. The humor in the show is usually very creative and perfectly timed.

What makes a story great is the characters in that story, and even though most of the characters in Adventure time are candy people, mythical beings, or woodland creatures. They are some of the most realistic, fleshed out, human feeling characters I’ve ever seen in any TV show. They have real conversations with each other with real emotional depth, you really feel what the character is feeling when they’re on screen. Every character has their own distinct personality, backstory, and personal issues. We’re introduced to many of the characters in the first season of the show, and as the series progresses, we learn more and more about each character.

Our main character “Finn the Human” is a positive minded adventurous young boy whose prime objective in life is to help others in need, besides helping others he also loves a good adventure. All while also searching for the answers on what happened to the other humans and who his parents were. Finn was raised with “Jake the dog” and by Jake’s parents, Joshua and Margaret; they adopted Finn after finding him left alone in a forest.

“Jake the Dog” is a shapeshifting dog with almost unlimited stretching ability. Like mentioned before he’s Finn’s adoptive brother and best friend, they live together in their treefort. Jake is supportive of his brother and happily accompanies Finn on his many adventures. Jake is a very laid back, fun loving individual; almost to a fault sometimes.

“Princess Bubblegum” is the ruler and creator of the Candy Kingdom and all of its inhabitants. She is incredibly smart, works on scientific research, and for the most part is kindhearted. However, she does have a darker side to her. She can be manipulative at times when she sees what’s in her mind, is for the greater good. But for the most part she is good spirited.

“Marceline the Vampire Queen” is a punk rock, mischievous, bass guitar playing, vampire demon queen. She is one of Ooo’s oldest known inhabitants, being 1000 years old. Despite her old age, she has the appearance of a young adult. She becomes close friends with Finn and Jake and has a history of friendship with Princess Bubblegum. Marceline has a complicated relationship with her father, Hunson Abadeer “The King of Evil”. However, despite being a demon vampire queen and having the father she does, Marceline is generally good natured. Although she does enjoy being somewhat of a trickster and will give off the initial appearance of wickedness.

That’s just the start of all the great characters Adventure Time provides, there’s also “The Ice King”, “BMO”, “Flame Princess”, “The Earl of Lemongrab”, “Treetrunks”, “Lady Rainicorn”, and so many more. Throughout watching Adventure Time, you quickly start to love every character that pops up, and it’s rare a character will only appear once in the series.

The first couple seasons of Adventure Time are mainly episodic, having one adventure or story pertained to one episode. As the series goes on, connections and details are used in later episodes to add to the overall story, and in later seasons there are large multi-part episode arches that almost act as broken up full length films. The land of Ooo aged closely with its real-world counterpart while it was airing. Adventure Time was on for over 8 years, during the course of the entire series 5 years pass. During those 5 years and 283 episodes, the audience is able to witness all of these characters grow, learn, and become more mature; especially with Finn and Jake.

The entire series can be found on the Hulu streaming platform and is available on DVD. Adventure Time is definitely one of a kind and isn’t something to be passed up. One last tidbit before I end, I did mention to avoid the Adventure Time reddit page while viewing to avoid spoilers, however it is safe to view previous discussion threads that were made for each individual episode after viewing an episode. The episode discussion threads can view viewed here https://www.reddit.com/r/adventuretime/wiki/discussion

I did this while watching the series and it was fun to read other’s reactions of what happened during each episode when it originally aired, especially with so many episodes having shocking moments and endings. The discussion threads were also all locked afterwards too, so no one could go back and post any spoilers in them. Doug Walker from Channel Awesome also discussed each episode in depth after watching each one up to the show’s 6th season, the playlist for that can be found here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0AQIMR-tponDj95xxSFXiULYUG7gLtpp

Again, it’s just fun listening to other people’s reactions to an episode that you just finished watching. Adventure Time is one of those shows you just really have to experience for yourself, and that’s exactly what it is, an experience. It’s a series full of amazing characters, great story, humor, and beautiful animation. It’s definitely addicting, I watched the entire series in a little over a month’s time. Quite often I had planned on only watching just an episode or two but then easily went through 20 in a single session. It’s a fantastic series and is not one to miss out on, hope you have mathematically time watching it!