Geek Week: Is Nostalgia the Reason Adventure Time Is Awesome?

Adventure Time,
C’mon grab your friends,
We’ll go to very distant lands.
With Jake the Dog and Finn the Human,
The fun will never end, it’s Adventure Time!

Adventure Time is the most awesome show you might not be watching, the perfect blend of peculiar + cute that’s sure to attract children of all ages.  Centering on Finn the Human, who is supposedly the last Human in the Land of Ooo, and his adoptive brother Jake the Dog, they go on adventures together both big and small.

It is high on the fantasy, deep on the characters (even the ones that you never expect to have significance, like the snail that shows up in every episode), and radiates adventure found in only the best RPGs.  Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time, has said that Dungeons & Dragons was a major inspiration for the series.  See, RPGs can make you successful and famous, kids.

So yeah, nostalgia might be a part of it, harkening back to my sweet,  sweet childhood of the 1980s, but the show is quality work on its own.  It’s plenty popular with the younger set, not just the older crowd.  It is quite possibly a show that is “fun for the whole family.”

The only thing more holy-crap awesome than Finn and Jake is Fionna and Cake, which is Adventure Time gender-swapped fan fiction written by Ice King, who reads it to his hostages Finn and Jake.  When Ice King finishes the story and closes the book, you can see a picture of Fionna kissing Ice King on the cover.  ”So, what did you think of the fan fiction I wrote about you guys?” Ice King asks.  Finn, who is the only one able to speak, hesitates in his response. Ice King threatens Finn with his ice powers and yells, “Tell me you thought it was good!”  Finn is forced to say that he liked the story.

Funny, we were just talking about fan fiction, weren’t we? Anyways, the two episodes which feature the gender-swapped duo, “Fionna and Cake” and “Bad Little Boy,” are brilliant and just serve to make me like the show more.

(No, there’s nothing of substance in those paragraphs above.  It is pretty much just me squeeing over how incredibly awesome the show is and the warm fuzzies I get every time I watch it.  Who doesn’t want to go on fantastic adventures with her best friend?)

(And speaking of things that are incredibly cute and awesome, what is even cuter and cooler than Adventure Time?  Combining Finn, Jake, and BMO with Totoro, of course!  I gotta go watch something cute now to get this out of my system.  Maybe my copy of Spirited Away is somewhere around here.  That a good combo of peculiar + cute.  Time to nuke some popcorn!)