Adventure Time

Adventure Time
Genre	Comedy, adventure, science-fantasy, Post-apocalyptic, surreal humor, High Fantasy
Created by	Pendleton Ward
Written by	Pendleton Ward Patrick McHale Adam Muto Tim McKeonMerriwether WilliamsSteve LittleThurop Van OrmanKent Osborne Mark Banker
Directed by	Larry Leichliter
Creativedirector(s)	Patrick McHale (season 1-2)Cole Sanchez (season 2-3)Adam Muto (season 3-present)Nate Cash (season 3-present)
Voices of	Jeremy Shada John DiMaggio Hynden Walch Niki Yang Tom Kenny Olivia Olson
Opening theme	"Adventure Time" by Pendleton Ward
Ending theme	"Island Song" by Ashley Eriksson
Composer(s)	Casey James Basichis, Tim Kiefer
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	3
No. of episodes	39 (38 1/2 aired) (List of episodes)
Production
Executiveproducer(s)	Fred Seibert Eric Homan Derek Drymon(season 1) Pendleton Ward (season 3-present)
Producer(s)	Kelly Crews Pendleton Ward (season 1-2)
Running time	11 minutes (as of September 6, 2010)
Productioncompany(s)	Frederator Studios Cartoon Network Studios
Broadcast
Original channel	Cartoon Network
Picture format	1080i
First shown in	December 7, 2008
Original run	April 5, 2010 – present
External links
Website
Production website

Adventure Time is an American animated television series created by Pendleton Ward (a former writer and storyboard artist of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack) and produced by Frederator Studios for Cartoon Network. The series follows the adventures of Finn, a 12- year old boy whose best friend is Jake, a dog with magical powers such as growing and shrinking or stretching into many shapes. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo. Ward describes Finn as a "fiery little kid with strong morals," while Jake is based on Bill Murray's character in the movie Meatballs.

The series is based on a short produced for Frederator's Nickelodeon animation incubator series Random! Cartoons. After the short became a viral hit on the Internet, Cartoon Network picked it up for a full-length series that had a preview on March 11, 2010 and officially premiered on April 5, 2010. The series has been a critical and commercial success. This series is rated TV-PG, containing many adult innuendos and mild language throughout.

History

Following the animated short, Frederator Studios pitched an Adventure Time series to Nickelodeon, but the network passed on it twice. The studio then approached Cartoon Network, with creator Pendleton Ward delivering them an early storyboard for "The Enchiridion", showing that the premise could be expanded into a series while maintaining elements from the original short: funny catchphrases and dances, an awkward kiss moment with the princess and an "Abe Lincoln moment". Cartoon Network greenlit the first season in September 2008, and "The Enchiridion" became the first episode. The series was initially known as Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, a title still used for some related merchandise.

Inspiration

According to Ward, the show's style was influenced by his time at CalArts and his work as a storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. He tries to include "beautiful" moments like those in Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro and some subversive humor, inspired by series like The Simpsons and Pee-wee's Playhouse. Executive producer Fred Seibert compares the show's animation style to that of Felix the Cat and the Max Fleischer cartoons but says its world is also equally inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and video games. Ward intends the show's world to have a certain physical logic instead of "cartoony slapstick" — even though magic exists in the story, the show's writers try to create an internal consistency in how the characters interact with the world. Many of the series' writers and storyboard artists have a background in indie comics. Ward characterizes them as "really smart, smartypants people" responsible for introducing weirder and more spiritual ideas into the series during its third season.

Setting

The show is set in a fictional continent called the "Land of Ooo" and, although it is not explicitly stated in the show, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic world some time after a nuclear war called the "Great Mushroom War." According to Ward, the show takes place "after the bombs have fallen and magic has come back into the world". During a presentation at the Toronto Comics and Arts Festival, Ward said that this will likely never be directly addressed in the series.

In the holiday special "Holly Jolly Secrets", Finn and Jake discover a few secret VHS tapes by the Ice King. The last tape shows Ice King as a human. In the video, Ice King says his name is Simon Petrikov and he was studying to be an antiquarian of ancient artifacts. In his secret tape, he explains he purchased his golden crown from an old dock worker in northern Scandinavia, a reference that apparently confirms that the "Land of Ooo" is actually a part of Earth. Also, in "Beautopia," a character by the name of Susan Strong is implied to be human as well, although she belongs to a strange fish headed, animal hatted mutant tribe.

In the episode "The Real You", when Finn wears the Glasses of Nerdicon, planet Earth can be briefly seen from space, with a large chunk missing from it. Later it is shown in the episode "Five Short Graybles," which initially shows the storyteller with a rotating holographic globe with a portion missing, where the North American continent would be.

Such apocalyptic setting is not implemented in the Random! Cartoons short.