Aarond

Adventure Time Recap: “Dad’s Dungeon” and “Incendium”

Mar 062012

In deference to an ancient code honored by recappers through the ages, I watch every episode of Adventure Time at least twice before writing about it. The code was established by Confucius in 510 BC when recapped the minutes of Justice Ministry meetings to his disciple and only grandson Zisi.

The code evolved to accommodate the complex, variegated needs of recappers from around the world. Napoleon famously recapped shopping for heightening shoes to his admirals, while Cate Blanchette’s character in Lord of the Rings recapped the entire movie to the audience as it was happening. In an earlier draft, this gag culminated with some guy named Albert recapping the recappers code for his friends one night in college, but I decided it was too meta to be funny so now I’m writing about not wanting to publish a joke about the joke I’m writing about publishing.

Adventure Time Recap: “Ghost Princess”

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Feb 012012

This episode mostly concerns cheese. Finn and Jake are in the woods, by a fire, eating dogs. Hot dogs, people. Don’t be vulgar.

Although, it was a bit vulgar that Jake is so into mystery meats named for his species. Also, he doesn’t like soft cheese goop, but he can’t remember why. Where you at, Chekhov’s gun?

The dude’s are softy-cheesin’ it up woods-style when Ghost Princess comes along. Her crown floats above her ghost body. She has a strand of hair that never quite stays out of her face, but she sort of owns it. She’s all like, I have to haunt this realm until I find out who killed me so I can go to the 50th Dead World.

Then Finn’s like, “Yes! A procedural!” Jake’s like, cool man whatevski’s.

Adventure Time Recap: “Another Way”

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Jan 242012

They are taking down two trees outside my window. One is a giant fig and the other a pine. I keep imagining them with little Pendleton Ward eyes and mouths, pleading for their branches.

“Don’t prune me, dude!”

If they based R-ratings for TV shows on arboricide and coulrophobia, this episode of Adventure Time would be buried in the same vault they keep all the racist Sesame Street episodes I just made up. Because if you don’t like seeing clowns or injured trees, take a pass on this episode.

Adventure Time Recap: “Paper Pete”

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Jan 172012

And… we’re back. I missed this; I missed the show and writing about the show. I write about other things, but none resonate out from my neurons so far that I can still feel tremors in my blood cells a month later. Please don’t let that healthy, heart-opening bout of euphoria surprise you. I’m eating a crispy banana.

Perhaps I should have spent the off-time writing about the free 266 page eBook Frederator released. It’s full of sketches and production art and it’s as hypnotic and silly and perfect as any episode. In that vein, I could have done (and should do) a piece on the title cards. This week’s was exceptional.

Adventure Recap: “Marceline’s Closet”

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Dec 142011

When I look at the Adventure Timepage on my Cartoon Network app, it shows the last six episodes. It’s hard to forget how dark they were. Finn’s broke his legs, Jake experienced dementia, a “croak dream” predicting his own death, and was poisoned repeatedly by a tiny feline assassin. The holiday specials were less grim, but still barren of conventional action or plotting. Either could have been directed by Jarmusch in 1995.

The new episode converges the dark with the minimal. Finn and Jake arrive at Marceline’s for a jam session without the whole band (no Bubblegum or Beemo). Finn holds an untied, blown-up balloon he considers the future of music. He qualifies that point with an excellent song that includes one of the best hooks of the year: “Shake your extremities.”

Adventure Recap: “Holly Jolly Secrets”

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Dec 082011

“No recap the day after Adventure Time aired a two-part Christmas-ish episode?” millions of readers exclaimed at some point Tuesday evening. Most of the major papers covered it. Rick Perry was so frustrated he showed his true colors.

I was working. Your shock is very convincing. Did you study Meisner? Are you my mom? Either way, it’s true: sometimes even an AT recapper/Nerdmelt intern needs to earn some lettuce. You might be thinking, “but what was he working on that could possibly be more important than 21 minutes of Finn and Jake being kind of bored with the Ice King’s video diaries?” Let me tell you.

(“I hope he doesn’t tell us,” everyone thinks.)

Adventure Time Double Recap: “Thank You” and “The New Frontier”

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Nov 292011

My Thanksgiving involved more mortality-talk than normal. That’s what happens as everyone gets older, our expectations for others elapse into a panic that no one will live the lives we hoped they might. My grandma, who will be 80 in January, let my sister and I know that she’d “knit baby blankets for us… just in case.” They’re in the top shelf of some closet, where she can’t see them. You know, just in case something really depressing happens, like she passes on or I have a kid. Both alarming.

Thankfully, Adventure Time brandished a genius Thanksgiving special that took the holiday out of the awkward family dining room and reminded us there’s an entire magical world out there to believe in, experience, and get to know. It did this by following two characters that haven’t appeared on the show before. Television is selfish in a way; we demand soaring exploits from the same characters week in and out. Only one kids-ish show could neatly take the piss out of the way every audience in the world behaves on holiday in which we’re all meant to confront “what we’re grateful for” as though we haven’t done that at all for a whole year. It’s Adventure Time!

Adventure Time Recap: “Jake Vs. Me-Mow”

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Nov 232011

No show kills a doorman quite like Adventure Time. Pen Ward and co. can’t animate the murder because it’s a kids show, but they can intimate it happened for laughs. The most reliable way to do this involves plying Finn and Jake with home cooking. As with “Tree Trunks” missing apples, we arrive in the Berry Kingdom, where Wild Berry Princess serves piping hot pies before revealing an assassin’s note, “stabbed to my door… man.” LOL, etc.

This episode can’t top the darkness of last weeks “No One Can Hear You,” but it’s not for lack of trying. Wild Berry Princess, bordering on radioactive levels of cuteness with a tiny crown sitting like an eensy-thimble on her stem, loves to cook. Meat. She loves to cook thick, raw slabs of meat. Her berry-bush castle is full of big game carcasses: cows, a hammerhead shark, a pig, some Hemingway-sized fish. In the kitchen giant hocks of mammal hang on hooks, while links of fresh-packed sausage drape from the ceiling like soon-to-be-ubiquitous Christmas lights. There’s a bone saw on the wall, an axe near the door, and a chainsaw on the floor. Oh, and a guillotine!

Adventure Time Recap: “No One Can Hear You”

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Nov 162011

I don’t have a TV. “Sacrilege,” exclaim readers. “I can’t really hear you,” I respond, adding, “I’m just guessing your reaction for effect.”

“It’s cool,” readers reply.

I watch Adventure Time on the internet. You can watch any show that way. Just Google “watch (and the name of the show).” Click around and you’ll find what your looking for, on some website that doesn’t upload the content itself, but links to Megavideo or Vidozer or Divxden. Those links will probably cause some junk to pop up on your computer. Close whatever pops up. It won’t harm you if you have a Mac. If you’re on a PC, get a Mac. You’re not downloading, you’re streaming, so nothing is happening to your hard drive.

Don’t do this if you have a TV. Apparently, Nielsen ratings still matter, since Community is now on the type of chopping block that cable and Hulu and Netflix are making irrelevant. If you can’t afford a TV and cable, like me, then write about the shows you love on a public website so people know that they’re not alone with their obsessions.

Adventure Time Recap: “Beautopia”

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Nov 092011

Much like every episode of Adventure Time, “Beautopia” makes a serious case for a Pendleton Ward-designed theme park. Finn and Jake descend a lot in this episode, simulating the general effect of “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.” Come to think of it, I can’t help but wonder if the pitch for AT was just Ward explaining “Mr. Toad” to Frederator.

Susan Strong returns as something vaguely human, though she still lives with an amphibious fish-species that’s afraid of everything. She was an interesting character from the get-go. When we met Susan, in her titular season two episode, Finn has never seen a human. After finding a hatch and descending into an old sewer, he meets Susan and her people, all of whom wear animal hats, just like Finn.