Adventure Time Season 2(pg)
Created by: Pendleton Ward
Starring: Jeremy Shada, John DiMaggio & Hynden Walch
A human boy named Finn and adoptive brother and best friend Jake the Dog, protect the citizens of the Land of Ooo from foes of various shapes and sizes.
Adventure Time is a crazy, scary, beautiful, irreverent, vital and completely bonkers tale of one boy and his dog in the world of Ooo, devastated by war that is now teaming with Ice Kings, Lemon-headed monsters, terrifying vampires and demi-gods and walking confectionary. Only, you know, for kids. Apparently.
One of the things that so many cartoons do today is appeal to parents just as much as the kids. In the last few years series like Regular Show, The Adventures of Gumball, Gravity falls and even Star Wars: The Clone Wars or Ben Ten all strive to have appeal across the board. But none do it better than Adventure Time.
Picking up with Finn and Jake still craving adventure in the most colourful world on TV, season 2 continues where season 1 picked up. At least thematically.
While never explicitly said, the world of Finn and Jake is one that has been ravaged by nuclear war – the Mushroom War – and, as a result, Finn is the last human on earth; an earth that is now full of hideously mutated and distorted creatures who, while colourful for the younger audience, represent madness and terror for the adults – Marceline the vampire, Lemongrab, The Ice King and Lumpy Space Princess all regulars here, are grotesque and horrifying on many levels… wait until you witness the madness of Lemongrab or the vampire face of Marceline.
Or when Finn, who has been captured by evil gnomes who aim to make him run and dance (on a pole, no less) forever so he can power a massive dynamo machine that will allow them to flip the earth inside out, awaits rescue from his loyal dog who gets sidetracked while raving with a beetle and Beemo, a handheld, yet self aware, handheld game system.
Adventure Time defies explanation or description. It’s a story and adventure that can be enjoyed on many levels and below it all is a story of unrequited love and the quest to find your place in a world that you don’t belong to. And it’s really in season 2 that the bigger story starts to evolve into an epic rich with characters and mythology.
Or maybe it’s just a crazy cartoon that opens the imagination wide so kids – and adults – can explore and run free.
Whatever it is, it’s damned near unmissable TV, no matter what age you are.
5 out of 5 Nerds
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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