Concept and creation , the creator of the show According to series creator Pendleton Ward, the show's style was influenced by his time attending the
California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and his experiences working as a writer and
storyboard artist on
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, a series that ran on Cartoon Network from 2008 until 2010. In an interview with
Animation World Network, Ward said he strove to combine
Adventure Times subversive humor with "beautiful" moments, using
Hayao Miyazaki's film
My Neighbor Totoro as inspiration for the latter. Ward has also named
Home Movies and
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist as influences, largely because both shows are "relaxing" and feature "conversational dialogue that feels natural [and is neither] over the top [nor] cartoony and shrill". The series traces its origins to a seven-minute, stand-alone animated
short film of the same name (this short was later identified as the show's pilot
post facto). Produced by
Frederator Studios, the short was created by Ward almost entirely by himself, and its production concluded in early 2006. and was re-broadcast as part of Frederator's anthology show
Random! Cartoons on December 7, 2008. After its initial release, the video became a
viral hit on the Internet. When Nicktoons' rights to commission a full series expired, Frederator pitched it to other channels. One of the studios that Frederator approached was Cartoon Network, which was interested in producing a full series, but would commit to a deal only if Ward could prove the pilot "wasn't a one-hit wonder". Ward and his production team began storyboarding episodes and writing plot outlines, but Cartoon Network was still concerned about the direction of the new series. McHale later recalled that during the pitch of an episode titled "Brothers in Insomnia" (which, for various reasons, was scrapped) the room was filled with executives from Cartoon Network. The pitch went well, but the production staff was soon inundated with questions about the stylistic nature of the series. Around this time, Cartoon Network paused the production of the show in an attempt to resolve these creative issues. A number of writers and animators were let go, and in their place, Cartoon Network management hired three veteran animators who had worked on
SpongeBob SquarePants: Derek Drymon (who served as executive producer for the first season of
Adventure Time), Merriwether Williams (who served as head story editor for the show's first and second seasons), and
Nick Jennings (who became the series' long-serving art director). Drymon, in particular, played a key role at this time, ensuring that both Cartoon Network and the show's production crew were on the same creative page.
Thurop Van Orman, the creator of
The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, was also hired to guide Ward and his staff for the first two seasons. The storyboard for "Prisoners of Love" assuaged many of the fears some Cartoon Network executives had expressed. As production for season one progressed, more artists were brought on board.
Dan "Ghostshrimp" Bandit, a freelance illustrator who had also written and storyboarded on
Flapjack, was hired as the show's lead background designer; Ward told him to create background art that set the show "in a 'Ghostshrimp World". Ghostshrimp designed major locations, including Finn and Jake's home, the Candy Kingdom, and the Ice Kingdom. For the show's first four and a half seasons, Ward served as the showrunner. In an interview with
Rolling Stone, he said he had stepped down from this role sometime during the
fifth season. As a naturally introverted person, he found interacting with and directing people every day to be exhausting. After Ward resigned from the post, Adam Muto became the showrunner. Until late 2014, Ward continued to work on the series as a storyboard artist and storyline writer.
Production Writing and storyboarding s in 2014. From left to right:
Kent Osborne,
Tom Herpich,
Pendleton Ward,
Patrick McHale, Betty Ward,
Jack Pendarvis, Rob Sorcher, Curtis LeLash and
Adam Muto. |alt=The image depicts a group of adults on the red carpet of an award ceremony. for the episode "
What Was Missing" showing action, dialogue, and sound effects.
Adventure Time is a storyboard-driven series, meaning that the storyboard artists are also writers, allowing them to draft the dialogue and the action how they see fit.|alt=The image depicts two panels filled with cartoon drawings. Warda self-professed fan of
ambivalent emotions, such as feeling "happy and scared at the same time"has called the show a "dark comedy". He has also cited the fantasy
role-playing game Dungeons & Dragonsof which many of the show's writers are devoteesas an inspiration for the show. Ward said he never wanted to push the boundaries of the PG rating, noting in an interview with
Art of the Title that he "never really even thought about the rating ... we don't like stuff that's overly gross. We like cute stuff and nice things". Former storyboard artist and creative director
Cole Sanchez said episode scripts are either created by expanding the good ideas produced by these writing games, or are based on an idea proposed by a storyboard artist in the hope it can be developed into an episode. After the writers pitched stories, the ideas were compiled onto a two-or-three-page outline that contained "the important beats". The episodes were then passed to storyboard artists (often called "boarders"). While many cartoons are based on script pitches to network executives, Cartoon Network allowed
Adventure Time to "build their own teams organically" and communicate using storyboards and
animatics. The storyboard artists generally worked on an episode in pairs, independent from other storyboarders, which, according to freelance writer David Perlmutter in his book
America Toons In, countered creative
ennui and prevented episodes from being "alike in either content or tone". The storyboard artists were given a week to "thumbnail" (roughly sketch out) a storyboard and fill in the details complete with action, dialogue, and humor. According to Rynda, most of this pre-production was done in
Photoshop. While the episodes' design and coloring was done at
Cartoon Network Studios in
Burbank, California, the actual animation was handled in
South Korea by either
Rough Draft Korea or
Saerom Animation. Executive producer
Fred Seibert compared the show's animation style to that of
Felix the Cat and various
Max Fleischer cartoons, but said its world was equally inspired by "the world of videogames". While the episodes were being handled in South Korea, the production crew in the U.S. worked on retakes,
music scoring, and
sound design. The fifth-season episode "
A Glitch is a Glitch" was written and directed by Irish filmmaker and writer
David OReilly and features his distinctive 3D animation. Animator
James Baxter animated select scenes and characters in both the fifth-season episode "
James Baxter the Horse" as well as the
eighth-season episode "Horse & Ball". The sixth-season episode "
Food Chain" was written, storyboarded, and directed by Japanese
anime director
Masaaki Yuasa, and animated entirely by Yuasa's studio
Science SARU. Another sixth-season episode, "
Water Park Prank", features
Flash animation by David Ferguson. The
stop-motion episode "
Bad Jubies", directed by
Kirsten Lepore, aired near the middle of the show's
seventh season. Finally, Alex and Lindsay Small-Butera, noted for their web series
Baman Piderman, contributed animation to the eighth-season episode "Beyond the Grotto" and the ninth-season episode "
Ketchup".
Voice cast The series' voice actors include
Jeremy Shada (Finn the Human),
John DiMaggio (Jake the Dog),
Tom Kenny (Ice King),
Hynden Walch (Princess Bubblegum), and
Olivia Olson (Marceline the Vampire Queen). Ward voices Lumpy Space Princess and several minor characters. Former storyboard artist
Niki Yang voices the sentient video game console BMO in English, as well as Jake's girlfriend
Lady Rainicorn in Korean. Polly Lou Livingston, a friend of Ward's mother Bettie Ward, voices the small elephant
Tree Trunks. The show's cast members recorded their lines together at group recording sessions rather than individually, with the aim of recording natural-sounding dialogue. Walch described these group recordings as akin to "doing a play readinga really, really out there play". The series regularly employed guest actors for minor and recurring characters, and crew members cast people with whom they were interested in working. For instance, in a panel, Muto and
Kent Osborne said the
Adventure Time crew often sought out actors who had had roles in the television programs
Star Trek: The Next Generation and
The Office to play various supporting or background characters.
Title sequence and music ''. When Ward was developing the series' title sequences, the rough draft version consisted of quick shots and vignettes that were "just sort of crazy [and] nonsensical", which alluded to the show's theme of quirky adventures. The theme song's final version was originally supposed to be a
temporary one. Ward said, "I recorded the lyrics for the opening title in the animatics room where we have this little crummy microphone just so that we could add it to the titles and submit it to the network. Later, we tried re-recording it and I didn't like it ... I only liked the temp one!" The two eventually worked together on its music. The show's title sequence and theme song have stayed mostly consistent throughout its run, with seven exceptions. During the episodes featuring
Fionna Campbell and
Cake the Cat (
viz. season three's "
Fionna and Cake", season five's "
Bad Little Boy", season six's "The Prince Who Wanted Everything", season eight's "Five Short Tables", and
season nine's "Fionna and Cake and Fionna") the series features a different intro sequence that mirrors the original, with the major exception that all the characters are
gender-bent, and the theme is sung by former storyboard revisionist
Natasha Allegri. Likewise, the intro to the series' three miniseries are each unique: the introduction to the Marceline-centric
Stakes (2015) places most of the emphasis on Marceline, and the theme song is sung by Olson; the introduction to
Islands (2017) adopts a nautical theme, highlights the principal characters in the miniseries, and is sung by Shada; and the intro to
Elements (2017) features imagery reflecting the four primary elements in the
Adventure Time universe (fire, ice, slime, and candy) and is sung by Hynden Walch. The introductions to the guest-animated episodes "A Glitch Is a Glitch" and "Food Chain" are each unique, featuring animation courtesy of OReilly and Yuasa, respectively. Finally, the series finale, "Come Along With Me", features an introduction offering viewers a glimpse of future Ooo, 1,000 years after Finn and Jake. This intro features the new characters Shermy and Beth and is sung by the latter (voiced by
Willow Smith). The series regularly features songs and musical numbers. Many of the cast membersincluding Shada, Kenny, and Olsonsing their characters' songs. Characters often express their emotions in song; examples of this include Marceline's song "I'm Just Your Problem" (from season three's "
What Was Missing") and Finn's "All Gummed Up Inside" (from season three's "
Incendium"). While the series' background music is composed by Basichis and Kiefer, the songs sung by characters are often written by the storyboard artists. And while it is a general rarity, the show also occasionally refers to
popular music. Early during the show's run, Frederator, Seibert's production company, occasionally uploaded demos and full versions of songs sung by the characters to their official website, and when the production crew set up a series
Tumblr account, this tradition of publishing demos and full versions of songs to the public was revived. On November 20, 2015, the label Spacelab9 released a limited-edition 12"
LP featuring many of Marceline's songs, followed by a
38-song series soundtrack in October 2016.
Setting and mythology The show is set in the fictional Land of Ooo, in a post-apocalyptic future about a thousand years after a
nuclear holocaust 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". Before the series was fully developed, Ward intended the Land of Ooo to simply be "magical". After the production of the episode "Business Time", in which an iceberg containing reanimated businessmen floats to the surface of a lake, the show became explicitly post-apocalyptic; Ward said the production crew "just ran with it". The series has a
canonical mythologyor, an overarching plot and backstorythat is expanded upon in various episodes. This mythology mainly involves the nature of the Mushroom War, the origin of the series' principal antagonist the Lich, and the backstories of several of the series' principal and recurring characters. Ward once noted that the details behind the Mushroom War and the series' dark mythology form "a story worth telling", but he also felt the show would be better off if the show "dance[d] around how heavy the back-history of Ooo is".
LGBTQ+ representation After the September 2011 episode "
What Was Missing" hinted at romantic subtext between Marceline and Bubblegum, fans began to "
ship" the two, referring to the pairing as "Bubbline". Some reviewers also discussed the possible relationship, with Kjerstin Johnson of
Bitch magazine expressing hope that that show's "queer cartoon subtext" would turn into "a queer cartoon subplot". Eventually, Bubblegum and Marceline's relationship was confirmed in the series finale, "
Come Along With Me", which also featured the two characters kissing. While Bubblegum seems to have dated a male character named Mr. Cream Puff, her exact sexuality, unlike Marceline's, has not been confirmed. As such, reviewers have argued that she is either bisexual, non-binary, queer, or a combination of some of the latter, as both live in a world where "
sexuality is somewhat fluid." Much of the series' LGBTQ+ representation was the result of storyboard artist
Rebecca Sugar, who soon after joining the production crew "became more aware of what we're really saying by excluding [LGBTQ] characters" from children's TV—a situation which felt "more and more dire" to her. She thus began working hard to put "LGBTQIA characters in G-rated content" in the years to follow. In a March 2021
Vanity Fair interview, Sugar said that she was encouraged by the "creative team to put their own life experiences into the character of Marceline," but when this led to a "romantic storyline between Marceline and Princess Bubblegum",
Cartoon Network executives intervened. This moment led Sugar and the rest of the show's team to see the limit of what they could accomplish, in terms of representation. The writers initially responded to this roadblock by working queer themes into episodes as subtext to avoid controversy or network censorship, but later episodes would openly expand on these themes, bringing them to the forefront of the series' plot.
Finale During the last seasons of
Adventure Time, there was discussion at Cartoon Network about concluding the series.
Olivia Olson, who provided the voice of Marceline, said that since this discussion wore on for a while, "the ending of the show was getting stretched and stretched and stretched". Chief content officer
Rob Sorcher told the
Los Angeles Times of the network's decision to end the series, saying:
Adventure Time was playing less and less on Cartoon Network, yet we were moving towards a large volume of episodes. And I really began thinking "[The end] can't come quickly as a sudden company decision, it needs to be a conversation over a period of time." And it did also strike me that if we don't wind this up soon, we're going to have a generation of fans graduate through the [television] demo [graphic that Cartoon Network targets] and we won't have completed a thought for them. The final episode of the series was a special, titled "
Come Along with Me"; the special was written and storyboarded by
Tom Herpich,
Steve Wolfhard, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Hanna K. Nyström, Aleks Sennwald, Sam Alden, and
Graham Falk. The story was developed by Herpich, Wolfhard,
Ashly Burch, showrunner
Adam Muto, head writer
Kent Osborne,
Jack Pendarvis,
Julia Pott, and series creator
Pendleton Ward. Former head background designer
Ghostshrimp returned after having officially left the series during the
fourth season. According to Osborne, Cartoon Network provided the writers with "an opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about the finale" before production ended. This allowed the finale itself to be "less dense" by simply "hitting the big [beats] and then finding vignettes for all the characters ... so we could get snapshots of where they could end up." with the last storyline meeting held on November 21. A tweet by Osborne revealed that the series' final script was pitched to storyboarders, with Alden and Nyström in attendance, on November 28. This episode was then pitched to the show's producers during the third week of December 2016. Voice recording for the episode ended on January 31, 2017, as confirmed by a number of cast members, including
Maria Bamford and
Andy Milonakis. The series finale aired on September 3, 2018 to universal acclaim. == Broadcast and ratings ==