Great video! I also loved how Fionna and Cake delivered a new and more nuanced take on some of the darker themes in the original series. Ice King/ Simon Petrikov was probably my favorite character in Adventure Time, and the way his arc was developed and concluded in F+C was absolutely perfect. That said, I don't agree that Adventure Time was necessarily "missing" something that Fionna and Cake corrected. As you mentioned in the video, the mission statement behind the two shows was fairly different, with Adventure Time embracing the idiosyncratic visions of its storyboarders while F+C was designed from the outset to be a more focused, singular narrative. I think there's room in the world for both approaches, even within what is ostensibly the same series. If anything, Adventure Time's greatest strength is the way that it contains multitudes - it can be both a wacky episodic adventure show and a serialized drama, often at the same time. IMO, it is Adventure Time's free-wheeling approach to storytelling that gave rise to many of the show's best episodes - after all, "I Remember You," maybe the first fully "serious" episode of the show, only came into being because Ward's storyboarder-driven approach gave Rebecca Sugar and Cole Sanchez the space to push the boundaries of what the show could do. I'm a huge fan of what Adam Muto has been able to do with Adventure Time after he took over as showrunner from Pendleton Ward - it's arguably the single best handing off of the baton from an original showrunner in television history. But I think it's Ward's vision of the show as a communal creation, with all the madcap "all over the place" energy that entails, that made everything great about Adventure Time possible in the first place, and it's one of the things that sets Adventure Time apart from its peers in the "cartoons that can be enjoyed by adults" space.
Thanks for watching, you made some really good points. You're right that AT became what it did and had so many great ideas because of Ward's free-for-all approach. I still think it's a great show but I suppose part of my frustration is that at some point it had so many ideas that it couldn't fulfil them all. That madcap approach was so unique and interesting for the first few seasons but at some point I guess I just would have liked to have seen more structure in the show to develop the best ideas once they rose to the top, and to me that's Fionna and Cake really feels like the culmination of what I wanted to see back then. But yeah, Muto's doing an incredible job with it and fingers crossed he gets a chance to do more.
@@VogJam Thanks for the thoughtful reply! :D Sorry you're getting dragged a bit in some of the comments here, it can be tough to present a nuanced point of view on this dumb platform. I can definitely see how someone could tire of the madcappiness of Adventure Time, especially if you were watching it during the original airing, when a year or more could go by without a particularly interesting plot element popping up again. As someone who binged the series relatively recently, though, I actually found that aspect of the show pretty endearing and unique. For example, even though the Simon and Betty storyline was one of my favorite ongoing plotlines, I didn't mind that it only cropped up once a season or so, because I was blowing through the show anyway. And in the meantime, the show kept introducing other little stories that ended up intertwining with the Betty story in interesting and unexpected ways (my favorite example being the Betty/ Magic Man stuff that begins in one of the show's best and most experimental episodes, "You Forgot Your Floaties," and continues all the way through the finale). I don't think that sort of interweaving of side plots and characters could really happen in a show without something like the "madcap" approach, or at least something more expansive than a 10-episode serialized miniseries. Another benefit of Adventure Time's approach, I think, is in maintaining the scale of its worldbuilding. A lot of series that make the transition from episodic to serialized end up veering into "small world" syndrome, where the world seems to shrink in scale as the show starts focusing more and more on the characters the writers and audience care about the most (Star Wars being probably the worst offender here, with its "Galaxy Far Far Away" now consisting of apparently 20 people total). But Adventure Time never forgets its huge arsenal of minor characters and locales, and also never stops introducing new ones. Those two things together help keep Ooo feeling like a massive and explorable world, even in the later seasons, when virtually every episode centers on some pre-existing character or plotline. And Fionna and Cake ably picks up in this regard, even though it's a direct sequel that largely focuses on main characters we've seen before. In addition to some of the more obvious/expected cameos like Finn, PB, and Marceline, we also get substantial contributions from truly deep cut AT characters like the Marc Maron squirrel, AND also explore strange new worlds, like Orbo's realm, the Winter King's universe, and the Simon-less vampire universe. Honestly, I think one of the most impressive things about Fionna and Cake is how it actually preserves that madcap energy of the original show in the context of a fully serialized narrative.
I have definitely not experienced your feelings you talk about in the intro of the video. Sure, I was more intrigued by AT’s more mature aspects, but for me (and a lot of the fanbase) the shows appeal came at is expertly balancing the goofy and fun adventures with the dark and mature themes in a way no other show has ever done.
I’ve never actually seen Adventure Time or Fionna & Cake, but I’ve come to really enjoy and appreciate your analyses and reviews of tv shows and how you explain what makes them strong/good. I enjoy your content even if I’m not always familiar with everything you cover. I’m curious if you’ve seen or heard of the Chinese animated show on Crunchy Roll called, “Link Click”. I think it’s really good and I’m curious of your opinion on it. Thanks again for the content you create!
Thanks for watching, glad you're enjoying them. I hadn't heard of "Link Click", no. I've got a few things I'm watching at the moment but I'll keep it in mind. The only Chinese animated show I've watching is "Scissor 7" and it's so strange. Something about it feels completely different to anything Western or Japanese I've seen but I absolutely love it and the animation's brilliant, so it will be interesting if Link Click has a similar thing going for it.
Thanks! My schedule's been tricky to find time for videos recently and I can't guarantee it's going to get better immediately but I've got some big projects working away in the background.
Would love distant lands review, its a good tone shift that goes into the main AT characters in a way that matches some of the heavier episodes from the original show. I wish there was more
Oh I agree, I'm just being flippant in the thumbnail. Adventure Time was pretty groundbreaking, and I'm really grateful to see it develop some of it's ideas in a more serialised form in F&C.
heavily disagree with the thumbnail but fionna and cake really managed to put as much good content as possible in just 10 episodes. i was a bit doubtful at first, looking for flaws because of how sequels and spin offs tend to be bad cashgrabs but i was delightfully surprised. simons feeling of not fitting in the world he found himself in was something that i can also relate with. the winter wonderland section was beautifully animated. the 90s pc game part was also really cool to see. fionna and cake manages to be very consistent with the adventure time style, keeping the beautiful and intricate backgrounds and other elements the style typically has but you can kind of see a slight visual difference between the two shows- AT is a little more simple looking, while F&C adds a few more details, just that little extra realism into the designs of its human and humanoid characters, but tbh, its hardly noticeable. i am so happy that the show didnt have simon put the crown back on- instead fionna and cakes universe became "canon" (though im not entirely sure of what happened there) and the situation resolved itself, but without it having to go for any cheap and boring and lazy narrative solutions. there is much more i would like to say about the show, im even considering rewatching it not even 2 months after watching it for the first time. the only complaint i have currently is that i really wish Scarab was a bit more than just the Party Pooper of the show bc i really like his concept as a character and his design (not the human form though, that one was lowkey traumatizing). Sadly the show is getting a 2nd season for some unknown reason, which makes no sense to me since it ends just... right. Its perfectly self contained, i believe. Is there anything else they can and should expand on, really? I once again keep my expectations low. Anyways, if they do release a season 2, they better use it as a chance to make Scarab a less one dimensional character. Not necessarily redeem him (though plot wise it would make sense for him to be) but at least make him a bit more than Guy Obsessed With His Job.
It is completely different than the first episode by the end of the series. At first, it was goofy and hard to get into, but now, I cry when I think of many parts of the show. Definitely worth a second chance.
That's fair enough, but I will say that Adventure Time's definitely not a show you can judge off its first episode. The series has a very loose format, so while it starts out simple and childish, down the line it has some incredibly hard hitting episodes. I can't guarantee that it's everyone's cup of tea, but it's certainly a very interesting series.
Honestly I feel myself deeply disagreeing with you from the very first 30 seconds because to me, what made adventure time... *adventure time* was the odd yet perfect balance between its casual absurdist humor, heart felt character moments, creative world/ fun world building AND the deeper themes it tackles It's not the absolute best at any of those aspects, yet this exact mixture is uniquely the show's own and part of its identity You simply expected the show to go the route of having a DEEP story when the show is more concerned showing you how it's character's lives progress forward then telling any epic mystery
Sir, I don't think we watched the same Adventure Time. And while I haven't seen a whole lot of Fiona and Cake, what I have seen was kinda boring. Not helped at all by the fact that alternate realities/dimensions/timelines are EXTREMELY overdone at the moment. In fact, just looking at it on a surface level, Fiona and Cake makes me think a lot of that recent South Park episode ("Put a chick in it and make it lame and gay!"). And again, that's just surface level interpretation. I know Adventure Time already had the gay and Fiona and Cake started in Adventure Time. Anyway, I mostly just take umbridge with that thumbnail. Adventure Time if it was good? I think you really need to explain yourself with that one first of all, and I don't think a 10 minute video is going to cut it on that topic alone.
I've got to fess up, I am being fairly flippant in the thumbnail, I still think AT's a really good show. I recommend watching Fionna and Cake too, I had really low expectations for going in and expected it to be boring and safe but it's nothing like what I expected. Once it starts exploring more about Simon's mental state, it's really something else and a worthy follow up to AT.
Great video! I also loved how Fionna and Cake delivered a new and more nuanced take on some of the darker themes in the original series. Ice King/ Simon Petrikov was probably my favorite character in Adventure Time, and the way his arc was developed and concluded in F+C was absolutely perfect.
That said, I don't agree that Adventure Time was necessarily "missing" something that Fionna and Cake corrected. As you mentioned in the video, the mission statement behind the two shows was fairly different, with Adventure Time embracing the idiosyncratic visions of its storyboarders while F+C was designed from the outset to be a more focused, singular narrative. I think there's room in the world for both approaches, even within what is ostensibly the same series. If anything, Adventure Time's greatest strength is the way that it contains multitudes - it can be both a wacky episodic adventure show and a serialized drama, often at the same time. IMO, it is Adventure Time's free-wheeling approach to storytelling that gave rise to many of the show's best episodes - after all, "I Remember You," maybe the first fully "serious" episode of the show, only came into being because Ward's storyboarder-driven approach gave Rebecca Sugar and Cole Sanchez the space to push the boundaries of what the show could do.
I'm a huge fan of what Adam Muto has been able to do with Adventure Time after he took over as showrunner from Pendleton Ward - it's arguably the single best handing off of the baton from an original showrunner in television history. But I think it's Ward's vision of the show as a communal creation, with all the madcap "all over the place" energy that entails, that made everything great about Adventure Time possible in the first place, and it's one of the things that sets Adventure Time apart from its peers in the "cartoons that can be enjoyed by adults" space.
Thanks for watching, you made some really good points.
You're right that AT became what it did and had so many great ideas because of Ward's free-for-all approach. I still think it's a great show but I suppose part of my frustration is that at some point it had so many ideas that it couldn't fulfil them all.
That madcap approach was so unique and interesting for the first few seasons but at some point I guess I just would have liked to have seen more structure in the show to develop the best ideas once they rose to the top, and to me that's Fionna and Cake really feels like the culmination of what I wanted to see back then.
But yeah, Muto's doing an incredible job with it and fingers crossed he gets a chance to do more.
@@VogJam Thanks for the thoughtful reply! :D Sorry you're getting dragged a bit in some of the comments here, it can be tough to present a nuanced point of view on this dumb platform.
I can definitely see how someone could tire of the madcappiness of Adventure Time, especially if you were watching it during the original airing, when a year or more could go by without a particularly interesting plot element popping up again. As someone who binged the series relatively recently, though, I actually found that aspect of the show pretty endearing and unique. For example, even though the Simon and Betty storyline was one of my favorite ongoing plotlines, I didn't mind that it only cropped up once a season or so, because I was blowing through the show anyway. And in the meantime, the show kept introducing other little stories that ended up intertwining with the Betty story in interesting and unexpected ways (my favorite example being the Betty/ Magic Man stuff that begins in one of the show's best and most experimental episodes, "You Forgot Your Floaties," and continues all the way through the finale). I don't think that sort of interweaving of side plots and characters could really happen in a show without something like the "madcap" approach, or at least something more expansive than a 10-episode serialized miniseries.
Another benefit of Adventure Time's approach, I think, is in maintaining the scale of its worldbuilding. A lot of series that make the transition from episodic to serialized end up veering into "small world" syndrome, where the world seems to shrink in scale as the show starts focusing more and more on the characters the writers and audience care about the most (Star Wars being probably the worst offender here, with its "Galaxy Far Far Away" now consisting of apparently 20 people total). But Adventure Time never forgets its huge arsenal of minor characters and locales, and also never stops introducing new ones. Those two things together help keep Ooo feeling like a massive and explorable world, even in the later seasons, when virtually every episode centers on some pre-existing character or plotline.
And Fionna and Cake ably picks up in this regard, even though it's a direct sequel that largely focuses on main characters we've seen before. In addition to some of the more obvious/expected cameos like Finn, PB, and Marceline, we also get substantial contributions from truly deep cut AT characters like the Marc Maron squirrel, AND also explore strange new worlds, like Orbo's realm, the Winter King's universe, and the Simon-less vampire universe. Honestly, I think one of the most impressive things about Fionna and Cake is how it actually preserves that madcap energy of the original show in the context of a fully serialized narrative.
I have definitely not experienced your feelings you talk about in the intro of the video. Sure, I was more intrigued by AT’s more mature aspects, but for me (and a lot of the fanbase) the shows appeal came at is expertly balancing the goofy and fun adventures with the dark and mature themes in a way no other show has ever done.
I’ve never actually seen Adventure Time or Fionna & Cake, but I’ve come to really enjoy and appreciate your analyses and reviews of tv shows and how you explain what makes them strong/good. I enjoy your content even if I’m not always familiar with everything you cover. I’m curious if you’ve seen or heard of the Chinese animated show on Crunchy Roll called, “Link Click”. I think it’s really good and I’m curious of your opinion on it. Thanks again for the content you create!
Thanks for watching, glad you're enjoying them.
I hadn't heard of "Link Click", no. I've got a few things I'm watching at the moment but I'll keep it in mind.
The only Chinese animated show I've watching is "Scissor 7" and it's so strange. Something about it feels completely different to anything Western or Japanese I've seen but I absolutely love it and the animation's brilliant, so it will be interesting if Link Click has a similar thing going for it.
You're uploaded! Yay!
Thanks!
My schedule's been tricky to find time for videos recently and I can't guarantee it's going to get better immediately but I've got some big projects working away in the background.
Would love distant lands review, its a good tone shift that goes into the main AT characters in a way that matches some of the heavier episodes from the original show. I wish there was more
I think both shows are good
Oh I agree, I'm just being flippant in the thumbnail.
Adventure Time was pretty groundbreaking, and I'm really grateful to see it develop some of it's ideas in a more serialised form in F&C.
heavily disagree with the thumbnail but fionna and cake really managed to put as much good content as possible in just 10 episodes. i was a bit doubtful at first, looking for flaws because of how sequels and spin offs tend to be bad cashgrabs but i was delightfully surprised. simons feeling of not fitting in the world he found himself in was something that i can also relate with. the winter wonderland section was beautifully animated. the 90s pc game part was also really cool to see. fionna and cake manages to be very consistent with the adventure time style, keeping the beautiful and intricate backgrounds and other elements the style typically has but you can kind of see a slight visual difference between the two shows- AT is a little more simple looking, while F&C adds a few more details, just that little extra realism into the designs of its human and humanoid characters, but tbh, its hardly noticeable. i am so happy that the show didnt have simon put the crown back on- instead fionna and cakes universe became "canon" (though im not entirely sure of what happened there) and the situation resolved itself, but without it having to go for any cheap and boring and lazy narrative solutions.
there is much more i would like to say about the show, im even considering rewatching it not even 2 months after watching it for the first time.
the only complaint i have currently is that i really wish Scarab was a bit more than just the Party Pooper of the show bc i really like his concept as a character and his design (not the human form though, that one was lowkey traumatizing).
Sadly the show is getting a 2nd season for some unknown reason, which makes no sense to me since it ends just... right. Its perfectly self contained, i believe. Is there anything else they can and should expand on, really? I once again keep my expectations low. Anyways, if they do release a season 2, they better use it as a chance to make Scarab a less one dimensional character. Not necessarily redeem him (though plot wise it would make sense for him to be) but at least make him a bit more than Guy Obsessed With His Job.
I saw the first episode of adventure time a little while ago and decided the series wasn't for me
It is completely different than the first episode by the end of the series. At first, it was goofy and hard to get into, but now, I cry when I think of many parts of the show. Definitely worth a second chance.
That's fair enough, but I will say that Adventure Time's definitely not a show you can judge off its first episode.
The series has a very loose format, so while it starts out simple and childish, down the line it has some incredibly hard hitting episodes. I can't guarantee that it's everyone's cup of tea, but it's certainly a very interesting series.
@@VogJam I'm in the middle of watching one piece right now I think I'm on episode 300 out of a 1000 whatever
@@leon1thelion580Adventure time is pretty similar to one piece, so if u gave one piece a chance, give AT a try someday
Honestly I feel myself deeply disagreeing with you from the very first 30 seconds because to me, what made adventure time... *adventure time* was the odd yet perfect balance between its casual absurdist humor, heart felt character moments, creative world/ fun world building AND the deeper themes it tackles
It's not the absolute best at any of those aspects, yet this exact mixture is uniquely the show's own and part of its identity
You simply expected the show to go the route of having a DEEP story when the show is more concerned showing you how it's character's lives progress forward then telling any epic mystery
Sir, I don't think we watched the same Adventure Time. And while I haven't seen a whole lot of Fiona and Cake, what I have seen was kinda boring. Not helped at all by the fact that alternate realities/dimensions/timelines are EXTREMELY overdone at the moment. In fact, just looking at it on a surface level, Fiona and Cake makes me think a lot of that recent South Park episode ("Put a chick in it and make it lame and gay!"). And again, that's just surface level interpretation. I know Adventure Time already had the gay and Fiona and Cake started in Adventure Time. Anyway, I mostly just take umbridge with that thumbnail. Adventure Time if it was good? I think you really need to explain yourself with that one first of all, and I don't think a 10 minute video is going to cut it on that topic alone.
fionna and cake's story didnt even primarily focus on fionna. It was mostly about simon
I've got to fess up, I am being fairly flippant in the thumbnail, I still think AT's a really good show.
I recommend watching Fionna and Cake too, I had really low expectations for going in and expected it to be boring and safe but it's nothing like what I expected. Once it starts exploring more about Simon's mental state, it's really something else and a worthy follow up to AT.
@@VogJam Oh okay. I'll definitely give Fionna and Cake a shot then. Thank you for your honestly. In the comments anyway, lol.