Adventure Time antics a hit with all ages

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This was published 9 years ago

Adventure Time antics a hit with all ages

By Darryn King

There are cartoons that are weird. And then there’s Adventure Time, an animated series that routinely takes weirdness to dazzling, dizzying new heights.

Since premiering on the Cartoon Network in 2010, the show has been described as having the fantastical scope of Dungeons & Dragons, the imaginative richness of Calvin & Hobbes, and the deranged humour of Ren & Stimpy. It has also attracted a fan base of children and adults alike – diverting after-school fare, a favourite in college dorm rooms and a glowing critical success in one intriguing package – and has just received its second Emmy nomination.

The outlandish characters of <i>Adventure Time</i>.

The outlandish characters of Adventure Time.

Over six seasons, audiences have been ushered deeper and deeper into the Land of Ooo, a hallucinogenic realm populated with grass ogres, giant snails, evil gnomes, clown nurses, gladiator ghosts, rogue cookies and tiny cat assassins.

At the heart of all the craziness though are its two steadfast heroes, Finn, a human boy, and Jake, his shapeshifting adoptive brother dog sidekick. Even actor Jeremy Shada, the voice of Finn, is continually surprised by the outlandishness of his character’s ongoing escapades.

Inspired frivolity in <i>Adventure Time</i>.

Inspired frivolity in Adventure Time.

“That’s the thing with Adventure Time,” Shada says. “People always ask me what crazy things I’d like to see in the show. But the stuff that I’ve already done in the show is stuff I couldn’t even imagine in my wildest dreams. It’s so out there and bizarre.”

Now 17, Shada was just 12, with several voice acting credits to his name already, when he recorded the first season of Adventure Time. He joined the likes of veteran voice actors Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants) as the dastardly Ice King and John DiMaggio (Futurama’s Bender) as Jake. The cast’s ability to play off one another, Shada says, is pivotal, and his behind-the-scenes chemistry with DiMaggio is particularly important to the portrayal of Finn and Jake.

“There’s a real chemistry and camaraderie when you’re seeing each other and recording every week,” Shada says. “John and I are really good friends. We’re pretty similar, even though he’s much older than I am. He’s sort of a crazy uncle to me, and the Finn and Jake relationship surprisingly captures that really well. In a show and world as zany as this, it’s important that that seems real.”

Reality intruded very early on in the making of the show. During the recording of the first season, Shada’s voice started to crack and deepen. It’s the kind of thing that would upset your typical animated series, especially with a character as rambunctiously vocal as Finn (“Finn does a lot of screaming. There was a lot of voice cracking”).

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<i>Adventure Time</i> characters in action.

Adventure Time characters in action.

Instead, Shada’s pubescent cracking voice became part of the character of Finn. It’s a suitable quirk for a character that, unconventionally for an animated series, has been allowed to age in real-time – which is itself appropriate for a show that, like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, can be interpreted as a fantastical allegory for the confusing trials of adolescence.

As Finn and the other characters have aged, so too has the show around them matured, with an unexpectedly dark mythos emerging through the vibrant colour palette. Finn’s human father has turned up alive, The Land of Ooo turns out to have risen out of the ashes of human civilisation and – in the first Adventure Time episode nominated for an Emmy – the villainous Ice King was revealed to have a tragic, even heartbreaking backstory.

It’s that kind of narrative and emotional complexity that has attracted comparisons with the work of director Richard Linklater and the post-apocalyptic vision of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

“There’s definitely a lot of overtones, undertones and over-the-head stuff the kids are not going to get,” says Shada. “Which is probably why there’s a huge college audience that watches the show. There’s a lot of people who respond to the more serious, deep, emotional stuff.”

Not that Adventure Time, Shada hastens to point out, has strayed away from the spirit of inspired frivolity that attracted fans in the first place. “There’s also a lot of people who just appreciate it for how fun and happy-go-lucky it is. When they’re down it’ll get them in a good mood and get them really happy.”

For Shada’s part, he says he’s in the sweet spot – watching Adventure Time and appreciating it on every possible level.

“I’ve grown up in the acting industry working around adults, so I’ve always gotten the philosophical stuff,” he says, then laughs. “But the show is so crazy. The zany stuff is awesome fun, too. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Adventure Time, Cartoon Network, weekdays (from September 1), 5pm

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