Cartoon Network has announced in an official statement that Adventure Time will be ending after its ninth season in 2018. The show has earned several awards and nominations including Emmys and Annie Awards. It reached a wide audiences of both children and adults, has sold tons of merchandise from not only specialty stores but in the mainstream, and has been a favorite for cosplay, artwork, and fan accounts online. Ultimately it has been consistently amazing for seven seasons, had no quality or rating decline in sight, and yet is still ending.
I am at a loss for words with this terribly sad news. I know that the show had a good long run, but seriously? It never crossed my mind that Adventure Time would end. Sometimes shows allow for a gradual quality decline before they go, and then we don’t mind letting it rest peacefully. There were no hints of Adventure Time’s demise; I am so blindsided.
Adventure has meant so much to me in its six years of life. It help solidify one of greatest friendships with a weekly “cartoon night” Freshman year of college. It’s given me last year’s Halloween costume, five T-shirts, a lunchbox, leggings, and a Pinterest board that I cherish. The music, the raw emotions, the humor, and the tangible world created by Pendleton Ward has all given me so much, and helped me through some trying times. Spend five minutes on Tumblr, especially Confessing Adventure Time, and you will know that I am not alone in saying this.
It has helped viewers work through the tribulations of life, because of how much we got to see the characters face. Cartoons don’t often get any real character development, but "Adventure Time" has made a solid foundation of character development. Our main character, Finn not only grew in years, but also from facing curses, crushes, breakups, loss, phobias, a deadbeat family member, and countless battles and adventures. Other characters have also dealt with life changing situations, and "Adventure Time" has left plenty of space to focus on these for minor characters as well.
We got to see an unlikely cast of characters such as elderly elephants, book pages, invented mythical creatures, princesses of breakfast and of slime, and several variations of candy people. "Adventure Time" had the amazing ability to craft compelling stories for things as complicated as creating paradoxes in alternate universes, to as simple as a bunny’s actions being narrated as he survives a rainstorm.
The Cartoon Network show created its own world, and I’ve pictured myself in Finn and Jake’s tree house countless times. The show gave us a place to go even when we weren't watching.
Okay sure, every once in a while "Adventure Time" was a little out there. Some sci-fy and fantasy plot twists could be hard to follow, and occasionally disturbing if you thought about them too hard, but there were by no means too many episodes like this.
The show struck a good balance, between carefree nonsense, and gripping battles with high stakes. And I swear some of the weirder episodes made sense after watching them more than once. Throughout the styles of episodes the show had a unique sense of humor that was the best I could ask for.
It also brought pure artistic beauty with it’s music, particularly Breezy's Love Song and Olivia Olson singing as Marceline.
How cool is it that a few gender swapped episodes actually existed instead of only in fan art swirling around in the internet. The results were not only satisfying, but also allowed fans to casually examine the complicated issue of double-standards in gender.
I will also tell you that Princess Bubblegum and Marceline’s past relationship is canon until the day I die. Even the undertones of LGBT characters in a mainstream children’s cartoon is groundbreaking.
Also did you see the episode with a kingdom of cats who live in boxes? Need I say more?
"Adventure Time" was an all around stunningly creative show. This was seen clearly in the handful of episodes where guest animators played around with the usual formatting, in episodes such as "Bad Jubies" and "Food Chain."
Fans are hit tragically and unexpectedly knowing that "Adventure Time" will end. There may not have been a quality decline to alert us, but this also means that hooray! We won’t have to see a quality decline!
There will always be finished episodes we can turn back to, as well as the comics and fan creations. We still have a little time to say goodbye. We have the end of season 7, and two more seasons after that. The final season is in progress and I know that it will be amazing, will tie up all the loose ends, and leave us all extremely satisfied. We just have to trust the creators one last time.
