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Released by: Cartoon Network
Released on: February 19, 2013.
Director: Various
Cast: Jeremy Shada, John DiMaggio
Year: 2012
Purchase From Amazon
The Series:
So far only the first season of Cartoon Network's very popular series Adventure Time has been released on DVD in its complete form - since then, fans have been given oddly compiled collections of different episodes from throughout the series' run, and judging by various postings on message boards and comment heavy retail websites like Amazon, they're not happy about it. Which is understandable. Anyone with an interest in a TV show generally wants a season presented in order and in as complete a form as possible. Spongebob Squarepants fans have been inundated with similar compilation collections over the years, and it can be frustrating - but in the case of that show, at least complete season sets have made it past the first round.
Which brings us to this latest collection of Adventure Time episodes, Fionna And Cake. On this single disc offering you'll find the following episodes:
Fionna And Cake / Storytelling / The Other Tarts / The Silent King / Death In Bloom / Still / Wizard Battle / What Went Wrong / From Bad to Worse / Marceline's Closet / Ghost Princess / Incendium / Card Wars / Princess Cookie / Lady And Peebles / You Made Me
So yeah, there's that, but what the heck is the show all about? It follows the exploits of a fourteen year old boy named Finn (Jeremy Shada) and his magical shape shifting dog Jake (John DiMaggio). Together these two best friends explore a strange world named Ooo, inhabited by no shortage of strange creatures ruled over by strange royalty types who command the various kingdoms that make up Ooo. Finn and Jake have a few friends around, chief amongst them Princess Bubblegum (Hynden Walch), but so too do they have some nasty types that they need to watch out for, like the evil Ice King (Tom Kenny).
Highlights from this batch of episodes include Wizard Battle, in which the Ice King competes in a contest to win a kiss from Princess Bubblegum - so of course Jake and Finn must stop him. The Fionna And Cake episode brings on a girl named Fionna (Madeleine Martin) and her cat Cake (Roz Ryan) who battle The Ice Queen to save Prince Gumball (Neil Patrick Harris), which is a cool alternate take on a typical Adventure Time episode. In the From Bad To Worse episode Princess Bubblegum messes around with a zombie formula leaving Jake and Finn and a few others to come up with a cure and in Ghost Princess Finn and Jake have to solve the mystery of what happened to a Ghost Princess (Maria Bamford) in order for her to go to Ghost World - it's a simple premise but well executed.
Very obviously inspired by old timey role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons (you can even see the similarity in the logo), there's a really interesting sense of 'anything can happen' in this series that makes it a lot of fun to watch. Finn and Jake… adventure. That's what they do. They travel around the world of Ooo the way an imaginative kid might and they look for interesting things and dangerous situations to indulge in. It's easy to see why it's as popular as it is because the format lends itself to creativity and fun, which is pretty much what makes the series work. The characters are cute and even endearing and the hand drawn animation has its own unique style that helps it to stand out but it's the free spirited sense of fun that ripples throughout the show that is its most infectious quality.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfers on this disc are clean and colorful but suffer from some shimmering throughout playback. The 480i image also shows some interlacing effects that can be a little distracting now and then. Detail is as good as the animated source material will allow for, though in HD this might look more impressive as it'd be less compressed and maybe show less authoring quirks. Overall this is perfectly watchable, and at times even quite nice - just not quite perfect.
The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mixes for the episodes contained on this DVD are pretty good. There's some fun channel separation that helps give some more life to the animated characters and situations rather well. No problems with any audible defects and the levels sound good. No alternate language options or subs are offered but English closed captioning is included.
There's a gallery of character bios, menus and episode selection but that's it in terms of extra features.
The Final Word:
A fairly random sampling of admittedly very cool episodes, fans would no doubt rather see complete season release instead - season two has just been announced, so it's happening... slowly. The presentation here is okay. There's some jitter and shimmer to the picture and there aren't any extras to speak of. The show itself, however, is a lot of fun. Completists will pick it up just to have it, the rest of us will either hold out for the complete season sets or just enjoy these random releases as they occur.
And some clips!
