What Time Is It?

Adventure Time is a thing that's been lingering at the edge of my pop culture awareness for a long time. Like, I've known it's supposed to be weird and cool, and that some dudes named Finn and Jake are involved. That's about it? And then last August, I went to Gen Con, and my friends Adam and Emily, cosplayers extraordinaire, dressed up as Finn and Fiona. I had no idea who those people were, but Emily and Adam had bunny ears and blue shirts and cardboard swords, so cool. (Emily tried to convince me to dress up as some vampire chick. I declined. More on that later.) And, as we walked around the convention, we watched dozens of tiny children freak the frak out. Like, grabbing onto their parents' hands and screeching like Adam and Emily were One Direction, or whatever the kids are into these days.

Then, for Christmas, my niece gave me Righteous Rules for Being Awesome. I still haven't read it? (Sorry.) But it sits proudly on my office shelf. It wasn't until this past March, however, that I hung out in my living room back in California, turned on Cartoon Network for my niece, and experienced this:


Reader, I fell in love.

And, when C2E2 rolled around, Emily and Adam once again suggested I dress up as Marceline, the Vampire Queen. And I committed. In the past two weeks, I have watched the first season of Adventure Time. I mean, each episode is about twelve minutes long, so two weeks is actually abominably slow, watching-wise. But, I was busy? In any case, Adventure Time is really weird, y'all. I know I am supposed to love it, because this is the kind of thing I love, but it is so weird. I started keeping, I don't know, a logline of my reactions and, obvs, posting them to Facebook. Mostly I wanted to point out how absurd and hilarious I found the show, because how is this a children's show? What is going on? In any case, for your amusement, Patti reacts to the first season of Adventure Time. I guess this could be considered chock-full of SPOILERS, but in the same way that episode descriptions could be considered so. Numbering is based on the order episodes are in Netflix.

• S1E01: "Slumber Party Panic"
  I am watching the first episode of Adventure Time. This show is about zombies!
• S1E02: "Trouble in Lumpy Space"
  Second episode: less face-eating, more confusion
• S1E03: "Prisoners of Love"
  I think this episode is either about marriage or human trafficking.
• S1E04: "Tree Trunks"
  I believe this tiny elephant is going to murder somebody.
• S1E05: "The Enchiridion!"
  SO MUCH MURDER
• S1E06: "The Jiggler"
  Finn and Jake kidnap a baby to make it dance for their amusement, and then it explodes.
• S1E07: "Ricardio the Heart Guy"
  Princess Bubblegum is surrounded by skeeves.
• S1E08: "Business Time"
  Finn and Jake have mixed feelings about a labor-based economy.
• S1E09: "My Two Favorite People"
  I would watch the crap out of a Bubblegum and Rainicorn show.
• S1E10: "Memories of Boom Boom Mountain"
  Everybody talks about poop, and Finn encourages animal abuse.
• S1E11: "Wizard"
  Jake tells us it's okay to judge people based on their level of attractiveness, and we find out the secret behind Hypnotoad's powers.
• S1E12: "Evicted!"
  Marceline, Vampire Queen arrives, and my heart grows three sizes.
• S1E13: "City of Thieves"
  Finn ascribes to Kantian ethics and is kind of annoying about it.
• S1E14: "The Witch's Garden"
  Jake disrespects the yonic and subsequently suffers.
• S1E15: "What Is Life?"
  Worship is a hazardous proposition.
• S1E16: "Ocean of Fear"
  Finn's issues with the womb manifest in entirely unsurprising ways.
• S1E17: "When Wedding Bells Thaw"
  Give a lonely man some power, and he'll use it to force people to hang out with him.
• S1E18: "Freak City"
  "Don't give your sugar to jerks." Trufax.
• S1E19: "Henchman"
  Marceline, Vampire Queen returns, and I am too busy mentally writing fanfiction to maintain my cynical detachment.
• S1E20: "Dungeon"
  I was really, really hoping the dungeon cat would eat Finn's eyeballs. I hate that kid.
• S1E21: "The Duke"
  So...so we've established that Bubblegum is actually a megalomaniacal necromancer, right?
• S1E22: "Donny"
  Finn battles the spirit of inquiry by encouraging douchebaggery.
• S1E23: "Rainy Day Daydream"
  That knifestorm was the prettiest thing this show has ever done.
• S1E24: "What Have You Done?"
  The Candy Kingdom officially approves of torture.
• S1E25: "His Hero"
  Finn tries diplomacy and civic engagement and finds them wanting.
• S1E26: "Gut Grinder"
  There is a lot of racial segregation in this show.

Huh. It turns out I would love this show if there wasn't any Finn in it. Or, I am disturbed that Finn might be taken as some sort of "this is what boys should be like." The rest of it is fun and horrifying, which is much of what I want from entertainment. Plus, there is Marceline, Vampire Queen OF MY HEART.