The Weird Genius Of Adventure Time

where reality can but doesn't need

to collide, where every single variable of every frame

is entirely controlled, from the way the sun sits

in the sky to the way the grass moves on the ground.

And yet, it's a medium in which those things are often

the least important.

Here, the sun is our light.

We need it.

It's the reason this angle is, well, this angle,

the reason the camera is placed where

it is, the reason they're standing where they are.

But here, well, I can just move it

and nothing really changes at all.

And yet, I think there's this perception

that as a result of this kind of contrast,

animation tends to be, well, self-indulgent,

a perception that the bright colors, lack of physics,

and bubblegum worlds lead to something that lacks substance,

to chaos.

But this is controlled chaos and proof

that every one of those assumptions are.

[SCREAMING]

And I think one episode is microcosmic proof of that.

Adventure Time feels through and through animation

at its most controlled.

And it starts with that bubble gum rainbow world.

This technicolor fever dream is less

what you get by splashing paint in between the lines and more

what happens when you draw entirely new ones.

This is Princess Bonnabel Bubblegum.

She rules this place, the Candy Kingdom.

This is the Ice King, a kind of sort of villainous wizard.

He is king of ice.

This is Jake.

He's a shapeshifting dog thing.

And this is Finn, a human being.

All these characters exist in this world, this sparkly dose

of sugar, which, oh yeah, is a new world that's built itself

on top of the ashes of our human world