Trivia / Adventure Time: Distant Lands

• B-Team Sequel: While Adam Muto, Hanna K., Jack Pendarvis, Joy Ang and Tim Kiefer returned for Distant Lands, most of the writing staff is composed of former OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Steven Universe, Ben 10 (2016), Craig of the Creek and Harvey Beaks storyboard artists, as most of the original staff went to work on Summer Camp Island.
• The Character Died with Him: Since Miguel Ferrer (Death's voice actor) died in 2017, "Together Again" kills Death by making his son bite him in frustration, causing his body to turn into a tree.
• Content Leak:
  • On February 2019, Cartoon Network Studios' official website opened a job listing for an "untitled Adam Muto project", with one of the requirements having adventure/comedy samples in their portfolio.
  • On July 2019, someone asked industry veteran Steve Hulett, who has insider information regarding the cartoon industry, about the fake Rumble Jaw show CN was working on. A few days later, Steve revealed the truth on his blog, three months before the miniseries was announced.
  • On September 2019, during a special event at the Soda Parlor in Nashville, Tom Kenny accidentally revealed that he's been working on a "Adventure Time hour-long special".
  • On November 2020, storyboard artist Maya Petersen (who formely worked on Steven Universe as storyboard revisionist and later as storyboard artist) accidentally leaked two "Wizard City" doodles on social media. She quickly deleted it.
  • On February 2021, HBO Max Pop's Twitter account accidentally revealed in a "board post" on Twitter that "Together Again" will be airing soon. The tweet was later deleted.
• Creator Backlash:
  • According to Aria Clemens, once the "Rumble Jaw" façade got leaked on the internet, Adam Muto and the staff had "colorful things" to say about the incident.
  • Aria wasn't happy with The Lich returning in "Together Again", as according to Finn himself, he was getting stale. But she eventually got over it, as it was a decision made by the staff.
• Crossdressing Voices: Glassboy is voiced by Michaela Dietz.
• Development Gag: Rumble Jaw, the fake show created to mask Distant Lands' production, is featured in "BMO" as an in-universe television series that a character is watching in the background of one scene.
• In Memoriam: "Together Again" is dedicated to Polly Lou Livingston, Miguel Ferrer, Michel Lyman, and Maureen Mlynarczyk. The former two voiced Tree Trunks and Death respectively (Death having a non-speaking role in the special due to production starting after his voice actor's death), while the latter two were part of the production staff of the original series.
• Invisible Advertising: Despite "BMO" being heavily advertised until its premiere, "Obsidian" had next to no advertising at all since Cartoon Network released the official poster back in July 2020. It was even absent from the HBO Max's official November premiere schedule. The release date was only announced when HBO Max released the official trailer 10 days before its premiere on the service. CN and HBO Max later learned their lesson and started advertising "Together Again" like crazy after the teaser came out.
• Milestone Celebration: The series premiered in 2020, 10 years after the premiere of the original series.
• Playing Against Type: Chris Fleming typically plays either Only Sane Men or fairly harmless Cloudcuckoolanders. The closest he's ever gotten to New Death's level of actively dangerous is, maybe, Gayle.
• Posthumous Credit: While Polly Lou Livingston (Tree Trunk's voice actress) passed away on January 24, 2021 of natural causes, she managed to reprise her role as Tree Trunks for the final time for the special "Together Again" where she had two lines of dialogue and a few gasps.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Erica Luttrell replaces Rebecca Sugar as the new voice of Elise Abadeer, Marceline's mom, in "Obsidian".
  • Due to puberty, Audrey Bennett takes over for Ava Acres as young Marceline.
  • Aryan Simhadri replaces Collin Dean as Tiffany.
  • Since he got aged down to a child in "Gumbaldia", "Wizard City" has Mace Montgomery Miskel play the now-tweenaged Pepper Mint. Though Steve Little gets to reprise his role as the original Peppermint Butler.
  • Bufo is voiced by Bill Hader in "Wizard City".
  • In the shorts, Life was voiced by Hynden Walch. When she appears in "Together Again" she's voiced by Corrine Kempa.
• Trolling Creator: Since Muto no longer answers fan questions on social media, Aria decided to do his job instead. However, most of the questions sent by fans are answered with a ":-D" emoji, or as Aria calls it, a "cryptic smile", as she can't reveal anything under NDA or spoil anything to the fans. However, this didn't stop her from teasing and trolling the fanbase.
  • Before "Together Again" premiered, a fan asked her if Fern was going to make an appearance in the episode. Her reply was, of course, a cryptic smile. Fern does not appear in "Together Again", but he's referenced in the episode when Jake mispronounces Finn's name as Fern.
  • And once again, before "Wizard City", someone asked her if Huntress Wizard was going to appear in the episode. Her answer? A cryptic smile. This time, however, Huntress Wizard does appear in Wizard City, but only for two seconds.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • Most of the ideas for the Dead Worlds and how they work came from the cancelled made for TV movie that was planned during Season 5.
• Schedule Slip: Subverted. While "Wizard City" was set to be the third episode of the miniseries, this was not the case. According to Adam Muto, "Together Again" was always meant to be the third episode, as Distant Lands started production with only three specials planned. See What Could Have Been for more information.
• What Could Have Been:
  • "BMO" and "Obsidian" were two of multiple miniseries ideas pitched by Muto as towards the end of Adventure Time's original run, as the three previous miniseries were well-received by both fans and general audiences. Cartoon Network liked the ideas, but there was no desire to make more Adventure Time television content prior to WarnerMedia's plans to create HBO Max.
  • Originally, the writers didn't want to focus on Finn and Jake because their story, alongside the original series, was "mostly over". Thankfully, they changed their minds and Finn and Jake got their own special.
  • The miniseries only had three specials planned: "BMO", "Obsidian" and "Together Again", with the last one serving as the finale. However, at one point during production, HBO Max ordered a fourth special to be produced, which became "Wizard City".
  • CGO was originally going to be an alien chicken, but the idea was scrapped in favor of a little robot.
  • Billy and Tree Trunks' alien husband from "High Strangeness" were considered to return in "Together Again" during production, but it never happened. The latter gave a lot of trouble to the staff, as they had no idea if it was possible for aliens to move on to a Dead World once they die.
  • Gunter was also set to appear in "Together Again" as an Easter Egg character, but the idea was shot down. Not only that, but it would cause a Continuity Snarl, as Gunter became the Ice King/Ice Thing in the finale.
  • During the early drafts of "Wizard City", the students were forced to watch a PSA video with the Ice King sitting in a chair backwards as he talked about the dangers of dark magic.
  • During Comic Con@Home 2020, Adam Muto had plans for a special focused on Simon Petrikov if HBO Max renewed Distant Lands for a second season, but those plans were shot down after the streaming service confirmed that "Wizard City" is the final special. However, the idea of Simon getting his own story was later saved for the Fionna and Cake spin-off series where he's the main character.
• Word of God:
  • According to Aria Clemens (the miniseries' digital production assistant), "Together Again" is considered the finale of the miniseries by her and the production staff while "Wizard City" is a Bonus Episode.
  • According to Adam Muto, those who were not present in the Dead Worlds in "Together Again" are still alive in the living world. This includes Marceline, Bubblegum and the Ice King, although in the Ice King's case, it's left unclear if he meant Simon or the Ice King/Ice Thing, as the original show already confirmed the latter still being around in the future.
  • While Distant Lands is considered a sequel, Adam Muto considers the miniseries as a separate entity from the original show, as he refuses to touch on certain unanswered plot threads from its prequel to avoid trampling on the original show's continuity. Unfortunately for fans, this also applies to Finn's life between the finale and "Together Again", as he confirmed during Comic Con@Home 2021 that he left his life open (including his relationship with Huntress Wizard, which remains unresolved to this very day outisde of the non-canon Season 11 comic) to the fans' imagination to not ruin the continuity.
• Working Title: "Rumble Jaw." Adam Muto and Cartoon Network decided to hide the series' existence not only from leakers, but also from everyone outside of the production crew by creating a fake show about a girl with a huge fist and her tiger companion. Muto even commissioned art for this non-existent show since the production crew weren't allowed to display anything Adventure Time-related in the studio before the reveal. Unfortunately for Muto, most of the details from the miniseries were leaked to the internet months before its announcement, much to his displeasure.

---