How many animated shows for kids have lasted longer than three seasons?
How many animated shows for kids have gotten progressively better after three seasons?
How many animated shows for kids suddenly and without warning introduced character development and world-building elements in their third seasons? The third season in which, by all rights, they should be dead, because that's just how kids animation works?
Adventure Time is an anomaly. A miracle. It should, by all rights, not exist. It spits in the face of every trend since television animation has even been a thing.
It presents a world of cobbled-together nonsense and implausibilities and then sets about explaining them. It presents us with flat characters and sets about exploring their backstories and hidden depths. Character continuity suddenly starts occurring as Finn and Flame Princess become a thing and Jake has kids. And it takes its sweet time doing this, in spite of the fact that the mere nature of the business should mean it should never get a chance to do so. And it only gets more entertaining, inventive and fascinating as the years wear on, while by this point pretty much every animation kids show lucky enough to last this long had already deteriorated into endlessly hitting the same story beats and increasingly stupid/jerkish character notes.
For the first time, I can look five years into the future and see one of my favorite animated shows still going strong and continuing to surprise and amuse. I can't tell you how deeply happy that makes me.
A Globdamn Miracle
How many animated shows for kids have lasted longer than three seasons?
How many animated shows for kids have gotten progressively better after three seasons?
How many animated shows for kids suddenly and without warning introduced character development and world-building elements in their third seasons? The third season in which, by all rights, they should be dead, because that's just how kids animation works?
Adventure Time is an anomaly. A miracle. It should, by all rights, not exist. It spits in the face of every trend since television animation has even been a thing.
It presents a world of cobbled-together nonsense and implausibilities and then sets about explaining them. It presents us with flat characters and sets about exploring their backstories and hidden depths. Character continuity suddenly starts occurring as Finn and Flame Princess become a thing and Jake has kids. And it takes its sweet time doing this, in spite of the fact that the mere nature of the business should mean it should never get a chance to do so. And it only gets more entertaining, inventive and fascinating as the years wear on, while by this point pretty much every animation kids show lucky enough to last this long had already deteriorated into endlessly hitting the same story beats and increasingly stupid/jerkish character notes.
For the first time, I can look five years into the future and see one of my favorite animated shows still going strong and continuing to surprise and amuse. I can't tell you how deeply happy that makes me.