Adventure Time/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Trivia Trope tropes pertaining to Adventure Time:

  • Actor Allusion:
  • Actor Shared Background: Hynden Walch and Princess Bubblegum have both learned to speak fluent German.
  • Adored by the Network: The show is slowly becoming this, despite its rather odd premise. A full series marathon is played almost every other weekend.
  • All-Star Cast: Let's see, in various episodes we have Donald Glover, Andy Samberg, John Dimaggio, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, Wallace Shawn, Andy Milonakis, George Takei and Neil Patrick Harris.
  • Approval of God: Pen pretty much loves all works made by fans, simply because he appreciates that they care enough about the show to do them. There are some works that he even praises over his Twitter.
  • Ascended Fanon: The idea that there were cat/monochromicorn wars. [1] And of course, some fans put it on the "official" wiki.
    • One fan made a drawing of a tiny cat assassin named Me-Mow. The creators liked the idea, and thus, the episode "Jake vs. Me-Mow" was born.
  • Bad Export for You:
    • The Australian version of Adventure Time has a truckload of stuff cut out due to censorship, making a lot of episodes look and sound choppy and incomprehensible...
    • The UK DVD issues have no special features. The British Season 2 DVD had four full episodes missing, including some highly significant ones for larger arcs.
  • Banned in China: In Australia, episodes that aren't butchered are merely pulled from rotation (such as "Fionna and Cake" and "What Was Missing" due to many scenes deemed too sexually suggestive). Thankfully, when the series appeared on free-to-air it was screened unedited (though a few episodes were out of order).
  • Blooper:
    • In "Storytelling", Finn says "aminals" instead of "animals".
    • In "The Limit", Jake says he can't blink... and then blinks mere seconds later.
    • They forgot to put the snail in "Trouble in Lumpy Space" and "Blood Under the Skin".
    • Finn mispronounces "sword" at least twice.
    • In "Business Time", they misspell Finn's name as "Fin".
    • In "Reign of Gunthers", Princess Bubblegum says "calvary" instead of "cavalry" at one point, which is more out of character than Finn's malapropism above.
    • In "You Made Me!", Lemongrab's shoes randomly disappear when he takes out the Sound Sword for the first time.
  • The Cast Showoff:
    • Olivia Olson as Marceline displays her vocal skills in multiple episodes.
    • The Gender Bending episodes seem built around the idea of having the guest cast sing. Madeline Martin voices Fionna the Human and sings in both episodes, with NPH-as-Prince Gumball gets to sing in "Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake", then Donald Glover who voices Marshall Lee, sharing a duet and singing to Fionna in "Bad Little Boy".
    • Jake gets to show off John Dimaggio's beatboxing skills at the beginning of "Conquest of Cuteness".
  • Celebrity Voice Actor: Neil Patrick Harris as Prince Gumball.
  • Channel Hop: The pilot was created for and aired on Nickelodeon's Random Cartoons.
    • Ironically, as of the third season, Adventure Time is now airing on Nickelodeon in Germany.
  • The Character Died with Him: Flame Lord was noticeably absent from the lantern in "Bun Bun", most likely due to Roddy Piper's death due in July of 2015.
  • Creator Backlash: Natasha really hated the design of Ghost Princess.
    • Pen doesn't really like Tiffany very much and is perfectly content with him never returning again.
  • Cross-Dressing Voices: Played straight with Pendleton Ward as Lumpy Space Princess and Ghost Princess.
  • Defictionalization: Anyone want a Finn hat?
  • Deleted Scene: A lot. For example, in "The Enchiridion", there was a scene that included Choose Goose. It would have been his first appearence ever, but they saved him for season 2.
  • Easter Egg: The ghosts' chanting in "Heat Signature" is a backmasked message to Pat McHale.

Ghosts: Farewell, Pat. Good luck in New York. Come back soon.

  • Executive Meddling: According to Word of God, originally the ending of "Tree Trunks" had Tree Trunks just explode after eating the crystal apple. Cartoon Network made them add the scene where she is inside the crystal. It's hard to say if said meddling affected "Crystals Have Power", in which she is shown to be completely alive and healthy, and Finn and Jake manage to snap her out of being villainous.
    • Also completely altered the ending of "His Hero", which originally would have ended with Billy's throne being revealed as a Sealed Evil in a Can once Billy gets up, leading to a You Shall Not Pass moment. The new ending does get some crap past the radar though.
  • Fan Nickname: The muscular robot-armed Finn from "Mortal Folly" has been named Guts Finn by users on /co/.
  • Flip-Flop of God: At one point, the creator (Pen Ward) said that Tree Trunks was definitely dead. But then "Crystals Have Power" came along....
  • God Never Said That: Andy Ristaino (character designer) never said that "What Was Missing" was a musical. He said that the episode would kind of resemble one because it has a couple of songs in it.
    • This was the reason for the whole "BubblegumXMarceline Mathematical" fiasco. Frederator took down the video because it made it seem like the show was openly asking for plot input for further PBxMarcy development and Adam Muto, the storyboard artist and writer of the episode, didn't like the video framing that interpretation as only being romantic.
  • God Does Not Own This World: Pen Ward may be the main creative force behind Adventure Time, but if we wanna get really technical, Frederator owns the show, not him (though that should be kind of obvious). From an interview:

Pen: I get a lot of emails from people asking, "Can you give me permission to make this?" Well, first of all, I don't own Adventure Time, so I couldn't give permission if I wanted to.

Asker: Do you know who will be voicing Marshal Lee?
Natasha: arthur kade
(four weeks later)
Another Asker: why did you lie about Marshall Lee's voice?
Natasha: because I wanted to see an Arthur kade article on the wiki

  • Meaningful Release Date: Wellll... accidentally. "Mystery Train" (the episode featuring Finn's 13th birthday) aired on March 14th (3/14 or "Pi Day"), which sorta means that Finn's birthday is on Pi Day. Mathematical!
  • Network to the Rescue: Nickelodeon planned to develop the short into a series, but didn't give the show its due diligence. When the rights of the short returned to Pendleton Ward in 2007, the idea was pitched to Cartoon Network and greenlit a year later.
  • The Nth Doctor: After Princess Bubblegum reverts to a 13-year-old, voice actress Hynden Walch is replaced by Isabella Acres.
  • Official Fan-Submitted Content: Me-mow.
  • Old Shame: Adam Muto is so ashamed of his performance of Billy's song in "His Hero" that he can never watch that part of the episode again.
  • One of Us: Pen likes Dungeons and Dragons. And Halo.
  • The Other Darrin: Finn is played by Zack Shada in the pilot, but in the series, he's played by his younger brother Jeremy Shada because Zack's voice got too low. Kind of ironic- Pen stated that Finn will now age with his voice actor, so it doesn't really matter how low his voice gets!
    • Princess Bubblegum is played by Paige Moss in the pilot and Hynden Walch in the series.
    • Ice King is played by John Kassir in the pilot and Tom Kenny in the series.
    • Ghost Princess is played by Pen in "Loyalty to the King" and Maria Bamford in "Ghost Princess".
  • Real Life Relative: Olivia Olson is the daughter of Martin Olson, and they voice Marceline and her dad, the Lord of Evil (respectively).
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: Since Finn's teenage voice actor is developing a deeper voice, the writers decided to age up Finn from 12 to 13. They have also slowly introduced more mature themes like romance.
  • Rerun: Occasionally during syndication, two weeks pass before a new episode airs. For example a week after "Hug Wolf" aired and a week before "Princess Monster Wife" aired, "What Was Missing" was rerun.
  • Shrug of God: Whenever someone is asked whether Susan is human or not. The answer is usually "Come up with your own conclusion."
    • The same answer is usually given regarding the relationship of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline.
  • Spoiler: Though the spoilers don't actually happen "in-show". A lot of the season one storyboards could be viewed online before their episodes even aired. But hey, it would be fun to watch the episodes to see if anything got changed.
    • Pen Ward blatantly mentioned at Comic-con that Flame Princess would be Finn's new love interest before "Incendium" aired. However, he didn't spoil her destructive personality and only called her "intense" (a word that a member of the audience laughed at).
    • TV Guide spoiled the fact that the short stories in "Five Short Graybles" are centered around the five senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing). It wasn't supposed to be revealed until the end of the episode. It really makes "Huh? You still haven't figured it out?" less funny.
  • Talking to Himself: Tom Kenny voices both the Ice King and his penguins.
  • Teasing Creator: A lot, if not most, of the staff count. Exhibit A, Adam Muto:

Asker: What was the deal with the worm king at the end of evicted? Who is that guy and what are his motives?
Adam Muto: There's a very interesting story there. He was there to en–wowowowowowowowowowo!!!

  • Throw It In: An unusual example. When Adam Muto originally pitched "What Was Missing", he flubbed the original line that read "I'll get your toy back, kid!", and he said "I'll get your kid back, toy!". They thought it was funny that way, so they kept the line flubbed.
  • Tribute to Fido: Marceline's poodle, Schwabl, is based off of Pen's friend Marie's dog, Schwabble.
    • Natasha's cat Pancake has been inserted into the show on many occasions.
  • Trolling Creator: Natasha Allegri, on an ambiguous level. For example, there's all her Bubblegum/Marceline fan art after "What Was Missing" when she claimed that she didn't even understand what shipping was. Hell, someone even called her out on it, and she responded, "I've never drawn them kissing." And later, when someone showed her a picture she drew of PB kissing Marceline, she said, "It doesn't have my signature on it." (That's only because she drew it for 4chan, and she doesn't sign those pictures.) And there's also when she drew this Fubblegum picture right before "Incendium" aired. And ALSO when she drew Flame Prince just to cause war-shipping in the gender-bent lovers of the fandom.
  • What Could Have Been:
  • Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: Allegedly, Pen stopped answering Formspring questions because he got tired answering the same ones over and over again.
    • The uproar that happened over the Ship Teasing in "What Was Missing" caused "Mathematical!" to stop producing recaps.
    • Nat and Pen used to make themselves known on /co/, but they stopped due to... obvious reasons. Nat later came back for the show's second anniversary.
  • The Wiki Rule: The fan-made wiki can be viewed here.
  • Word of Gay: Lead character designer Andy Ristaino revealed that the Gladiator Ghosts are gay after "Morituri Te Salutamus" aired, which explains all the Ho Yay between them in the episode.
  • Word of God: Princess Bubblegum is actually made of bubblegum, while the Ice King is around 600 years old.
    • Princess Bubblegum's composition is actually a plot point in "Mortal Recoil".
    • And the Ice King is revealed to be much older than 600 in "Holly Jolly Secrets".
  • Working Title: Many of the episodes have had original titles that were changed. Some examples:
    • "The Royal Promise" → "Slumber Party Slaughter" → "Slumber Party Panic"
    • "Meet the Ice King" → "Prisoners of Love"
    • "Ice King and Son" → "What Is Life?"
    • "Return to Nightosphere" → "Marceline's Dad" → "Nightosphere" → "It Came from the Nightosphere"
    • "Click-click!" → "Blood under the Skin"
    • "Born to Die" → "The Real You"
    • "Finn the Wizard" → "Wizard"
    • "Door Jam" → "What Was Missing"
    • "An Assassin In Jake's Nose" → "Jake vs. Me-Mow"
    • "They Went To The Nightosphere" → "Return to the Nightosphere"
  • Write Who You Know: In "Return to the Nightosphere", Marceline's dad is officially given the name Hunson Abadeer. While it seems like a fancy name that means something, it's actually the name of the family Nissan of storyboard artist Jesse Moynihan when he was a child.. Also the name of his first band; they wrote one song titled "Girls Girls Girls".
  • You Might Remember Me From: As mentioned, Fear Feaster is Luke Skywalker.
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