Adventure Time: Slumber Party Panic Rewatch

May 8, 2015 6:15 AM - Season 1, Episode 1

Princess Bubblegum and Finn the Human accidentally create candy people zombies.

Here's the original un-aired pilot

posted by drezdn (9 comments total)

This episode does a great job of setting up the general idea of the show, and some of the major characters. We learn Princess Bubblegum is really into science (and not as much into ethics). We learn that Finn and Jake are adventurers and good friends. We learn that the candy people really need someone who can keep them safe.

The one thing that seems like it might be different in this episode is the role and mythos of the gumball guardians.
posted by drezdn at 7:17 AM on May 8, 2015

Was this one really the pilot? It seems like kind of dark episode for the very first one... but then again the show's tone does range all over the place and sometimes it gets a lot darker than this.

A fun detail I didn't notice until it was pointed out to me later: just as PB is zombifying, she says, "Science is... muuurrraaagghhh!" She was trying to say, "Science is my rat!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:37 AM on May 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

What I like best about "Adventure Time" in general is the slow accumulation of small, odd, details that aren't always central to the plot of a given episode, but that serve to give the world of Ooo some texture. Sometimes they don't even fulfill that function, however, and just provide a quick laugh. In this episode: Manfred the pinata's odd manner of speaking never fails to make me laugh and laugh.
posted by Ipsifendus at 10:44 AM on May 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Also, now that I think of it: the off-hand way in which the episode introduces Tree Trunks, leaving one without any assistance in making sense of her: a tiny elephant with a propensity for baking, named "Tree Trunks". You really have to roll with whatever this show dishes out, because it doesn't do much hand holding at all.

This one wasn't the pilot. The pilot, I think, only ever appeared "on air" once before it went viral online, and drezdn linked to it in the post. This episode is the first one that was actually broadcast, after CN decided to go to series with it.
posted by Ipsifendus at 12:07 PM on May 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

I always assumed that Tree Trunks was initially intended as a shout-out to Animal Crossing, going with the other woven-in bits of Nintendoid mythology that are part of the show's DNA. Her little house and single-minded focus on making pies feel very of a piece with the way the neighbor animals behave in the game.
posted by Strange Interlude at 2:15 PM on May 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Root Beer Guy?
posted by drezdn at 4:14 PM on May 9, 2015

That does appear to be Rootbeer Guy!

I loved how this episode seemed remarkably fully formed for a first episode.
posted by bleep at 8:30 PM on May 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I assumed she was named Tree Trunks because an elephant's legs look so much like the trunk of a tree.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:29 AM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Was this one really the pilot?

Yeah, the series' official debut in 2010 was a double bill with "Slumber Party Panic" and "Trouble in Lumpy Space".

The linked pilot is something else; it was a originally a stand-alone short about "Pen and Jake", made by Frederator Studios for Nickelodeon's Nicktoon channel, which iiuc aired twice in 2007 and 2008. After it went viral, the studio suggested expanding it into a series, but Nickelodeon wasn't interested, so Cartoon Network picked it up instead.

I loved how this episode seemed remarkably fully formed for a first episode.

They had made a few episodes before this one, so they had some practice. The first one they made is "The Enchiridion!" which iirc is a bit rougher.

(It seems CN actually ran a couple of other episodes as teasers before the official series start, so strictly speaking "Business Time" was the first non-pilot episode that aired.)
posted by effbot at 2:42 PM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]