Adventure Time: Freak City

July 13, 2015 6:30 AM - Season 1, Episode 20

Finn and Jake get their first visit from Magic Man.
posted by drezdn (4 comments total)

No character has inspired such loathing for me than Magic Man. It's entirely intentional by the show, and to that, I congratulate them, but man, whenever I see him with his weird nose and yellow hat that he surely traveled from another dimension to steal from the Man in the Yellow Hat in the Curious George universe....I just start to quietly seethe in preparation for raging against the Magic Man. BOO MAGIC MAN.
posted by Atreides at 7:27 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]

I love Magic Man so much. He's a tragic figure, much like the Ice King. Losing Margles turned him into a jerk, if I remember correctly, and caused him to be banished from Mars in the end. Sure, he's an ass, but he has powerful lessons to teach.

That's where I blow my nose all day!
posted by Rock Steady at 7:50 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]

I love Magic Man, too! "Sons of Mars" is definitely his greatest moment to date, but what I love about him in this episode is that he's completely honest with Finn and Jake: Magic Man has no redeeming social value, and there are no lessons to be learned from his BS at all. That in itself is something of a life lesson! I think we sometimes try to find the meaning in people's terrible behavior when it's just not good for us. If Finn and Jake had wasted a lot of time trying to puzzle out why MM had turned Finn into a foot, Finn might still be a foot!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:06 PM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

Let's give some props to the actor doing Magic Man's voice, because while the script did plenty to make him a hateful affliction, the voice work is doing a lot of load bearing in that respect as well. It's a voice resonant with smug self regard and pointless malice.
posted by Ipsifendus at 2:17 PM on July 22, 2015 [3 favorites]