Featured TV on DVD Review: Adventure Time: Jake the Dad

September 16, 2013

Adventure Time: Jake the Dad - Buy from Amazon

Adventure Time began in 2010 (2008 if you go by the pilot) and very quickly became very popular, and not just with young kids. It's part of a wave of cartoons that have plenty of adults fans. This is not the first DVD release for the show, but it is the first that I received. So how does the show compare to other similar cartoons like My Little Pony, Phineas and Ferb, and others?

The Show

There are 16 shorts, each 11 minutes long, starting with...

  1. Jake the Dad
    Jake and his girlfriend Lady Rainicorn (Niki Yang) recently had a litter of puppies and Jake is determined to be the best dad ever. He tries, in fact, he tries a little too hard and winds up being really overprotective.
  2. Burning Low
    Finn also has a girlfriend, Flame Princess (Jessica DiCicco). They have to take special precautions, because she's made of fire. When Princess Bubblegum (Hynden Walch) freaks out. At first Jake and Finn think she's jealous, but it is much, much worse than that.
  3. Gotcha!
    Turtle Princess asks Lumpy Space Princess (Pendleton Ward) to help her learn how to -- no matter how I end this sentence, it will be the strangest thing I've written all week -- to learn how to seduce men. In order to test her seductive powers, Lumpy Space Princess goes undercover and tries to seduce Finn.
  4. Son of Mars
    Magic Man sees his brother / sister entity, Grob Gob Glob Grod, coming to get him and he runs for it. However, while trying to get away, he runs into Jake and Finn. Using the little magic he has left, he transforms Jake into a copy of himself and then transforms himself into Jake. The plan works and Jake is taken to Mars, where he will be killed for Magic Man's crimes. Finn has to find a way to get to Mars to save him.
  5. BMO Noire
    Jake and Finn get into an argument over Finn's missing sock. BMO (Niki Yang) decides to look for the sock her / himself. ... and she / he does it in Film Noir style.
  6. The Hard Easy
    Jake and Finn are out at a swimming hole, but it turns out to be a bad swimming hole. They decide to leave, but one of the River Scamp's asks for their help. The Woobeewoo Elder (Jonathan Katz) tells them the Megafrog has been terrorizing their village and he needs them to help.
  7. I Remember You
    Yes, a Marceline the Vampire Queen episode. It actually begins with the Ice King singing one of Marceline's songs to Gunther. He decides that if Marceline helped him write a song, he would be able to seduce all of the princesses. At first Marceline says no, but when the Ice King tries to play the song for her, he gets tangled up in the cord to his guitar. He looks so pathetic that Marceline allows him to stay and helps him with his song. We actually learn a lot about the Ice King and Marceline, and it is quite sad.
  8. All the Little People
    Jake and Finn are talking about relationships when Finn asks Jake if he thinks The Ice King and GMO would make a good couple. The Magic Man over hears this and surreptitiously gives Finn a bag, which we find out is full of little versions of the residents of Ooo. That night, Finn starts messing around with these little versions and making them become couples in various combinations. As you can guess, playing matchmaker to tiny versions of his friends turns out to be really bad.
  9. Mystery Dungeon
    Ice King wakes up in a room in a dungeon along with Neptr, the Never-Ending Pie Throwing Robot; Tree Trunks (Polly Lou Livingston), a small yellowish elephant; Shelby (Pendleton Ward), a worm; and Earl of Lemongrab (Justin Roiland), whom I'm not even going to begin to describe. They realize they are in a dungeon, a Mystery Dungeon, and they will have to work together to escape.
  10. All Your Fault
    Earl of Lemongrab sends a very rude letter to Princess Bubblegum demanding more food. This is strange, as Princess Bubblegum had sent them a lifetime supply of food. So Jake and Finn are sent to give them seeds they can use to grow more food. What they find is really, really disturbing.
  11. Five More Graybles
    Each episode is only 11 minutes long. This episode has five stories in it, plus a wrap-around story. It would take longer to describe most stories than it would be to watch them.
  12. Vault of Bones
    Finn and the Flame Princess and hanging out together when her father, the Flame King, sneaks up and whispers "Evil" into her ears. He's trying to convince his daughter that's she evil, but Finn will have none of that. He decides to take the Flame Princess on a dungeon crawl to clear her head so she will realize she's not evil.
  13. Simon and Marcy
    Jake and Finn are playing basketball with Marceline and the Ice King. When the pair ask Marceline why she invited the Ice King, she tells them about their past together.
  14. Puhoy
    Finn is worried his relationship with the Flame Princess is over and he's sulking. This annoys Jake, because Jake built the coolest pillow fort ever. Finn decides he needs some alone time and heads deep into the pillow fort, eventually finding his way to a village made of pillows.
  15. One Last Job
    Jake receives a tape that shows his daughter, Jake Jr., kidnapped and tied to a chair. A mysterous voice on the tape tells Jake that he knows about Jake's criminal past. If he doesn't steal the Baker's Shard, he will never see his daughter again. In order to do that, he will have to assemble his old crew again.
  16. BMO Lost
    The episode begins with BMO watching some bug breakdancing, so she / he decides to dance as well. Unfortunately, she chooses to do the Worm and is captured by a giant bird. She does escape from the bird, but it is a long way home.

The Extras

The only extra on the DVD is Little Did You Know, a text-based featurette that talks about Jake's kids. However, there is also a Jake Hat that comes with the DVD. It's too small for me to close the straps, but it still looks great on me.

The Verdict

Adventure Time is a really bizarre cartoon, but the humor is top-notch and characters are better developed than most similar shows. There are not a lot of extras on Jake the Dad, but the price-per-minute, plus the hat, is more than enough to warrant picking up.


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Filed under: Video Review, Keith David, Tom Kenny, Andy Milonakis, Steve Little, John DiMaggio, Jeremy Shada, Olivia Olson