9 - Anything Can Happen

     Some people would say that they could not handle how random Adventure Time's episodes can get, but they don't realize that it is basically what makes it all the more interesting to watch. Every episode, every day for Finn and Jake, is a new adventure; something that the viewers won't expect. Because of this, it could never really get dull. Especially since the show's wide array of characters and settings allow the writers to be as creative and imaginative as they want to be.

     I found an article (the same one I mentioned in my earlier post) wherein Fred Seibert answered this question: Will the series have a continuous narrative arc or will each episode be a stand-alone piece? He said:

One of the great things about Adventure Time is that it doesn’t exist in any kind of reality other than the one in Finn’s head. It doesn’t have to link up in any way from episode to episode. It gives the storytellers unbelievable freedom to be really imaginative and inventive. The Land of Ooo is probably the ultimate uncharted territory; any kind of thing imagined can happen in the Land of Ooo and usually does.

      The fact that anything can happen in the show is also what makes people enjoy it. You could make it go through different genres like sci-fi and mystery and it would still make sense since it is all possible in their world. For example, episodes like Slumber Party Panic wherein the candy people from the Candy Kingdom's graveyard rise from the dead, Mystery Train wherein Finn has to find out who is the murderer in the train he is in, The Creeps wherein once again Finn must find the murderer in the mansion before it kills them, etc. They could even write episodes that do not even focus on the two main characters, like the gender-bent episode called Fionna and Cake which everybody loved, Thank You which was about a Snow Golem befriending a Fire Wolf Cub, and Mystery Dungeon wherein Treetrunks, Shelby, the Earl of Lemongrab, NEPTR and the Ice King go through a dungeon. However, they would always include the two main protagonists at some point in each episode. Mostly so that we would be aware of their whereabouts during those events.

     I find that writing the show this way is a great technique for making the viewers stay tuned to it. I mean, it's also great to know where the story of a show could be going but if its conclusion is too predictable then one would lose interest in continuing to view it. Since A.T. is unpredictable, there will always be curiosity to fuel the viewers' interests in it.