TOW #3 Adventure Time

Adventure Time is one of my favorite cartoons. Created by Pendleton Ward for Cartoon Network, the animated serious follows the adventures of friends best friends Finn the talking dog and Jake the human boy. Together they live in the magical post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, where they fight monsters and save the day. Adventure Time has run for five seasons, and is extremely popular not only among children, but teens and adults as well.

One reason Adventure Time is so popular is its use of humor. Though it may have an immediate audience for young children, the humor used often has mature undertones, making it enjoyable for an extended older audience. The show does not rely on cheap or crude humor, but instead creates amusing interaction between characters through hyperbole. Each character is an exaggeration of a specific type of character. There is Finn, the ultimate "good guy", Jake the lazy best friend, and Ice King the desperate bachelor, who is constantly abducting princesses. Each character is flawed but at the same time completely lovable, and all together they convey messages about love, loyalty, and friendship.

But perhaps the thing that makes Adventure Time most popular among an older audience is the sense of nostalgia created in each episode. Each adventure Finn and Jake go on awakens a sense of adventure one can remember feeling as a young child. Each episode when Finn and Jake wake up in their treehouse, ready to take on the monsters of the day I, myself, am reminded of pretending games I would play as a child where I battled monster. In fact, even the core premise of the show, where Finn is the last human left on Earth, evokes an extreme sense of nostalgia. The nostalgia generated by the characters and their adventures appeals to the viewers sense of pathos.

All together, I think Adventure Time is largely popular amongst an older audience not only because it is entertaining, but because it reminds them of a simpler time in their lives. Unlike many other cartoons with older audiences (like The Simpsons or Family Guy), it is a cartoon that appeals to the viewer's inner child through it's innocence and nostalgia, while at the same time is humorous and enjoyable.