Monday, February 4, 2013

Review: Adventure Time "Little Dude"

     Two weeks from now, we will be dealing with Fionna and Cake.  Why this exists, I cannot tell you to be honest, but to bide time before that, this week's episode was "Little Dude."  The basic premise is that Finn's hat comes to life when he and Jake try to become friends with it.  They later find out however that it was created when it touched a flower sprout that grew on the head of an evil wizard who buried himself, making the hat evil.  So Finn, Jake, and the wizard go after the hat who first possesses a candy person, then a Gumball Guardian.  They defeat the hat by turning animating objects in a good alignment to attack the Hat-Gumball Guardian and remove the hat.  In the end, the wizard animates the Hat with a good alignment and sets it free.
     Do not worry, Finn is getting a new hat.  DO NOT PANIC.
     Anyway, it is obviously a random episode but, unlike the last few, this one should have repercussions in future episodes.  There is now a wizard that can animate evil objects running around which could signal a way for the Lich to return.  That is an extreme case and it is more likely that his character arc goes the way of the Magic Man.  It was a good episode purely because of the dark undertones of the wizard having an abusive father and caring mother and it is that level of character development that is not standard in Children's Television.

Final Rating: 9/10

7 comments:

  1. I think the episode was one of the worse this season. The dark undertones in previous episodes like when Finn and Jake go the underworld were made humorous and were well written, this episode felt like the dark undertones were forced and were poorly written. I put Davey and Up a Tree as two of the best episodes of this season, because they were written for all audiences and had adult situations such as work and the normal life of an average male, and to extent the trap of being in a fraternity. These two were much better than Little dude in my opinion

    ReplyDelete
  2. I see what you are saying with that but you can't compare this episode to the other dark episodes of the season. You also can't compare it to "Davey" and "Up a Tree" because they are totally different. Both of those, at this point, display no indications of having long lasting effects on the series. It appears as though the arc with the evil wizard will stretch out longer, similar to the Magic Man. Also, you can't get the level of development in a seven minute episode as you can in a half hour episode of a 45 minute episode arc, thus creating the feeling that it was rushed. The reason it was rushed was the fact that it is set up for another episode without confirmation that a season six was actually confirmed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Other than what I said earlier. I think the character was poorly developed. I have seen them present a character in 7 minutes that I thought was well developed, like Marceline's dad, I'll get back to you on more if I can think of some. I was only comparing "Up a Tree" and "Davey" to when you said "character development that is not standard in Children's Television".

    ReplyDelete
  4. Also, it should be pointed out that this was Adam Muto's second time directing an episode. His first time was S1:E5 (The Enchiridion). The other thing is this was the first time that Michael DeForge wrote an episode ever. That's why this episode is rated highly, purely for the fact that I give the people involved behind the scenes a little leeway.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Change of writers can ruin a show, an example is the Simpsons. After the main writer left the show it became less funny.
    You are right though that it's fair to give the new writer a chance, but so far I have not been impressed, at least not with this new character. I thought the hat coming to life was interesting, and the whirlpool scene was funny.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well the character should not appear in very many more episodes, the earliest should be "Only Wizards Allowed" which is, based on production codes, the finale of the season. I have a feeling that this person is not going to be a regular. Maybe he was a one shot like J.G. Quintel in season one. I don't know for certain but this will probably not happen again.

    ReplyDelete