It is a truth universally acknowledged that animated characters love ninjas. What is the inescapable allure of ninjas? Is it their ability to seemingly pop in and out of the shadows? Their wide arsenal of weapons? Or their ability to cast magical jutsus with the use of a few well-crafted hand signs? Whatever the case may be, Finn and Jake are no exception when it comes to being entranced by the mystery of ninjas.
Maybe ninjas aren’t so mysterious given that Jake is reading the manual “Be a Ninja” while staking out the Ice King’s castle with Finn and Flambo. Flambo received a tip that the Ice King was scheming to kidnap the princess. I like to believe that Gunter gave Flambo the tip. Either that or the Ice King was bragging about it in a public area.
Jake advises a restless Finn that true ninjas can sense the intention of their enemies prompting Flambo, “Heh heh. Ninjas. Ninjas ain’t real for nothin’ no how.” Finn reveals that him and Jake are real ninjas since they finished the manual. Jake booties up and Finn and Jake are now wearing the same outfits as they did in the original Adventure Time short.
A gleeful Ice King leaves with an overnight bag and Gunter in tow. Jake’s ninja logic deduces that the Ice King managed to capture a princess while they weren’t looking. Finn pays Flambo for his tip and the two shinobros ninja kick to the Ice King’s castle.
They quickly discover that there are no princesses in the Ice King’s home and Finn quickly loses his cool. Jake tells Finn his ninja hunch that the Ice King must be out capturing princesses and instead of doing the heroic thing like maybe going out to stop the Ice King from kidnapping a princess, they do the ninja thing and snoop. Jake finds the Ice King’s diary where promises that he’ll be bringing home a special proof cutie today.
The two follow Finn’s ninja plan to hide and wait in the Ice King’s dirty clothes hamper. The smell is too pungent for Jake and I’m willing to believe it too pungent for anyone, ninja or not. Finn throws a meatball from the hamper (the Ice King is a very messy eater) and accidentally activates the Ice King’s hologram computer. While messing around in MS Paint, Finn and Jake play too rough and accidentally discover the entrance to the Ice King’s hidden ninja cave.
Meanwhile the Ice King arrives at a Rock hospital and freezes all the injured rock people in line. His special touch on the last one is some special tier camp villainy. Even though he’s mistaken for a cadaver, the Ice King schedules an appointment with a princessy type for Gunter.
Jake starts playing with all the items and ignores Finn’s pleas of leaving no trace, like a ninja would. Finn comes across a book explaining the art of Fridjitzu, or ninja ice. After Finn reads, “A true ninja passes no wind, he only passes-” Jake stretches by and steals the book with a fart. Jake tries an unknown technique and conjures ice nunchucks.
At the hospital, Doctor Princess makes her debut as Gunter’s doctor, much to the Ice King’s delight. He attempts to play Doctor Princess’s heartstrings by claiming to be a widower despite not knowing what that meant. They are caught off guard by Gunter rapidly inflating and Doctor Princess says the best line of the episode, “Woah Nellie! Something… medical is happening!”
Adventure Time shows its take on Naruto with ninja forehead bands, their hand signs, Haku’s ice mirrors, and Jake’s shadow clones. Finn and Jake have a spectacular and destructive battle throughout the Ice King’s ninja cave and home. They’re interrupted by the Ice King coming home and use their ninja skills to confront the Ice King about kidnapping a princess. The Ice King is surprised by their allegations and reveals that Gunter was preggers had given birth to an egg.
Finn feels guilty for the destruction their fight caused upon finding that the Ice King does not have a princess. The Ice King takes his collectibles back from Finn and Jake and lets them know that they’re not ninjas, they’re jerks. Like that’s mutually exclusive. Then how do you explain Sasuke?
Finn agrees with the Ice King and wants to make up for their mistake. The Ice King, never one to deny a chance to order Finn around, tells him to take his overnight bag into his dungeon. The overnight bag begins moving and making sounds and out comes Doctor Princess. She reveals that she was abducted when she was distracted by the horrifying beauty of birth. The Ice King threatens Finn and Jake to a ninja fight and Doctor Princess, like a good doctor, checks in on her recent patient. Gunter’s egg cracks open and reveals a glowing pink floating cat. The episode ends with a screen freeze of the Ice King getting kicked in the face by Finn and Jake.
Notes
- This episode wasn’t memorable to me upon memory but through a few rewatches it is quite entertaining. It’s a fun, Adventure Time’s take on ninjas. It’s an action packed, silly side episode with no lasting storyline other than the introduction of Doctor Princess. Who isn’t even a real Princess, that’s just her surname.
- Fridjitzu: When asked whether Finn and Jake will use ice ninja powers in future episodes, writer Adam Muto responded “Not likely. They didn’t have enough time to commit the incantations and hand positions to memory.”
- Finn wears his sweater and Jake wears the same booties in the Ice Kingdom as they did in the animated short.
- On the desktop of Ice King’s holographic computer the eight folders shown are labeled: Secrets, Roms, Misc, Drawings, Untitled Folder, Princesses, Muscles, and Gunter’s Stuff.
- In one version of the episode’s storyboard, Gunter’s offspring was going to be a hybrid Ice King/penguin creature;however Adam Muto explained that he originally drew a glowing kitten, but Thurop Van Orman wanted it to be an Ice King/Penguin offspring, which they thought would be a “cool gross-out moment.” Cartoon Network vetoed the idea and it went back to being a kitten.
Possible Future Spoilers
According to AT wiki- When first talking to Doctor Princess, the Ice King incorrectly calls himself a “widower”. Although Simon was never married, he and his fiancée Betty Groff were living together and prior to the episode “Betty” was assumed by Simon to be deceased. It is possible that Simon was subconsciously remembering Betty, possibly due to Doctor Princess’s similarities to her.
Snail Wave
No snails were harmed by ninjas.
What if Adventure Time, but sitcom? “Her Parents” is what.
Jake is gonna meet Lady Rainicorn’s parents—Bob and Ethel Rainicorn—for lunch, and he decides to invite them over early so, as he puts it, “I can smooth them over using my personality.” He pens a prism-gram invitation, in Korean, which, according to a translation provided by the Adventure Time wiki, reads:
To Mr. Rainicorn and Mrs. Rainicorn, Rainroad 47. Please come here one hour early for lunch. I don’t have a pet turtle. From Jake
A potential problem, though, is that rainicorns (the species) and dogs were at war not very long ago, and there’s a good chance that the Rainicorns (the family) might harbor some resentment toward Jake (the dog). The boys attempt to solve this issue by rainicorning up the joint with some colorful condiments. Here’s how they imagine it going down:
Here’s how it actually turns out:
Not good.
Nevertheless, Bob and Ethel Rainicorn are, they admit, “a little blind,” and so they think Jake is a rainicorn. And they also think Jake’s rich because he has a “human butler” (Finn), who they treat like total shit.
Bob and Ethel and Jake play rainicorn games, each of which brutalizes Finn in some way. But Finn keeps going along with it for Jake’s benefit because “homies help homies.”
This all culminates in a slight miscommunication, nearly leading Bob and Ethel to eat Finn.
And seeing his brother nearly eaten by his girlfriend’s parents finally prompts Jake to drop the charade. He admits that he’s a dog, which delights the Rainicorns because a dog saved Bob in the war. The Rainicorns apologize to Finn over a meal of soy people. They tell him they were just excited at the prospect of eating him because they thought humans were extinct.
I picked this episode to review because I love a good farce.I think Frasier is pretty much perfect TV. 1Except for the episodes with Daphne’s dipshit brother. I didn’t remember this one, so I was excited to see what Adventure Time might do with the farce genre. And even though the episode hits on all the stuff we’d expect from a farce—a socially fraught misunderstanding, lots of physical comedy, increasingly desperate characters—I was kinda disappointed. Where did it go wrong for me?
Maybe the issue is that the super-tight formal structure and rhythms required in a farce just don’t jibe so well with Adventure Time’s “anything goes” sensibilities. Maybe the issue is that Ooo is just a little too far removed from our own social reality for me to really feel Jake’s desperation. Like, I feel like I enjoy a farce best when I identify with the protagonist and can feel my chest tighten as the situation tightens around them. Watching someone meet their future in-laws under false pretenses definitely could produce that feeling. I think Meet the Parents is great! 2And I read somewhere that the original title for this episode was going to be “Meet the Parents,” but they changed it later.
But something about the sequence of rainicorn games doesn’t heighten the tension for me in the frustrating-but-fun way I’m looking for. Maybe it’s that Bob and Ethel come across as pretty horrible magical multi-colored lizard unicorns—but maybe not horrible enough! According to Pendleton Ward, the Rainicorns were going to have their own put-upon goblin butler with them, but it got cut. Establishing Bob and Ethel as wealthy right off the bat maybe could’ve established a more conventional farce dynamic early on, which might’ve made things more cohesive throughout.
My favorite parts of the episode are the moments before and after the central action. I love how, at the very beginning of the episode, BMO asks for more eggs to add to his pile of uneaten eggs. I love the way they all three relax in that uniquely serene post-breakfast bliss.
BMO is very cute here, and the dusty morning light coming through the windows makes the treehouse feel lived in.
And I love how, at the end of the episode, Finn decides he likes soy human.
But I dunno. I just thought this episode seems so perfect on paper, and then it falls a little short in execution. Anyone else have the same feeling?