Five More Short Graybles | Written & Storyboarded by: Tom Herpich and Steve Wolfhard | Aired: November 19, 2012 | Review by: Katie
After a dynamite, setting expanding two-part season premiere, we have something much lower stakes. It’s another Graybles episode! Cuber is back, along with his “talk to the audience like the host of a preschool show” delivery, and he’s got five short stories to dribble all over our mind-label.1
Finn & Jake start us off, with another story that sees them running around Ooo popping up in everyone else’s graybles too. They discover a relic from before the Mushroom War, and assume it to be an ancient spellbook. Of course, we know from the premiere that magic more-or-less didn’t exist pre-War, so this is instead a wholly unremarkable book of fairy tales. They reenact the Little Jack Horner story, picking out a plumb from a Christmas pie2 with their thumbs. The sweet plumbs don’t make them feel like good boys, so our two good boys travel the land, thumbing random objects3, hoping for some magical reaction. They’re ultimately unsuccessful, despite finding a neat trypophobia frog, and so we move on to Marceline.
Marcy’s story is slight, but has some really fun animation on the rock giant’s finger points. There’s more to chew on with Tree Trunks’ segment, which sees the character taken in a different direction. She starts in a very standard Tree Trunks manner, with her gentle old lady sensibilities offended by a statue seemingly flipping the bird.4 However, the dithering Banana Guards don’t inspire confidence in our pachyderm, who shows a firebrand rabble-rouser side, rounding up a posse to dispense vigilante justice by taking the law into their own hands. Assaulting someone who made a rude gesture isn’t exactly proportional, but this feisty side of Tree Trunks is a new side of the character, and one on display in some of my personal favorite TT episodes later in the series.
Poor Ice King continues to be really weird and sad. He’s drawn a face on his foot and is now treating it as his wife. There’s some really disgusting frames here, harkening back to a 90s/00s Ren & Stimpy-esque era. But also some more tender moments. Ice King continues to be enamored by the sort of mundane logistics that go into romantic cohabitation, deriving genuine joy in splitting up TV remote ownership. (It’s like in Princess Monster Wife, when he was downright giddy over having someone to split dishwashing with) It helps to soften his princess obsession somewhat; poor Simon isn’t a sleazeball (or at least, not mainly), he’s a lonely and sick man. Anyway, I hope things work out between him and his foot, though that dirty homewrecker, his other foot, is always lurking.
Like before, the most interesting segment is the one featuring BMO and Football. BMO has taught his friend so much about what it means to be alive, but despite being a real baby girl now she has yet to learn proper manners. (Don’t wanna end up like old Ice King) So BMO endeavors to teach her the finer points of high society tea time, naturally including that raised pinky thing you’re supposed to do.
Football just can’t seem to get it though, leading to a interesting series of shots where a close-up of BMO with his pinky out is contrasted with a close-up of Football with her pinky in. It’s another bit of cinematography that brings us into how BMO sees his friend; not as simply his reflection, but an independent being. And, maybe she is? Not in a magical sense, in a “she might be an alter” sense. I dunno, I’m not a system, this isn’t exactly my lane. But it’s neat, right? Alongside Football mostly being she/her-ed and referred to with feminine terms, this could easily be read in the context of plurality, gender fluidity, and the intersection of the two. I’m sure there’s a Gender Studies 2015 class that’s used this as an example somewhere.
Anyway, BMO and Football’s lesson/playtime is cut short as Finn and Jake arrive back home, disappointed at the failure of their thumb spell. To which BMO responds, verbatim:
I know a thing or two about good boys. Why don’t you try sticking your thumbs in these holes?
Unintentional sexual harassment aside, we return to Cuber, who asks us to guess the theme. And honestly, it’s maybe a little too obvious. The rock giant’s index finger and Ice King’s ring finger (er, ring toe?) aren’t the focus of their shorts, but Finn & Jake’s thumbs, Shelby’s supposed middle finger, and BMO/Football’s pinky are all the direct focus of their respective plots. So naturally, the theme was…the five tastes?!? Yes, Adventure Time pulls a fast one, playing a bit unfair in a way that undermines the preschool cadence of Cuber’s segments. Though, as he says, nobody’s had five fingers for twenty blabillion glaybles. I don’t know how long that is in Ooo years, but it seems like quite the gulf. Just as Christmas is lost in Finn & Jake’s era, it seems five-fingered hands are lost in Cuber’s. Moving past the confusion, Cuber bids us adieu, with his now-iconic sign-off: “I’ll see you crimpy glimmers on triode flimpin’ the diode!”6
Stray Observations:
- The finger confusion also plays with the common cartoon convention of characters having 4 (or even sometimes 3) finger per hand instead of 5. 5 can often look cluttered, hence characters as old as Mickey Mouse going for 4 instead. It’s not universal, though, as shows and films at HD resolution give room for 5 distinct fingers in a normal amount of space. More grounded and/or more anime-influenced stuff will usually go with a full 5. Anyway, Adventure Time itself plays this very loose, as it does with a lot of its style guide. Characters may be drawn with anywhere from 3 to 5 finger in any given shot, in order to better fit whatever the action of the scene happens to be and also to allow individual storyboarders room for distinct visual styles. If you’re curious this whole guide is pretty interesting: https://www.scribd.com/document/14686737/How-to-Draw-Adventure-Time
- And that’s it! The loose nature of a Graybles episode means stray observations basically are the body text.
Up a Tree | Written and Storyboarded by Skyler Page & Somvilay Xayaphone |
Air Date: November 26, 2012 | Review by hippenbobber64
Woodland creatures in older Disney cartoons often appear as cute animal friends to the main character. They might gather around and sing songs with a kind soul, or get their paws stuck in honey jars– but they always seem to have this innate trait of naive innocence and desire to assist the main character in some way. This episode sees Finn meeting some of these throwback big-eyed animals… only they’re not all that helpful. They might even be “evil evil evil!” But hey put your worries in a picnic basket because the stakes here are actually very, very low. Cast all your fears away, like a throwing-and-catching disc soaring through the air from a perfect throw. Relax dammit.
In contrast with the crazy two episodes that kicked off the season, we are given a more relaxing adventure of retrieving a badly thrown disc. The episode even begins with Lady Rainicorn, Jake, and Finn on a picnic and playing a fun game that involves barking and common human phrases (at least to Finn).
Finn is motivated to make a perfect throw but the game comes to a halt when Finn unleashes a crappy throw that leaves the disc stuck on top of the episode’s titular tree. What comes next is a completely avoidable chore of Finn retrieving a disc. Finn is not content with Jake’s reasoning of “it’s right here, I can grab it” and instead chooses honour over convenience. Jake is there hanging out so we know there’s no real danger or consequence if Finn can’t find his way to the top.
If you ever played disc golf you might have been in this very situation where it seems like you’re just spending most of your time looking for where the hell you threw your disc. It really is kind of an adventure in itself when you have to check every damn brush and getting faked out by other similar looking discs. You can spend all day looking for your discs, or you can just move on and hope that an honest person will eventually find them and contact you. In most of my cases I would borrow discs from my friends so I was even more honour-bound to put in the due diligence. It all kind of works as incentive to make the perfect throw.
Adventure Time has a way of making fun stories out of mundane stuff like this. What we get this episode are some throwback big-eyed woodland creatures appearing before Finn who act like they want to help. Jim Cummings is no stranger to voicing Disney animals and is even cast here to voice all the evil(?) animals. Turns out their acts of kindness are actually acts of sabotage.
The first animal to sabotage Finn is a porcupine who insists on using the old cartoony physics of pain powered boosts to help Finn ascend the tree. It doesn’t work but Finn does screech in pain and uses the quills as tools for the climb.
The next unhelpful animal is a squirrel (Marc Maron) that shoves a cursed apple in Finn’s mouth. Finn ends up shrinking even to a size even smaller than the squirrel but at least he’s invigorated. Jake shows up again just to remind everyone how low these stakes are but Finn moves on.
Finn successfully reaches the top of the tree but there is no dingus to retrieve. The disc and Finn are now “part of the tree” according to the tree animals. There’s no explanation for why they’re like this but I should note that “Up a Tree” shares a title with a Donald Duck animation.
In this animated short we see Donald Duck as a lumberjack also climbing up a tree but unknowingly disturbing the home of Chip ‘n’ Dale who then retaliate and destroy Donald Duck’s own home.
You could maybe see this as a twist that despite their character designs they’re not the friendly Disney animals you expect, but the jerkass Disney animals who are quick to violence. Don’t be fooled by the voice of Pooh Bear and Tigger! These are knife-wielding animals who will openly mock your dreams of being a flying squirrel and bash you over the head with an acorn.
But again… these are very low stakes. Finn and the squirrel’s escape was simple, non-sensical, and resolved quickly. The episode ends with a surprising number of happy resolutions! Finn was rewarded with the perfect throw after putting in the work and honour; Regular Non-Flying Squirrel found and helped a buddy and was rewarded with the fulfillment of flying through the air; Lady and Jake had a nice picnic and are about to eat a bowl of ice cream + pickles; and the waving snail also gets a moment finally free from the control of the Lich!
Stray Observations
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