Root Beer Guy lives a life of quiet desperation. By day he sells questionable vitamin supplements on the phone and tries not to raise the hackles of an aggressive manager, by night he barely connects with his down-to-clown Cherry Cream Soda wife (played by the late and sorely missed Anne Heche) and falls asleep at the keyboard of the typewriter where he tries and fails to write his hard-boiled detective novel.
I used to work at a job just like the one poor little Root Beer Guy works at. I imagine a lot of us have. Call centers are soul, crushing, deadening work, and mine resulted in permanent damage to both my vocal chords and my psyche. And also like Root Beer Guy, I have writing projects that have stalled out for years, remnants of the hope of creating something with my labor more meaningful than my humdrum service-industry day job. That was why I wanted to write about this episode so badly– I see someone I’ve been, and someone I’m still sometimes being, in this episode. Being a shut-in in a shared life is no picnic.
But Root Beer Guy gets his big chance when he seemingly discovers Finn and Jake absconding with a kidnapped Princess Bubblegum. In the desperate search for non-alienating uses of his time and energy, he begins to neglect everything in pursuit of our not-so-heroic hero boy and stretchy dawg. The two pay him a visit at work, pulling a pitch-perfect unsettlingly smarmy Men In Black act to rival Indrid Cold in their efforts to dissuade him from poking into mysteries that aren’t his to solve. RBG, however, is undeterred, and even passes up the opportunity for some kinky maid roleplay with Cherry Cream Soda in pursuit of his new purpose at Lake Butterscotch, where he expertly manipulates the Banana Guards’ incompetence to save Bonnie from her grim fate.
Or so it at first seems, because in fact the kidnapping has actually been an evaluation of the Banana Guards’ preparedness for such an emergency– one they’ve utterly failed. And this is Root Beer Guy’s big chance. By proving himself more capable of enforcing the law than the actual law, he’s left the princess with no choice but to hire him on for more fulfilling work as the new captain of the Guard. Now given labor he finds meaningful, we see his emotional energy has skyrocketed, leaving him room to reconcile with his wife and cat, and no more need to express his needs with art he just can’t get right. I’m not usually one to celebrate a cop, but it’s clear that this is just what the doctor ordered for our carbonated working-class hero.
Stray observations:
- In early storyboarding, Mr. Pudding, the hardware store owner, was going to be a Pez dispenser with Mickey Mouse’s head on it. Mickey probably never had a chance in the final episode, but it’d have been neat to see a Pez candy person.
- Actually, you know what? This is the Mr. Pudding– Buck to his friends– Show now. I love a Tom Kenny character with a flinty Southern/Mainer accent.
- Several bits of Japanese writing appear in this episode, including manga and ramen shops near the hardware store and the calendar in the Guy/Soda household– apparently this episode takes place in January.
- A gumdrop guy in this episode was voiced by a Make-A-Wish kid. Good for him!
- This episode has some weird visual glitches on MAX, or maybe that’s just my TV.
The end is coming for Princess Bubblegum. We’ve seen throughout this season how her control-freak tendencies and her compassion combine to create the perfect authoritarian, but after this episode the cracks are beginning to show beyond all deniability.
It’s the wedding of the century as Tree Trunks and her Mr. Pig prepare to tie the knot. Bubblegum has inserted herself as both wedding coordinator and officiant, and it’s not going well. Cinnamon Bun is too incompetent to serve as a waiter, the bride doesn’t recognize her authority to perform marriage, and while Jake gets to use some of his natural Dad chops to entertain Mr. Pig’s young relatives, Finn has to be placed on special usher duty with the sole purpose of keeping LSP from arriving to ruin everything.
What a perfect time for the land of Ooo’s latest scourge to make the scene. Everyone say hello to the King of Ooo, Dot-Com huckster, political con artist, and to all appearances, cult leader, and the one and only person Tree Trunks will allow to bless her marriage. This unsavory Earwax Man is played with aplomb by Mr. Andy Daly, who invests him with all the baritone smarm a man like that needs. Convinced that this is just the opportunity she needs to reassert her authority, Bubblegum heads off to look for a reason to arrest the King… leaving Tree Trunks alone with her mother, possibly the one person in Ooo more old and bonkers and terrifyingly horny than TT herself.
Outside the bridal pavilion, BMO gets stuck shepherding an annoying guest of their own, Tree Trunks’s worst and most co-dependent ex-husband, Wyatt, a Sea Lard, or possibly an elephant seal of some kind also voiced by Andy Daly. The pathetic little man immediately takes a shine to the little robot with a heart of gold, and during the ceremony tries to wheedle them into moving in with him so he won’t be lonely.
Princess Bubblegum’s investigation turns up mostly fruitless– she discovers an expired license to perform marriages, but KOO has the current papers on his person, but she remains undeterred, halting the ceremony and throwing all the guests in the clink. While Tree Trunks espies her mom making out with Wyatt and contemplates just laying down and dying, the King desperately absconds. But thanks to KOO’s own hasty choice of words in dismissing his loyal follower, Tree Trunks is empowered to perform her own nuptials, an act that so moves Bubblegum that she has the banana guards set everyone free… including, characteristically, all of the actual criminals. Was it Root Beer Guy’s day off? Or have we seen just how much Bonnie’s need to micromanage is interfering even in her own lieutenants’ work? Either way the newlyweds stay behind to consummate, with Tree Trunks saucily announcing that she hopes Bubblegum watches them get biz-zay.
Stray notes:
- Jake’s kids are all at the wedding, and this is the first grown-up appearance of Charlie, Viola, and Kim Kil Whan.
- According to promo artwork for the episode, BMO brought Air from “BMO Lost” as their plus one. Cute, right?
- Apart from Wyatt, TT’s other two exes are also in attendance. Randy is a rhino and Danny is a boar.
- Maria Bamford’s Mama Trunks describing Mr. Pig as a “Saucy-fine Bologna Factory” will live rent free in the heads and hearts of all of us, forever. This is easily Bamfoo’s best role on the show.
- Mr. Pig’s Best Man is his former gangmate Smudge, previously seen in “Apple Thief”
- According to cast and crew, LSP’s wedding dress is based on Princess Diana’s.
- “Oh my Glob! You’re touching my woman body!” is totally a thing I have said while roughhousing with partners of mine, in my best LSP (which if I do say so myself is very good.)
- Is LSP’s “hot bunch of grapes” self-description a reference to this MBMBAM bit? I don’t think so, I think that episode wasn’t out yet.
- KOO apparently claims to either own or have invented the sun.