Cherry Cream Soda
Directed by:
Adam Muto and Sandra Lee
Written And Storyboarded by:
Graham Falk
Review by Josephus Brown

One of my favorite parts of going back through this show is discovered which people behind the scenes it turned out I loved the whole time but never knew who they were.

Take Graham Falk.

He’s the source of lots of the weird anachronistic references and homages to early 1900’s film and animation that pop up in weird places. He’s why we get Jake’s tail as Emmet Kelly the Depression Era sad clown, he’s why we got a bunch of silent film antics and references to weird old cartoons between Jake and Finn, and he’s why we’ve gotten first the surprisingly played straight noir crime drama of Root Beer Guy, followed by this episode, the incredibly earnest examination of the grieving process of a Cherry Cream Soda in the face of profound loss and some sort of lightning mediated necromancy.

This episode is about as straightforward a story about a love triangle that involves the undead as you’ll find. It opens showing us Root Beer Guy’s heroic sacrifice from way back in Something Big, only to reveal it as his widow’s recurring nightmare.

She’s clearly depressed. She even wears the blanket to the bathroom and to feed the cat.

Next we get the obligatory thinking you saw someone dead in the shower scene (which has been parodied so many times I’m not even sure where it’s from, though I really want to say Dallas?) it’s revealed that she’s remarried.

The quietly serious way the show treats her grief is really impressive. Also the slow burn on realizing Starchy is a fuckin’ creep is good, too, because “we’ve been married two months, when do you think you’ll be done grieving” is such a quietly shitty thing to say. Though his advice to lay her husband to rest isn’t itself bad, and the show clearly agrees.

We find out that her and Root Beer Guy were either made for one another or forced into an arranged marriage at birth, depending on how you want to look at it.

She tells him goodbye, and leaves with apparent closure, and then it’s less than ten seconds before he’s struck by lightning and reanimated.

She finally wakes up happy, greets her new husband in the bathroom, only to be horrified into a Psycho visual allusion by the sight of her dead husband outside the window.

The newly reanimated Dirt Beer Guy seems pretty even headed about the situation.

But his incredible zombie strength turns what would otherwise be a vaguely passive-aggressive search for a random crappy sentimental tchotchke he bought her into a violent rampage through the house. She throws him out, and bristles at Starchy’s attempts to co-opt the feelings Dirt Beer Guy was trying to evoke.

Meanwhile Dirt Beer Guy is drowning his sorrows at the Candy Tavern, with Jake and Lady offering a sympathetic ear.

Eventually the conflict comes to a head. Cherry Cream Soda rejects them both, though she tells Dirt Beer Guy she’d like to at least give him a chance to start over with her.

I like this ending. I like the idea that the Candy People are sort of developing something like autonomy in Bubblegum’s absence, with the two adorable soda people deciding that they’re going to try and be together of their own free will, but let things develop naturally.

I’m not sure if it’s an intentional stylistic choice to have this brief moment where we idle on the autonomy of a candy person during Bubblegum’s absence, but given how much planning and work went into the rest of this show I’m convinced it’s intentional that we get this during the Interreg-gum, because it’s an interesting meditation on what it would actually mean for these tiny soda-based life forms to be left to their own devices.

Random Thoughts:

• I love that the Candy Tavern has become a regular locale instead of just the place where only gross, shady people would go hang out. It really gives the Candy Kingdom some needed texture.
• So many great little cinematic touches in this one. The way Starchy slides over to simulate Cherry Cream Soda’s moving POV during the reveal that Dirt Beer Guy is on her sofa is very Hitchcockian, for example.
• Cherry Cream Soda is a real good character. I love that she’s specifically an attorney because jokes are always funnier when they’re specific, and between this and Root Beer Guy she gets a lot of great lines. Her “please don’t touch me right now” to Starchy is some great pathos.
• And her telling off Starchy at the end. “I can’t believe I ever got this low.” Hahaha, get rekt, Starchy, fuckin’ creep.

Mama Said

Boarded by: Kent Osbourne and Kris Mukai
Originally Aired: November 5, 2015
Review By: CedricTheOwl

“Mama Said” comes to us in a transitional period in the show.  Princess Bubblegum has been deposed as ruler of the Candy Kingdom, and she and other members of the cast are in the process of redefining themselves as a result of this status quo shift.  And what better way to emphasize just how much has changed than a good old throwback episode?

Even in Adventure Time’s most thematically heavy and plot driven episodes, it occasionally throws out an episode that feels like it could have been made in the early seasons.  “Mama Said” definitely has the cadence of a season 1 adventure:  Finn and Jake receive a mission from their Princess, they ignore most of the details and wander off into shenanigans, they fight a goofy random monster, and eventually bungle their way to a conclusion, even if it isn’t the one they were supposed to achieve.  Even with a new Princess on the throne, that describes this episode nicely.

Our episode opens on Finn and Jake being briefed by the (Princess) King of Ooo about mysterious flying mushrooms around the Candy Kingdom.  He wants the boys to capture one so he can fly around on it, thus winning the approval of the mud-brained public.  He confirms his theory by polling the recently resurrected Dirt Beer Guy, whose brain literally is mud.  After receiving an ominous warning not to fail their mission, the boys set out on their quest.

After some banter on the road, especially making note of the King of Ooo’s habit of wearing PB’s clothes, our heroes hit paydirt.  A patch of mushrooms stretches before them, though none of them can fly.  Thankfully we’re spared Finn’s plan of just waiting for a mushroom to start flying as they hear singing in the distance.  Following the voice, they come across an old friend…

It’s Canyon (voiced by a returning Ako Castuera), in the midst of a quest to find her family’s sacred spring.  Or rather, goofing off from said quest.  Instinctively sensing that helping Canyon will be much more entertaining that working for KoO, the boys join her on her journey.  However, it appears they wouldn’t have had to wait as long as they thought for a flying mushroom to appear, as one has indeed taken off from its stem and absorbed the rest of the mushroom patch into its cap.

Before long, the King of Ooo calls the boys on PB’s communicator crystal, demanding an update on their quest.  Canyon, being the ultimate lady bro to the boys, helps them fudge their way through the report with a fake flying mushroom.  Once KoO is satisfied and hangs up, Finn briefly contemplates the ethics of betraying the oath he took to his liege.  Canyon points out that it may be better for him to quit the job altogether rather than serve KoO’s every self-centered whim.  Unfortunately, the fake flying mushroom they created attracts the ire of a real flying mushroom, causing it to attack.

This new foe (called the Mother Mushroom on the wiki) fires lasers from its toadstools that flash-grow new mushrooms, forcing our heroes to take shelter in a hollow log.  Seeing that they’re outgunned, Finn resolves to try and talk the Mother Mushroom down, and to his credit he makes good use of his paladin build by using that Charisma stat to placate it.  Sadly, his efforts were in vain as he accidentally hits the mushroom’s eye stalk, resuming hostilities.

I just want to take a break to expand on my appreciation for the Mother Mushroom creature.  It’s equal parts eerie, ridiculous, and an actual threat to our boys.  It attacks while spouting prosaic mushroom facts in a deep booming voice.  It gives our heroes a genuine challenge, and the ensuing fight even contains some early season bounciness to the animation.  It’s a wonder what an engaging and hilarious monster design can bring to a simple plot like this.  

Alas, the Mother Mushroom is too beautiful for this world.  Just as it has Finn, Jake, and Canyon on the ropes, Canyon’s dowsing rod locates her sacred spring, and she uses her water powers to harness its flow and slice the Mother Mush in half, dispersing the mushroom collective.  With a fond salute to their fallen foe, Finn and Jake return to the Candy Kingdom, loaded down with as many non-flying mushrooms as they can carry.

Trying to make the best of the situation, our boys present the King of Ooo with a mushroom pizza in lieu of a flying mushroom.  Alas, while Princess Bubblegum would usually take their shenanigans in stride, KoO punishes them for their failure, firing them from his royal guard and banishing them from the castle.  He then attempts to make the mushroom pizza fly using his own willpower, summoning the Banana Guards to give him a shove to get going.  And shove him they do… right over a balcony and onto the floor a level down.  Realizing their possible regicide, the Banana Guards play themselves off the only way they know how:  by breaking into a rendition of “Mama Said” by the Shirelles.  Even the King of Ooo appreciates their groove, snapping his fingers while facedown as the episode cuts to black.

“Mama she taught me well, Told me when I was young; ‘Your life’s an open book, don’t close it ‘fore it’s done’”

It’s a sublimely ridiculous way to end the episode, and yet it’s kind of a wild departure from Adventure Time’s norm.  The show has only rarely used references to real life songs in past episodes, and they tended towards heart-wrenching moments of emotion rather than silly gags.  In fact, for all I said that this episode felt like it could have been written in the early seasons, there are a number of key differences.  Finn actually asks follow up questions about the mission and seems interested in the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of what they’re doing.  And unlike Princess Bubblegum, King of Ooo does not see fit to offer them any explanation for his scheme, since it’s meant only to fan his ego, rather than help the kingdom.  And once the boys return after having gone off script, their failure has consequences, instead of just being swept under the rug with a shrug and a wink.  All of this is to say that, despite the early season trappings and overall silly tone, this episode does a great job of continuing the narrative of Princess Bubblegum’s absence just by showing what a typical Adventure Time episode would be like without her.

Notable Quotes – 

• “I am an excellent source of Vitamin B, copper, and zinc!”
• “Though often referred to as ‘mushroom tea’, the fermented drink kombucha is actually made from bacteria and yeast!”
• “The branch of biology dealing with fungi is called mycology!”
• “Since mushrooms contain no chlorophyll, they are unable to make their own food through PHOTOSYNTHESIS!”
• “We’re learning a lot about mushrooms today.”