The ninth season of Adventure Time, an American animated television series created by Pendleton Ward, premiered on Cartoon Network on April 21, 2017. The season follows the adventures of Finn, a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape and size at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, where they interact with the other main characters of the show: Princess Bubblegum, The Ice King, Marceline the Vampire Queen, Lumpy Space Princess, BMO, and Flame Princess.
The season was storyboarded and written by Adam Muto, Sam Alden, Polly Guo, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Laura Knetzger, Steve Wolfhard, Tom Herpich, Graham Falk, Kent Osborne, Hanna K. Nyström, and Aleks Sennwald. During this season, the miniseries Elements aired, which follows Finn, Jake, and BMO after they return home to discover that extreme elemental magic has turned Ooo into a veritable dystopia. Finn and Jake team up with Ice King (voiced by Tom Kenny), Betty (voiced by Felicia Day), and Lumpy Space Princess (voiced by Pendleton Ward) to set things straight. The season also features guest animators Alex & Lindsay Small-Butera, who worked on "Ketchup".
The season debuted with the episode "Orb", which was viewed by 0.71 million viewers (this marked a decrease from the previous season finale, "Islands Part 8: The Light Cloud", which was viewed by 1 million). The ninth-season finale, "Three Buckets" was watched by 0.85 million, making it the lowest-rated Adventure Time season finale at the time. Critical reception to the season was mostly positive, with the episodes making up Elements being largely well received. Cartoon Network Studios and Frederator Studios produced the season. A set containing the entire season is scheduled to be released on September 4, 2018.
Video Adventure Time (season 9)
Development
Concept
The series follows the adventures of Finn the Human, a human boy, and his best friend Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape, grow, and shrink at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, wherein they interact with the other major characters, including: Princess Bubblegum, The Ice King, Marceline the Vampire Queen, Lumpy Space Princess, BMO, and Flame Princess. Common storylines revolve around Finn and Jake discovering strange creatures, dealing with the antagonistic but misunderstood Ice King, and battling monsters in order to help others. Multi-episode story arcs for this season include Finn and Jake undoing extreme elemental magic that had transformed Ooo into a dystopia while they were away at sea, and Fern (the grass-based doppelganger of Finn) struggling with his identity and eventually succumbing to evil impulses.
Production
Originally, the episodes that make up this season were ordered as part of the show's eighth. However, with the release of the seventh season DVD, Cartoon Network began re-arranging the official season divisions. It decreed that the seventh season comprised the episodes "Bonnie & Neddy" through "The Thin Yellow Line". Consequently, the episodes "Broke His Crown" through "Reboot" (which had originally been ordered as the last episodes of the show's seventh season) and the episodes "Two Swords" through the Islands miniseries (which had originally been ordered as the beginning of the show's eighth season) were combined to form the show's official eighth season. The episodes "Orb" through "Three Buckets" (which had originally been ordered as the end of season eight) were then considered by the network to constitute the show's ninth season.
This season's episodes were produced in a process similar to previous seasons. First, all the episodes began as simple two-to-three-page outlines that contained the necessary plot information. These outlines were then handed off to storyboard artists, who expanded the rough outline into a full storyboard. The episodes' design and coloring were done in Burbank, California. Rough Draft Korea or Saerom Animation handled the animation in South Korea. Continuing a tradition that started with the fifth season episode "A Glitch Is a Glitch", this season also features the work of guest animators. The episode "Ketchup" features animation courtesy of Alex and Lindsay Small-Butera, a husband and wife duo perhaps best known for their web series Baman Piderman. The Small-Buteras had previously contributed animation to the eighth-season episode "Beyond the Grotto".
The main storyline writers for the season included: Jack Pendarvis, Adam Muto, Ashly Burch, Osborne, and Julia Pott. According to Pendarvis, after Burch left following the eighth season, "Julia parachuted in at perhaps the most mind boggling moment in the sweeping arc of the series just totally undaunted, and showed incredible spirit and ingeniousness that encouraged us to press forward." Storyboard artists who worked on this season included: Adam Muto, Sam Alden, Polly Guo, Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Laura Knetzger, Steve Wolfhard, Tom Herpich, Graham Falk, Kent Osborne, Hanna K. Nyström, and Aleks Sennwald. Ghostshrimp -- the series' former lead background designer -- returned to the series to work on background pieces for "Abstract", "Fionna and Cake and Fionna", and "Whispers". Ghostshrimp retired from the show after the fourth season, but returned to draw backgrounds for the seventh-season miniseries Stakes.
Miniseries
During the ninth season of Adventure Time, a miniseries entitled Elements, aired during late April 2017. News of this miniseries was first announced on March 31, 2017, by Cartoon Network during the unveiling of their 2017-18 programming lineup. Elements follows Finn, Jake, and BMO after they return home to discover that extreme elemental magic has turned Ooo into a veritable dystopia. Finn and Jake team up with Ice King (voiced by Tom Kenny), Betty (voiced by Felicia Day), and Lumpy Space Princess (voiced by Pendleton Ward) to set things straight.
Maps Adventure Time (season 9)
Cast
This season's voice actors include: Jeremy Shada (Finn the Human), John DiMaggio (Jake the Dog), Tom Kenny (The Ice King), Hynden Walch (Princess Bubblegum), and Olivia Olson (Marceline the Vampire Queen). Ward himself provides the voice for several minor characters, including Lumpy Space Princess. Former storyboard artist Niki Yang voices the sentient video game console BMO in English, as well as Jake's girlfriend Lady Rainicorn in Korean. Polly Lou Livingston, a friend of Pendleton Ward's mother, Bettie Ward, plays the voice of the small elephant Tree Trunks. Jessica DiCicco voices Flame Princess, Finn's ex-girlfriend and the sovereign of the Fire Kingdom. Andy Milonakis voices N.E.P.T.R., a sentient robot who makes and throws pies. The Lich, the series' principal antagonist, is portrayed by Ron Perlman in his demonic form, and by Ethan Maher when portrayed as Sweet P. The Adventure Time cast records their lines together as opposed to doing it individually. This is to capture more natural sounding dialogue among the characters. Hynden Walch has described these group session as akin to "doing a play reading--a really, really out there play."
In addition to the regular cast members, episodes feature guest voices by individuals from a range of professions, including actors, musicians, and artists. In "Orb", Tom Scharpling reprises his role of Jake's brother Jermaine, and Thu Tran returns as AMO. The Elements miniseries prominently features Felicia Day playing the role of Ice King's fiancée, Betty Grof (in previous episodes, this role had been played by Lena Dunham). In the same miniseries, Hayden Ezzy voices Fern, Ethan Maher voices Sweet P, Ron Lynch returns as Mr. Pig, Lauren Lapkus reprises her role as Patience St. Pim, Dana Snyder lends his voice to the Life-Giving Magus, Cameron Esposito appears as Carroll the cloud woman, storyboard artist Tom Herpich voices Mr. Fox, Jeff Bennett plays Choose Goose, John Hodgman reprises his role as Elder Plops, Andy Samberg returns to voice Party Pat, and Andrew Daly voices Wyatt. Scharpling returned again in "Abstract", and the episode also featured Andy Merrill, who reprised his role as James. In "Ketchup", J. G. Quintel voices an unnamed blue bird. "Fionna and Cake and Fionna" saw the return of Madeleine Martin as Fionna and Roz Ryan as Cake. In the same episode, Chelsea Peretti voices the Queen of Ooo and Charlotte Newhouse voices a fake Fionna. In "Three Buckets", Fred Melamed voices Uncle Gumbald. Other characters are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, Maria Bamford, Steve Little, and Melissa Villaseñor.
Broadcast and reception
Broadcast
Much like the sixth, seventh, and eighth seasons, the ninth season of Adventure Time featured several episode "bombs", or instances where a great number of episodes debut within a relatively short timeframe. The first of the release of strings of new episodes occurred between January 30, 2017, and February 2, 2017, during which the entirety of Elements aired. The second began on July 17, 2017, with "Abstract" and concluded on July 21, 2017, with "Three Buckets".
Ratings
The ninth season of Adventure Time debuted on television on April 21, 2017, with the episode "Orb" (although the installment had previously been released through the Cartoon Network phone App on April 14). It was watched by 0.71 million viewers and scored a 0.19 Nielsen rating in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. Nielsen ratings are audience measurement systems that determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States, which means that the episodes were seen by 0.19 percent of all households aged 18 to 49 years old at the time of the episode's airing. In terms of viewers, this marked a decrease when compared to both the season eight finale, "Islands Part 8: The Light Cloud" (which was seen by one million individuals), as well as the previous season's premiere, "Broke His Crown" (which was viewed by 1.13 million). Elements saw a slight uptick in terms of viewership, with each episode being watched by just under one million individuals. The season finale, "Three Buckets", was watched by 0.85 million viewers and scored a 0.23 Nielsen rating in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic, making it the lowest-rated season finale for the show.
Reviews and accolades
The season was positively received by critics. Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club reviewed and graded each episode with a different letter grade; Elements collectively received a B, and the rest of the season received three B's and three A's.
Elements, in particular, was met with mostly positive comments. Sava argued that the limited series helped to return the viewers to the land of Ooo and also to resituate and reconfigure the characters' central relationships. Smith argued that the use of the miniseries format allowed for "a stronger sense of focus [...] with every episode giving the sense that the story is building to a larger conclusion". Paste magazine's Zack Blumenfeld praised the miniseries, declaring that Elements "is superior to and more cohesive than both Stakes and Islands, simultaneously a return to Adventure Time's surrealist roots and an emotional step forward".
Episodes
Home media
In Australia, Warner Home Video will release the DVD set Elements--which will include all of the titular miniseries--on July 3, 2018.
Full season release
A DVD set that includes season nine along with seasons eight and ten is scheduled for release on September 4, 2018.
Notes
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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