Adventure Time!

[MekaGojira3k]

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

[lhb412]

[mr.negativity]

[quote="Charles Webb"]
With a batch of episodes from Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time hitting DVD this week under the title Adventure Time: My Two Favorite People, at MTV Geek we thought it’d be great to chat with one of heroic boy Finn’s least favorite people, the socially awkward, princess kidnapping prone Ice King. And since the Ice King isn’t a real person, we did the next best thing and spoke to the voice actor behind him, Tom Kenny. Kenny has been in fixture in voice over work since taking on additional voices in the English language version of Studio Ghibli’s Porco Rosso back in 1992.

Since then, Kenny’s become most well known for his most enduring character: Spongebob Squarepants, whose shows enters its astounding 13th season this year. But if you’re a viewer of a certain age, you might also remember him as Heffer Wolfe from the brilliantly dark Rocko’s Modern Life as well as work in front of the camera as a regular on the short-lived sketch series, Mr. Show. Looking at his list of credits, the breadth of roles he’s taken on in his nearly 20 year career of voice acting is staggering.

We spoke to Mr. Kenny about voice acting and his current roles, the longevity of Spongebob, the subversive nature of Bugs Bunny, and what the Ice King has in common with some serial killers.

MTV Geek: How did you find your voice for the Ice King?

Tom Kenny: You know, the picture kind of drove it. One thing I tried not to do was go back and look at the original short where the Ice King was voiced by somebody else because I didn’t want to be infected by any kind of subconscious earwigs.

But my approach to the Ice King is that he’s a very real psychopath [laughs]. He’s the kind of guy that they would do a 48 Hours Investigates about, where none of his neighbors know that much about him but they realize there’s that weird smell coming from his house and they dig up a bunch of weird stuff in the basement. That’s definitely the Ice King. And then when they capture the psychotic killer, he can’t realize why everybody’s mad at him.

Geek: That’s a pretty dark take on the character.

Kenny: It is, but I think with voice over in general and any of this stuff—even though it takes place in this stylized world—you have to approach it as though that world really exists and then play that role according to the rules of that world. You know, whether that’s a dark and nihilistic Frank Miller-esque world or whether it’s a weird, bubbly, saturated color Spongebob world or the world of Oo in Adventure Time.

He’s one of those guys who’s so pathological that he doesn’t realize why anyone would be angry at him. I mean, all he’s doing is taking women and holding them captive so they’ll be his friends. Is there anything so wrong with that? There’s quote around that, by the way [laughs]. Tom Kenny thinks there’s something wrong with that, just to be very clear.

But you know what I mean? Occasionally, criminals will go, “Yes, I had these women chained in my basement, but I fed them, they had a bucket to go to the bathroom in—they were living the life down there in my dungeon.

Geek: So I take it it’s not a surprise that the show has such a strong adult following?

Kenny: No, I’m not surprised that adults gravitate towards the show because it’s obviously not a show expressly for kids—I have kids who both love Adventure Time—but it’s rated TV-10, so you can go some places that TV-G or whatever the hell the dumb, arbitrary rating is. You can go places that those shows don’t, you know? I think the folks at Cartoon Network were smart enough to see that Pen Ward has this world, he’s the architect of this world and he’s got to be the one to show you around it. And he’ll decide what’s in it.

Geek: Are your kids old enough to get the jokes in the show, or do you have to explain any of the humor to them?

Kenny: No, not at all. My 13-year-old is right in the pocket for that show. He gets all the references to game-playing culture—old-school, first generation video games, which, to these kids, is ancient history, but they still know a lot about old Nintendo games and things like that. They’re amazingly knowledgeable about the history of that stuff. And obviously, that’s part of Pen Ward’s obsession list, too—you know, early video games, role-playing games.

He always lists The Simpsons in terms of being a place that feels very real and has tons of people in it, some of whom you see and meet, occasionally, and a lot of them you don’t. But they’re all kind of lurking there.

And I don’t think—my kids don’t need jokes explained. For me as a parent and as a former kid, a lot of jokes are time released, anyway. A lot of jokes from Looney Tunes that you watch as a kid and then look them up 30 years later and you saw the thing they were making fun of. You go, “Oh! That’s from that joke in that Bugs Bunny cartoon! Duh!â€

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

[mr.negativity]

[mr.negativity]

[lhb412]

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

Frederator blog announces the next single disc DVD release, It Came From the Nightospehere, comes out in March and talks up the success of the first disc release typical press release fashion. This new release will feature 16 shorts, instead of the 12 in the first DVD.



It also is the first official press releasy confirmation of upcoming seasons sets:

[quote]
“The fan, industry and retail response to Adventure Time has been nothing short of phenomenal and our second DVD release will only continue to build on the momentum surrounding the brand,â€

[MekaGojira3k]

Holy god, I finally watched the holiday special. LOVED THE ICE KING'S ORIGIN.

Love this show, so much <3.

[lhb412]

^It was pretty surprising to have such an emotionally resonant reveal, especially considering how light and frivolous a tone the episode maintained up to that point.


Last episode, Marceline's Closet, is the last one for a month or so, and besides being very funny it reminded me (via several sight gags) how much I love the versatility and limitations of Jake's shape-changing powers.

[mr.negativity]

From Comics Alliance:

[MekaGojira3k]

[lhb412]

[MekaGojira3k]

[mr.negativity]

From CA:

[MekaGojira3k]

Oh god this is great.

[lhb412]

[MekaGojira3k]

[mr.negativity]

[MekaGojira3k]

Cool interview.

[lhb412]

Remember how seasons 2 and 3 premiered only a little while after the previous seasons ended? I don't expect the same to happen with season 4: according to the Frederator blog everything is pretty much written and storyboarded but there's been no actual animation yet.


... and my comic shop still hasn't got issue #1 of the AT comic! They're apparently doing a second printing. Praise has been pretty overwhelming for it.