Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Adventure Time: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

"Alright, you heard the Princess! Everyone... in!"

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown June 4, 2013

Animator Pendleton Ward -- he of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack obscur-o-fame -- is a prince of animated chaos, capable of fashioning the utterly inane and random into a side-splitting jolt of pop culture hilarity. In 2010, with a mere scrunch of his brow, a flick of his pen and a dash of his divisive genius, Ward gave us Adventure Time, an acquired taste to be sure, but a tart, sugary delight to all those addicted to the sweet, savory, salty zest of its masterfully managed madness. The series, now five seasons strong, has drawn its share of praise and criticism, both as extreme as one might imagine. Some loathe Adventure Time, chastising its simplistic animation and seemingly nonsensical stories and characters. Others adore every passing season more than the last, flocking to each new episode as if it were the epitome of Event TV. Personally, I can't get enough, and the fact that not one but two seasons of the show are being released on Blu-ray is cause for nothing but celebration in my little corner of happiness.

Jake and Finn prepare for battle!

What time is it? It's time for Adventure Time! Cartoon Network's #1 hit comedy show and Emmy-nominated series centers on the post apocalyptic adventures of Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), a human boy with a funny hat, and his friend Jake (John DiMaggio), a magic and mischievous dog.

Experience dictates that any attempt to sell Adventure Time to the uninitiated is a fool's errand, as it's next to impossible to describe, much less convey, the joy -- or irritation -- that awaits. Ward's animation is almost childishly simple, yes, but it's fueled by such uncontainable, absurdist energy that the method to its flip-book madness quickly becomes apparent. And his stories and characters are nonsensical... but only on their surface. As more and more episodes whip by with feverish intensity, Ward's humor, reference base and intended audience becomes all too clear. Adventure Time isn't meant to sway the masses; it's meant to appeal to purveyors of bizarre, cult-driven animation, fantasy junkies, and niche geeks of all stripes.

Still, it takes a few episodes for the series to really start to sink its teeth into your brain. Mild amusement is something of a prerequisite, though. No one will go from pure hatred to unadulterated fandom here. Additional episodes will push those who enjoy the show's early episodes into deeper enjoyment, while those who wrinkle their nose early on will only develop a deep resentment toward Ward and everything that flushes out of his stream-of-consciousness imagination. So give it a spin and see where you land. If you're already a fan, nabbing both seasons on Blu-ray is a no-brainer. If you've yet to sample Ward's hit show, there's no time like the present.

Adventure Time: The Complete First Season includes 26 episodes:

1. Slumber Party Panic
2. Trouble in Lumpy Space
3. Prisoners of Love
4. Tree Trunks
5. The Enchiridion!
6. The Jiggler
7. Ricardo the Heart Guy
8. Business Time
9. My Two Favorite People
10. Memories of Boom Boom Mountain
11. Wizard
12. Evicted!
13. City of Thieves
14. The Witch's Garden
15. What Is Life?
16. Ocean of Fear
17. When Wedding Bells Thaw
18. Dungeon
19. The Duke
20. Freak City
21. Donny
22. Henchman
23. Rainy Day Dream
24. What Have You Done?
25. His Hero
26. Gut Grinder

Adventure Time: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Even with 26 eleven-minute episodes housed on each single-disc release, both The Complete First Season and Complete Second Season of Adventure Time features an excellent 1080p/VC-1 encoded video presentation that boasts a stunning array of colors, inky blacks, exacting clarity and eye-gouging vibrance. All that scalpel-point precision comes at a bit of a cost, of course. Ward's finest lines are prone to aliasing and/or slight pixelation, minor banding occasionally haunts darker backgrounds, and additional (but equally negligible) anomalies make brief appearances. However, absolutely none of it spoils the proceedings in the least, or really proves to be much of a distraction at all. Each season's image is so clean, so bright, so crisp and so colorful that the imperfections that do creep in hardly matter, particularly when those imperfections are, by and large, a product of the animation and digital source, not either season's encode. In fact, compared to the DCU animated original movie releases, the aforementioned issues are less prevalent and obvious. I can't imagine Adventure Time looking any better than it does in its dual-release Blu-ray debut. Fans will be thrilled.

Adventure Time: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The biggest downside to each season's Blu-ray release is its 192kbps Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix. Oh, to have Adventure Time in lossless 5.1 surround. Each track is serviceable, with clear, intelligible voices, clean effects and lively music, but each one also lacks much-needed LFE oomph and rear-speaker frivolity. A disappointment to be sure, but not the deal-breaker casual fans or fringe newcomers might claim.

Adventure Time: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentaries: Four commentaries are available: "Trouble in Lumpy Space" with John DiMaggio, Jeremy Shada, Tom Kenny and Pendleton Ward; "Prisoners of Love" with DiMaggio, Shada, Kenny and Ward; "Tree Trunks" with Bettie Ward and Polly Lou Livingston; and "Ricardio the Heart Guy" with Kenny, Shada, Ward, George Takei and Hynden Walch.
• Featurettes (HD, 23 minutes): Three featurettes are included: "Behind the Scenes," a 10-minute steady-cam video journal from Ward; "Behind the Scenes of the Behind the Scenes Featurette," a 3-minute extra within an extra; and "Adventure Time Music with Casey + Tim," a 10-minute glimpse into scoring the series.
• Animatics (SD, 49 minutes): Animated storyboards with showmakers' commentary for "Slumber Party Panic," "The Enchiridion!," "Dungeon" and "Rainy Day Daydream."
• Video Extras (HD, 6 minutes): Rounding out the package is a live-action Adventure Time music video, a "Finndemonium" fan-tribute compilation, and "The Wand," a brief bonus adventure.

Adventure Time: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even with relatively limited supplemental packages and lossy Dolby Digital stereo mixes, you can't go wrong with the first two seasons of Adventure Time. With strong video presentations and all your favorite first and second season episodes, there's really nothing to consider. Unless, that is, you've never given the series a try, in which case a rental is in order. Fans will want to add both seasons to their carts post haste, though. Shortcomings be damned.