The third season of Adventure Time, an American animated television series created by Pendleton Ward, premiered on Cartoon Network on July 11, 2011, and concluded on February 13, 2012. 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, and BMO. This season saw the series grow and progress, featuring the first of the popular Fionna and Cake episodes, as well as marking the first time that fan-submitted content was canonized. Ward also noted that the storyboard artists affected the overall tone of the show, moving it towards more bizarre and spiritual matters. The first episode of the season, "Conquest of Cuteness" was watched by 2.686 million viewers; this marked an increase in viewers watching Cartoon Network when compared to the previous season's debut. The season ended with the cliffhanger "Incendium", which was resolved at the start of season four. The season was met with largely positive critical reception. In addition, several episodes and writers were nominated for awards; the episode "Thank You" was nominated for an Annie Award as well as an award at the Sundance Film Festival. "Too Young" was nominated for an Emmy Award. Storyboard artist Rebecca Sugar was also nominated for an Annie Award. Several compilation DVDs that contained episodes from the season were released after the season finished airing. The full season set was released on February 25, 2014, on DVD and Blu-ray.
Development
Concept The season follows the adventures of Finn the Human, a human boy, and his best friend Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape and 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, and BMO. Common storylines revolve around: Finn and Jake discovering strange creatures, battling the Ice King, and battling monsters in order to help others. This season expands upon the backstories of Marceline and Ice King, and concludes with Finn attempting to understand his attraction towards Bubblegum and developing a crush on newly introduced Flame Princess.
Production After the increasing success of the series, on November 29, 2010 Deadline Hollywood announced that Cartoon Network had renewed the series for a third season. The episode titles were released on April 6, 2011, by Frederator Studios, while the show was nearing the end of its second season. Based on production numbers, "Conquest of Cuteness" was the first episode that underwent production, which was also the first episode aired. In April 2011, the storyboards for season three were nearing completion, and much of the production staff shifted its focus to the show's fourth season. The ninth episode, entitled "Fionna and Cake" takes place in a gender bent version of Ooo. The premise of this episode is that the Ice King has created a fan fiction wherein all the main characters of Adventure Time appear in the opposite gender. For instance, Finn the Human has become Fionna the Human, and Jake the Dog is now Cake the Cat. The genesis for the episode were drawings that storyboard artist Natasha Allegri posted onto the internet during her free time. Her creations were eventually canonized by the show's producers. Allegri even re-rerecorded the show's theme—which had originally been sung by series creator Pendleton Ward—for the episode. The episode had a sequel during the fifth season, focusing on Marceline's male counterpart, Marshall Lee, who is voiced by Donald Glover. Before the third season, Ward cautioned fans that, for legal reasons, he was unable to accept fan creations for characters and stories. However, the sixteenth episode, "Jake vs. Me-Mow" features the titular character Me-Mow, which was drawn by Gunnar Gilmore, aged 14. Gilmore had sketched the character and showed his mother, who forwarded it to Cartoon Network. Ward decided to include the character solely because the character was "so cute". Gilmore's original drawing was used for the episode's title card. So far, this appears to be the only fan-created character that Ward has allowed on the show. This season's episodes were produced in a process similar to those of the previous seasons. Each episode was outlined in two-to-three pages that contained the necessary plot information. These outlines were then handed to storyboard artists, who created full storyboards. Design and coloring were done at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, California, and animation was handled overseas in South Korea by Rough Draft Korea and Saerom Animation. Pendleton Ward referred to many of the writers during the third season as "really smart, smartypants people" who were responsible for inserting weirder and more spiritual ideas into the series. He attributed much of this to the background of the writers, many of whom were formerly involved in indie comics.
Cast
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