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183-466: Steven Universe is an American animated television series created by Rebecca Sugar for Cartoon Network . It tells the coming-of-age story of a young boy, Steven Universe ( Zach Callison ), who lives with the Crystal Gems—magical, mineral-based aliens named Garnet ( Estelle ), Amethyst ( Michaela Dietz ), and Pearl ( Deedee Magno Hall )—in the fictional town of Beach City. Steven, who

366-471: A Steven Universe fan is suffering", alluding to the series' irregular and unpredictable airing schedule. In an October 2020 art book for the series, Sugar stated that when clips from unaired episodes, giving away major spoilers, were leaked or those clips were used in official promotional videos, it was "very demoralizing for the crew". From June 2 to July 29, 2018, Steven Universe aired re-runs on Cartoon Network's sister channel, Boomerang . " Say Uncle "

549-489: A TCA Award , and a Sundance Film Festival Award , among others. Of the many comic book spin-offs based on the series, one received an Eisner Award and two Harvey Awards . The series has also spawned various forms of licensed merchandise , including books, video games and clothing. Adventure Time follows the adventures of a boy named Finn the Human (voiced by Jeremy Shada ), and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake

732-419: A "measured (very slow) pace", satisfying the viewer and keeping the series clear of superhero territory. Before significant plotlines aired, the writers revealed information relevant to a "climactic" episode for the audience. According to storyboard artist Hilary Florido, much of the series' action and magic are narrative climaxes, demonstrating the characters' discoveries, difficulties and views. Florido said if

915-437: A Glitch" and "Food Chain" are each unique, featuring animation courtesy of OReilly and Yuasa, respectively. Finally, the series finale, "Come Along With Me", features an introduction offering viewers a glimpse of future Ooo, 1,000 years after Finn and Jake. This intro features the new characters Shermy and Beth and is sung by the latter (voiced by Willow Smith ). The series regularly features songs and musical numbers. Many of

1098-434: A better idea and the ball just starts rolling like that". Because of the busy schedule of writing and coordinating a television series, the writers did not have time to play Dungeons and Dragons , but they still wrote stories they would "want to be playing D&D with". Sometimes, the writers and storyboard artists convened and played writing games. One game that was often used is called exquisite corpse ; one writer starts

1281-424: A better sense of what was on Pen's mind", according to Frederator's vice president Eric Homan. Ward and his college friends Patrick McHale and Adam Muto (the former of whom served as a writer, storyboard artist, and creative director for the show during its first few seasons, while the latter served as a storyboard artist and creative director for the show before becoming its showrunner) began developing ideas, all

1464-509: A brother. She wanted their gems to reflect their personalities; Pearl's perfect smoothness, Amethyst's coarseness and Garnet's air of mystery. According to Sugar, the Gems are "some version of me ... neurotic, lazy, decisive". Their facial designs were influenced by Wassily Kandinsky , who taught at the Bauhaus and encouraged his students to pair three primary colors—red, yellow and blue—with

1647-695: A building behind the main Cartoon Network studio and based on the same floor as the crew of The Powerpuff Girls CGI special. Some artists who had worked on the special, such as colorist Tiffany Ford and art directors Kevin Dart, Ellie Michalka and Jasmin Lai, were later invited to join the Steven Universe team. Cartoon Network also provided Sugar with a list of suggested writers; when she saw Ben Levin and Matt Burnett (former writers for Level Up ) on

1830-451: A bunch of atomic bombs at the end of it". Ward later called this version "really silly". He sent the draft to Cartoon Network; they did not like it and wanted something more graphical like the introduction to The Brady Bunch . Inspired by the title sequences of The Simpsons and Pee-wee's Playhouse , Ward developed a new title sequence featuring a panning sweep of the Land of Ooo while

2013-436: A character for one of her projects before Steven Universe was conceived. She approached Scharpling for the part of Greg Universe , who was originally named Tom. The Ruby Gems were voiced by Charlyne Yi , to whom Sugar wrote to say she was confident Yi would be perfect for the role. Grace Rolek , who voiced Steven's friend Connie, was 16 years old when the series began; Rolek has been a voice actor in animated productions since

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2196-409: A character's evolution is not directly related to the plot, there is no drama. The crew was discouraged from breaking perspective involving episode development as they want the audience to know the protagonist's point of view. Although the writers could hint at future events, they prefer to focus on plot and develop Steven in real time. Levin said if the pilot tried to present Gem history in five minutes,

2379-518: A child-friendly show, shifted its target group to ages 12 and up, resulting in a darker and more mature storyline. Animated film theatrical series include all early animated series: Animated Weekly (1913), The Newlyweds (1913 — 1915), Travelaughs (1913, 1915 — 1918, 1921 — 1923), Doc Yak (1913 — 1915), Colonel Heeza Liar (1913 — 1917, 1922 — 1924), Kapten Grogg  [ sv ] (1916 — 1922), Les Aventures des Pieds Nickelés (1917 — 1918),

2562-516: A child. Steven Sugar drew Beach City with a boardwalk lined with a variety of shops. He wanted it to have a "specific style" so viewers could believe it was based on a real location; he drew the roads and shops consistently oriented with the Temple and a water tower. The concept for the primary setting was inspired by Akira Toriyama 's Dr. Slump , which features a small environment in which the recurring characters live where they work. Steven Sugar made

2745-453: A composer. Sugar asked Aivi to audition and agreed that producer Surasshu could join them. Aivi & Surasshu scored a clip from " Gem Glow ", the series' first episode; Sugar liked their work and hired them as series composers. Before composing an episode, Aivi & Surasshu video chat with Sugar and the creative director to discuss the episode; they have a week to send Sugar a preview score. After any necessary changes, Aivi & Surasshu send

2928-554: A deranged Gem, Spinel, erasing the Crystal Gems' memories to take revenge for her abandonment by Steven's mother. The limited series Steven Universe Future , intended to serve as an epilogue to the main series, was announced at the 2019 New York Comic Con . Steven Universe Future premiered on December 7, 2019 and ran for a total of 20 11-minute episodes, including a four-part finale airing on March 27, 2020. Its narrative focuses on Steven dealing with his own emotional trauma in

3111-523: A great majority of the series' episodes were animated by Korean animation studios, Adventure Time occasionally featured guest animators and directors. For instance, the second-season episode " Guardians of Sunshine " was partly rendered in 3-D to emulate the style of a video game. The fifth-season episode " A Glitch is a Glitch " was written and directed by Irish filmmaker and writer David OReilly and features his distinctive 3-D animation. Animator James Baxter animated select scenes and characters in both

3294-598: A local station of a television network broadcasts an animated series as a part of its own programming, the time-slot will vary by region. All early animated television series, the first being Crusader Rabbit (1950 — 1959), are comic cartoon series. However, later series include sports ( Speed Racer , Captain Tsubasa , Slam Dunk ), action ( Hajime no Ippo , G.I. Joe ), science fiction ( Mobile Suit Gundam , Tenchi Muyo ), drama ( Neon Genesis Evangelion ), adventure ( Dragon Ball ), martial arts ( Baki

3477-503: A long break before deciding how to approach such a continuation. The follow-up TV film, Steven Universe: The Movie , was announced on July 21, 2018, at San Diego Comic-Con . A teaser was shown and was uploaded to the Cartoon Network YouTube channel. It was released on Cartoon Network commercial-free on September 2, 2019. The 82-minute film takes place two years after the events of the series finale; its plot centers on

3660-421: A male character named Mr. Cream Puff, her exact sexuality, unlike Marceline's, has not been confirmed. As such, reviewers have argued that she is either bisexual, non-binary, queer, lesbian, or a combination of some of the latter, as both live in a world where " sexuality is somewhat fluid ." Much of the series' LGBTQ+ representation was the result of storyboard artist Rebecca Sugar , who soon after joining

3843-421: A maximum of six actors stood in a semicircle. Sugar and voice director Kent Osborne attended the sessions, advising the actors about voicing the characters in specific situations. If they liked a take, the production assistant marked it and gave it to the animation editor for the episode's rough cut. When a recording session began, Sugar explained the storyboards and described the sequences, character intention and

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4026-487: A menacing but largely misunderstood ice wizard; Marceline the Vampire Queen ( Olivia Olson ), a thousand-year-old vampire and rock music enthusiast; Lumpy Space Princess (Pendleton Ward), a melodramatic and immature princess made out of "lumps"; BMO ( Niki Yang ), a sentient video game console-shaped robot that lives with Finn and Jake; and Flame Princess ( Jessica DiCicco ), a flame elemental and ruler of

4209-420: A number of best-of lists. Entertainment Weekly ranked it number 20 (out of 25) in a list of the "Greatest Animated TV Series". Similarly, The A.V. Club , in a non-ranked run-down of the "best animated series ever", called the series "one of the most distinctive cartoons currently on the air". The show has also received limited criticism from reviewers. LeChevallier, in an otherwise largely positive review of

4392-461: A number of cast members, including Maria Bamford and Andy Milonakis . The series finale aired on September 3, 2018 to largely positive reception. On October 23, 2019, Cartoon Network announced that four hour-long specials—collectively titled Adventure Time: Distant Lands —would air on HBO Max . The specials aired between 2020 and 2021. On August 17, 2021, it was announced that a second spin-off, Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake , focusing on

4575-412: A one-hit wonder". Rob Sorcher, the chief content officer at Cartoon Network, was influential in getting the network to take a chance on the show; he recognized the series as "something that felt really indie ... comic book-y [and] new". Cartoon Network asked Ward to submit a sample script for their consideration, but Frederator convinced him to rough out a storyboard instead, as "a board would give

4758-434: A production team had been appointed, Sugar tried to alter elements of the show's plot and developed the character's identity so her crew would have the freedom she did when she worked for Adventure Time . When Sugar's show was commissioned, she resigned from her role as a storyboard artist on Adventure Time to focus on her own series. Sugar focused the pilot short on the main characters and their personalities to demonstrate

4941-476: A rabid, starving, pained cult following". The format, which is also used for other Cartoon Network series, has, in the website's view, contributed to the network's spikes in Google Trends associated with each "bomb". The A.V. Club attributed the effect to Steven Universe ' s unusual—for a youth cartoon—adherence to an overarching plot, which can generate "massive swells of online interest"—similar to

5124-460: A set time period in "segments", including several such shorts. When advertising is taken into account, the cartoon itself may be only 15 — 20 minutes of the half hour, although Netflix and many other streaming companies do not show commercials. There are also series with a very short episodes lasting approximately five minutes; they have recently become more common in Japanese animation . If

5307-427: A short in which Steven's pet lion is playing with a cardboard box. The second volume contains fives minisodes that show Steven cooking, performing karaoke, reacting to "Crying Breakfast Friends!", video chatting with Lapis and Peridot, and playing a new song. According to Rebecca Sugar, she was notified in 2016 that the series would be cancelled at the end of the fifth season. She prevailed upon Cartoon Network to extend

5490-417: A short story written by Sugar entitled "Ballad of Margo and Dread", about a sensitive child helping teenagers with problems they cannot verbalize. Cartoon Network executives commissioned the show after the crew's art presentation, and Sugar became the first non-binary person to create a show independently for the network. Prior to coming out as non-binary, she was described as the first woman to do so. Before

5673-527: A similar sentiment when he wrote that Adventure Time "is the first cartoon in a long time that is pure imagination". He complimented the show for "its non-reliance on continually referencing pop culture". Eric Kohn of IndieWire said the show "represents the progress of [cartoon] medium" in the current decade. A number of reviews have positively compared the series and its creators to other culturally significant works and individuals, respectively. In 2013, Entertainment Weekly reviewer Darren Franich called

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5856-406: A solid color in the background. The sequence was finalized immediately before the series aired. The show's eponymous theme song is sung by Ward, accompanied by a ukulele . It is first heard in the pilot episode; in that version, Ward is accompanied by an acoustic guitar. For the version used in the series, Ward sang in a higher register to match the ukulele's range. The theme song's final version

6039-533: A story on a sheet of paper, and another writer tries to finish it. But while a few episodes (such as the fifth-season episode " Puhoy " and the sixth-season episode " Jake the Brick ") have been generated using this game, Ward has said that "the ideas are usually terrible". Former storyboard artist and creative director Cole Sanchez said episode scripts are either created by expanding the good ideas produced by these writing games, or are based on an idea proposed by

6222-521: A storyboard artist in the hope it can be developed into an episode. After the writers pitched stories, the ideas were compiled onto a two-or-three-page outline that contained "the important beats". The episodes were then passed to storyboard artists (often called "boarders"). While many cartoons are based on script pitches to network executives, Cartoon Network allowed Adventure Time to "build their own teams organically" and communicate using storyboards and animatics . Rob Sorcher said this novel approach

6405-399: A storyline could be difficult for the writers. According to Ben Levin, writing a season of Steven Universe was like a "jigsaw puzzle" because the writing team must assemble a number of plot ideas, which were discarded if they do not benefit character growth. After further discussion and questions about the writing, an idea would become an episode. After discussing a season's proposed episodes,

6588-455: A synthesizer note rose slowly until the main theme was played. Ward's draft for this idea was handed to layout animators, who then finalized the timing for the sequence. From there, the sequence evolved; while Ward added "silly character stuff", Patrick McHale focused his attention on the Ice King's shot and gave him a "high school [year]book" smile. The crew also struggled to get the shadows in

6771-494: A temp track, ambient noises can be heard throughout. For instance, the sound of Derek Drymon typing can be heard while Jake is walking through the Ice Kingdom. According to Ward, much of the series' music has similar "hiss and grit" because one of the show's original composers, Casey James Basichis, "lives in a pirate ship he's built inside of an apartment [and] you can hear floorboards squeak and lots of other weird sounds". As

6954-479: A third season of 26 half-hours in July 2015. In March 2016, a production shuffle saw the second and third seasons subdivided to create four seasons of 13 half-hours each, making a total of five seasons. Finally, in 2016, following the decision to end the series, Sugar petitioned Cartoon Network to extend the fifth season by three extra half-hours to wrap up the story, making it 16 half-hours total. The series premiered in

7137-530: A way that manages to satisfy both a desire for sophisticated (i.e., weird) writing and plain old silliness". Adventure Time has been complimented for its resemblance to cartoons of the past. In an article for the Los Angeles Times , television critic Robert Lloyd compared the series to "the sort of cartoons they made when cartoons themselves were young and delighted in bringing all things to rubbery life". Robert Mclaughlin of Den of Geek expressed

7320-451: A week to "thumbnail" (roughly sketch out) a storyboard and fill in the details complete with action, dialogue, and jokes. The series' showrunner and his creative directors then reviewed the storyboard and made notes. The artists were then given another week to implement the notes and to clean up the episode. Storyboard writing and revising usually took up to a month. Following the writing revisions, voice actors would record their parts for

7503-526: A week. Starting in November 2014, the show began to air new episodes via "bombs", or weeks in which new episodes debuted every day. This change in airing style disrupted the viewing patterns of some fans, as Dave Trumbore of Collider explained: "Back when [the show] was regularly airing in a more traditional schedule, it was a little easier to keep track of the completely insane episodes full of half-explained mythology and lots and lots of non-sequiturs. During

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7686-420: Is storyboard -driven; the show's storyboard artists were responsible for writing the dialogue and creating the action in addition to drawing the storyboards. The series developed a broad fanbase and has been critically acclaimed for its design, music, voice acting, characterization, prominence of LGBTQ themes, and science fantasy worldbuilding. The series ranked #99 on BBC's 100 Greatest Television Series of

7869-627: Is a crossover episode with Uncle Grandpa that aired on April 2, 2015. In the episode, Uncle Grandpa helps Steven use his Gem powers when he cannot summon his shield. The episode contains an acknowledgement by Uncle Grandpa that the episode is not canonical . Steven, Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and other Cartoon Network characters from current and former shows made cameo appearances in the Uncle Grandpa episode "Pizza Eve". Additionally, Garnet appeared in "Crossover Nexus", an episode of OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes , which aired on October 8, 2018. In

8052-403: Is about my father dying". Critics have suggested that the show has grown and matured as it has aged. In a review of season four, for instance, Mike LeChevallier of Slant magazine complimented the show for "growing up" with its characters. He concluded that the series has "strikingly few faults" and awarded the fourth season three-and-a-half stars out of four. The series has been included on

8235-458: Is an American fantasy animated television series created by Pendleton Ward and co-produced by Frederator Studios for Cartoon Network . The series follows the adventures of a boy named Finn ( Jeremy Shada ) and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake ( John DiMaggio )—a dog with the power to change size and shape at will. Finn and Jake live in the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, where they interact with Princess Bubblegum ( Hynden Walch ),

8418-534: Is half-Gem, has adventures with his friends and helps the Gems protect the world from their own kind. The pilot was first shown in May 2013, and the series ran for five seasons, from November 2013 to January 2019. The TV film Steven Universe: The Movie was released in September 2019, and an epilogue limited series , Steven Universe Future , ran from December 2019 to March 2020. Books, comics and video games based on

8601-478: Is sung by Olson; the introduction to Islands (2017) adopts a nautical theme, highlights the principal characters in the miniseries, and is sung by Shada; and the intro to Elements (2017) features imagery reflecting the four primary elements in the Adventure Time universe (that is: fire, ice, slime, and candy) and is sung by Hynden Walch. The introductions to the guest-animated episodes "A Glitch Is

8784-493: The Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake spin-off, which were released on Max . Two additional spin-offs, entitled Adventure Time: Side Quests and Adventure Time: Heyo BMO , have also been greenlit by Cartoon Network Studios as of June 2024. Adventure Time was a ratings success for Cartoon Network, with some of its episodes attracting over three million viewers, and despite being aimed primarily at children,

8967-713: The Tom and Jerry cartoon short films released in movie theatres from 1940 to 1967, and many others. Direct-to-video animated series include most Japanese original video animations (OVAs). The first OVA series (and also the first overall OVA) was Dallos (1983 — 1985). Almost all hentai (pornographic) anime series are released as OVAs. Animated web series are designed and produced for streaming services . Examples include Happy Tree Friends (1999 — 2023) and Eddsworld (2003 — present). They can also be released on YouTube , such as Asdfmovie , which debuted in 2008. Adventure Time Adventure Time

9150-516: The Ice King ( Tom Kenny ), Marceline ( Olivia Olson ), BMO ( Niki Yang ), and others. The series is based on a 2007 short film that aired on Nicktoons . After the short became a viral hit on the Internet, Nickelodeon 's executives passed on its option before Cartoon Network commissioned a full-length series from Fred Seibert and Ward, which was previewed on March 11, 2010. The same year,

9333-417: The Steven Universe production crew to begin working after their pre-production presentation, for which the crew were well-prepared. The episodes "Cheeseburger Backpack" and "Together Breakfast" were developed at this time. Although Sugar works as executive producer on the series' art, animation and sound, she considers herself "the most hands on" at the storyboarding stage. The episode outlines were passed to

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9516-474: The "puzzle" was complete, and they began writing a major story arc or a season finale. Burnett said writing a season was like an algebraic equation "where one side is the season finale, and the x's and y's are the episodes we need for that solution to make sense"; he cited "Ocean Gem", " Steven the Sword Fighter ", "Monster Buddies", "An Indirect Kiss" and "Serious Steven" as examples. Those episodes led to

9699-478: The 1990s, more mature content than those of traditional cartoon series began to appear more widely, extending beyond a primary audience of children. These cartoon series included The Simpsons , South Park , Family Guy , Futurama , The Ren & Stimpy Show , Rocko's Modern Life , Beavis and Butt-Head , King of the Hill , and Duckman . Canadian computer-animated series ReBoot , which began as

9882-402: The 21st Century , and appeared on various best-of animated lists. It received numerous accolades, including a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Program in 2019 , becoming the first animated series to win the award, and a Peabody Award for Children's & Youth Programming in 2019, and nominations for five Emmy Awards and five Annie Awards . Steven Universe is set in

10065-467: The Crystal Gems are fugitives from a great interstellar empire. During their missions they visit ruins that were once important to Gem culture but have been derelict for millennia. The Gems are cut off from the Gem homeworld, and Steven learns that many of the monsters and artifacts they encounter are Gems who were corrupted by a Gem weapon of mass destruction and can no longer maintain rational, humanoid form. By

10248-450: The Crystal Gems are intended to be serious characters, the writers wanted them to be "funny and weird" as well. According to Sugar, production for Steven Universe began while she was working on Adventure Time , her last episode for which was " Simon & Marcy ". Working on both series simultaneously became impossible; she also encountered difficulty in the production of the episode " Bad Little Boy ". Cartoon Network executives authorized

10431-527: The Crystal Gems' former leader Rose Quartz. As Steven tries to understand his gradually expanding range of powers, he spends his days accompanying the Gems on their missions, as well as interacting with his father Greg, his best friend Connie, his magical pet lion, and the other residents of Beach City. He explores the abilities inherited from his mother, which include fusion—the ability of Gems to merge their bodies and abilities to form new, more powerful personalities. The series' first season gradually reveals that

10614-539: The Dog ( John DiMaggio ), who has magical powers to change shape and size at will. Pendleton Ward , the series' creator, describes Finn as a "fiery little kid with strong morals". Jake, on the other hand, is based on Tripper Harrison, Bill Murray 's character in Meatballs . This means that while Jake is somewhat carefree, he will "sit [Finn] down and give him some decent advice if he really needs it". Finn and Jake live in

10797-745: The Fire Kingdom. According to series creator Pendleton Ward, the show's style was influenced by his time attending the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) and his experiences working as a writer and storyboard artist on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack , a series that ran on Cartoon Network from 2008 until 2010. In an interview with Animation World Network , Ward said he strove to combine Adventure Time ' s subversive humor with "beautiful" moments, using Hayao Miyazaki 's film My Neighbor Totoro as inspiration for

10980-470: The Gem mythology and drama would have been less interesting if Steven was not as well-developed in the first few episodes. Grateful to work on a show which was unafraid to be "sincere and vulnerable", he said if every episode was emotional, the series would become formulaic; happy episodes balance out emotional ones. Levin said he and Burnett have found ways to integrate Steven's powers into the plot. The character's powers and home-world technology are revealed at

11163-459: The Grappler ), and other genres. The first animated sitcom was The Flintstones (1960 — 1966), produced by Hanna-Barbera . It was followed by other sitcoms of this studio: Top Cat (1961 — 1962), Jonny Quest (1964 — 1965), The Jetsons (1962 — 1963, 1985, 1987) and Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (1972 — 1974), an adult-oriented animated series in

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11346-410: The Internet. Frederator then pitched an Adventure Time series to Nicktoons Network, which rejected it five times. When Nicktoons' rights to commission a full series expired, Frederator pitched it to other channels. One of the studios that Frederator approached was Cartoon Network, which was interested in producing a full series, but would commit to a deal only if Ward could prove the pilot "wasn't

11529-678: The Light , was released for consoles in October 2017. Another sequel, Steven Universe: Unleash the Light , was released exclusively on Apple Arcade in November 2019. It was then rereleased on PC (Steam) and consoles in February 2021. A rhythm-based mobile game, Steven Universe: Soundtrack Attack , was released on July 21, 2016, in the United States. A player-created Gem flees her pursuer through side-scrolling stages set to remixes of

11712-584: The U.S. worked on retakes, music scoring , and sound design . Upon being completed, the animation was sent back to the U.S., at which point the production crew inspected it, looking for mistakes in the animation or "things that didn't animate the way [the staff] intended". These problems were then fixed in Korea and the animation was finalized. From story outlining to broadcast, it took between eight and nine months for each episode to be created; because of this, multiple episodes were worked on concurrently. While

11895-705: The United States on November 4, 2013, on Cartoon Network with two episodes. In Canada, it began airing on Cartoon Network on November 11, 2013, and on Teletoon on April 24, 2014. It began airing on Cartoon Network channels in Australia on February 3, 2014, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on May 12 of that year. Beginning in 2015, Cartoon Network often aired new episodes in groups of five over one week—marketed as "Stevenbombs"—rather than one episode per week. The hiatuses between groups have irritated fans, according to The A.V. Club causing "agonized cries of

12078-632: The Vampire Queen). Ward voices several minor characters and 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 Ward's mother Bettie Ward, voices the small elephant Tree Trunks . The Adventure Time cast members recorded their lines together at group recording sessions rather than individually, with

12261-487: The [television] demo[graphic that Cartoon Network targets] and we won't have completed a thought for them. Consequently, on September 29, 2016, Cartoon Network confirmed that the series would conclude after its tenth season. The final episode of the series is a special, titled "Come Along with Me"; the special was written and storyboarded by Tom Herpich , Steve Wolfhard , Seo Kim, Somvilay Xayaphone, Hanna K. Nyström, Aleks Sennwald, and Sam Alden, and Graham Falk . The story

12444-551: The aftermath of the events of the series. A number of companion books have been published: Nonfiction books covering the development of the franchise and compiling production artwork have also been published: The tactical role-playing video game Steven Universe: Attack the Light! was released on April 2, 2015, for iOS and Android devices. It was developed by Grumpyface Studios in collaboration with Sugar for mobile devices. Players control Steven and three Crystal Gems to fight light monsters. A sequel, Steven Universe: Save

12627-440: The age of five or six. The show's four main voice actors—Callison, Dietz, Magno Hall and Estelle—spent three to four hours recording per session; three to four weeks a month for ten months each year. Cast members could be recorded together or separately; they would often record multiple episodes. Each recording session covered a new episode and included retakes for that episode or previous ones if needed. In group recording sessions,

12810-444: The aim of recording natural-sounding dialogue. Hynden Walch has described these group recordings as akin to "doing a play reading—a really, really out there play". The series regularly employed guest actors for minor and recurring characters, and crew members cast people with whom they were interested in working. For instance, in a panel, Muto and Kent Osborne said the Adventure Time crew often sought out actors who had had roles in

12993-436: The air soon. Those who knew Rebecca Sugar from Adventure Time were also interested. Positive reaction to the show reassured its crew. To prepare for the show's commissioning by Cartoon Network, Sugar began assembling a production crew. Jackie Buscarino was engaged as a producer in September 2012 and was tasked with hiring people and supervising the show's crew. During this period of development, Sugar and her team were moved to

13176-419: The animators. Mouth assignments for the characters, describing mouth shapes and timing for lip-syncing, followed. The episode would then be sent to one of the animation studios. The black-and-white version was sent first, followed about two weeks later by the colored version. The animation was drawn and inked on paper , then scanned and colored digitally. Afterward, the crew would a "work print" meeting to discuss

13359-416: The arrival of hostile envoys Peridot and Jasper. In the second season, Peridot allies with and eventually joins the Crystal Gems to prevent Earth's destruction by a Gem "geo-weapon" buried in the planet. During the third season, Lapis Lazuli decides to live on Earth with Peridot; Jasper is defeated and captured; and Steven learns that his mother assassinated one of the Gem empire's matriarchs, Pink Diamond. In

13542-638: The art director was Kevin Dart, followed by Jasmin Lai, Elle Michalka, and Ricky Cometa. Dart's artistic style has remained a great influence on the show long after his departure. Steven Sugar praised Dart's work and was inspired by him in college years, saying Dart had more ideas for the art than he did. In the pilot, only two locations appeared (the Temple and the Big Donut). The Temple was designed by Ian Jones-Quartey, Steven Sugar, Ben Levin, Matt Burnett, Tom Herpich and Andy Ristaino . The Temple's dual faces were based on Guy Davis' ideas. Steven Sugar designed

13725-423: The art presentation, Jones-Quartey, Guy, Hynes and Steven Sugar created artwork that differed from their previous work. Jones-Quartey wanted to work with something new, retaining elements of the show's previous project. He worked with Elle Michalka, who later took over his role as background painter for the presentation, to create concept art for an "action-comedy" series. Around this time, Jones-Quartey added stars to

13908-541: The audience and protagonist would be equally confused. During storyboard meetings, artists drew their ideas on post-it notes , which are then attached to walls, table and boxes in the corners of their conference room. The drawings played a major role in forming episode ideas; Sugar looked at these designs and occasionally made changes to key poses. Sugar liked to review and re-draw scenes and characters to add extra pathos and emotion to storyboards. Each episode's storyboards were created by two artists, each of whom wrote half of

14091-412: The backgrounds, believing the key to worldbuilding is "having a cohesive underlying structure to everything". Former art director Elle Michalka said the backgrounds' artistic style was inspired by French post-impressionist painter Paul Cézanne , whose apparent lack of focus belied detail and specificity. The art was also inspired by Tao Te Ching , whose work highlights the importance of empty spaces, "like

14274-488: The backgrounds, they used one primary and several secondary colors; Amanda Winterston and Jasmin Lai found suitable color combinations. After the primary backgrounds were painted, they are sent to the color stylist, who chooses colors for a character or prop from model sheets, matching and complementing the storyboard and background. The lines of the character or prop were rarely colored. The lines are removed when scenes need light effects. The coloring in early season one episodes

14457-535: The backstory of the Ice King and the exploration of his condition in the third-season episode " Holly Jolly Secrets ", the fourth-season episode " I Remember You ", and the fifth-season episode " Simon & Marcy ", noting that his origin is "psychologically plausible". Grossman praised the way the series was able to tackle the issues of mental illness , saying: "It's very affecting. My dad has been going through having Alzheimer's , and he's forgotten so much about who he used to be. And I look at him and think this cartoon

14640-445: The boardwalk the focus of Steven Universe ' s human world. During the early stages of production, Sugar worked on character appearance and personality development simultaneously; during this process of conception, she was heavily inspired by fantasy television characters she and her brother used to draw when they were younger. Lead character designer Danny Hynes, influenced by the design of Mickey Mouse by Disney artists, wanted

14823-413: The bombs have fallen and magic has come back into the world". Before the series was fully developed, Ward intended the Land of Ooo to simply be "magical". After the production of the episode "Business Time", in which an iceberg containing reanimated businessmen floats to the surface of a lake, the show became explicitly post-apocalyptic; Ward said the production crew "just ran with it". Ward later described

15006-521: The boundaries of the PG rating, noting in an interview with Art of the Title that he "never really even thought about the rating ... we don't like stuff that's overly gross. We like cute stuff and nice things". Ward intended the show's world to have a coherent physical logic, and although magic exists in the story, the show's writers tried to create an internal consistency in the characters' interactions with

15189-435: The cast members—including Shada, Kenny, and Olson—sing their characters' songs. Characters often express their emotions in song; examples of this include Marceline's song "I'm Just Your Problem" (from season three's " What Was Missing ") and Finn's "All Gummed Up Inside" (from season three's " Incendium "). While the series' background music is composed by Basichis and Kiefer, the songs sung by characters are often written by

15372-552: The channel's website. Animated series Animated television series are presented daily or on certain days of the week during a prescribed time slot , including for example saturday-morning cartoons , prime time cartoons , late night anime , and weekday cartoons ; series broadcast only on weekends. The duration of an episode also varies. Traditionally, they are produced as complete half-hour or nearly half-hour programs; however, many are presented as animated shorts of 10 — 11 minutes, which can be combined for filling

15555-450: The characters to be standardized, simple and recognizable. He proposed 24 human characters to the crew; Rebecca and Steven Sugar drew 22 designs—13 of which were made official. The coloring was done by Jones-Quartey. Rebecca Sugar merged several characters during the pilot development; supporting characters Lars and Sadie were originally created when she was in college. The Pizza family was based on Jones-Quartey's Ghanaian family, and Ronaldo

15738-446: The damage they have caused. In 2011, after former Cartoon Network vice-president of comedy animation Curtis Lelash asked the staff for ideas for a new series, Rebecca Sugar—an artist working for the network's series Adventure Time —described her initial ideas for what would become Steven Universe , and the project was chosen for development. While developing her show, Sugar continued working on Adventure Time . The series evolved from

15921-434: The debut was on January 1, 2021. " Adventure Time makes me wish I were a kid again, just so I could grow up to be as awesome as the kids who are currently watching Adventure Time will be". Entertainment Weekly staff. The show has received universal acclaim from critics. The A.V. Club reviewer Zack Handlen called it "a terrific show [that] fits beautifully in that gray area between kid and adult entertainment in

16104-449: The designs for her characters simple, flexible and consistent so the production team members would not become bogged down by over-complex details. This redesigning meant the appearances of the characters in the pilot episode differs substantially from their depiction in the television series. Sugar wanted the Gems to resemble humans; she developed the Crystal Gems to ride a roller coaster of family life with Steven, whom they would treat like

16287-496: The dialogue and drew panels similar to comic strips. This process could be quite complex; the storyboard artists would have to create the cinematography and focus on scenic design in a way similar to film production. After the panels were made, the thumbnail-storyboard artists drew mannerisms and dialogue based on their own experiences; Sugar drew "quintessential" scenes from her memories of hanging out with her brother after school. The storyboard artists then discussed their work with

16470-470: The end of the first season, Steven learns that, millennia ago, the Gem empire intended to sterilize the Earth to incubate new Gems, but Rose Quartz led her supporters, the Crystal Gems, in a violent and apparently successful rebellion against this genocidal plan. The discovery and release of Lapis Lazuli, a Gem trapped on Earth for millennia, puts the Crystal Gems at risk from the Gem empire once more, leading to

16653-432: The episode and review it for errors. DeMayo noted any errors, removed them and sent the episode back to the animation studio or to Cartoon Network's post-production department to fix any remaining issues. Minor animation mistakes or omissions were fixed by the crew. American actor Zach Callison voiced Steven. The role of Steven is his first lead role on television. For his audition, Callison spoke ten lines of dialogue from

16836-469: The episode, Garnet teamed up with K.O. , Ben Tennyson from Ben 10 and Raven from Teen Titans Go! to stop the villain Strike. Two volumes of mini-episodes have been released by Cartoon Network. The first one includes the extended title theme "We Are the Crystal Gems"; shorts in which the Crystal Gems teach Steven about Gems in a classroom setting; an unboxing video of Steven's new duffel bag; and

17019-710: The episodes and an animatic would be compiled to reduce the running time to the necessary 11 minutes. Specialized artists then created prop, character, and background designs. According to Rynda, most of this pre-production was done in Photoshop . While the episodes' design and coloring was done at Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank, California , the actual animation was handled in South Korea by either Rough Draft Korea or Saerom Animation . Animating an episode often took between three and five months. The animation

17202-462: The evolution of the series, its characters and their relationships. Sound motifs and palettes were also created for locations, objects and abstract concepts. When Sugar or the other writers wrote a song for an episode, they would record a demo that was sent to the composers. The same musical style for a song and the character singing appeared for each song. Over time, the songs had become increasingly complex and production has become more difficult because

17385-418: The fictional town of Beach City, Delmarva , where the Crystal Gems live in an ancient beachside temple and protect humanity from monsters and other threats. The Gems are ageless alien warriors who project female humanoid forms from magical gemstones at the core of their being. The Crystal Gems comprise Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and Steven—a young, half-human, half-Gem boy who inherited his gemstone from his mother,

17568-452: The fifth season to 32 episodes, in order to have room to complete the story, as well as a follow-up television film , Steven Universe: The Movie . Along with the film, Cartoon Network also greenlit an additional season of 20 episodes, which would become the sequel series Steven Universe Future , taking place after the events of the film. Despite the show's end, Sugar has indicated that more stories could exist, but has stated that she needs

17751-531: The fifth-season episode " James Baxter the Horse " as well as the eighth-season episode "Horse & Ball". The sixth-season episode " Food Chain " was written, storyboarded, and directed by Japanese anime director Masaaki Yuasa , and animated entirely by Yuasa's studio Science SARU . Another sixth-season episode, " Water Park Prank ", features Flash animation by David Ferguson. The stop-motion episode " Bad Jubies ", directed by Kirsten Lepore , aired near

17934-503: The finale" before production ended. In an interview with TV Guide , Muto explained that the show's writers used many of the episodes preceding the finale to conclude minor character story arcs "so we wouldn't have to cram too much in at the very end here." This allowed the finale itself to be "less dense" by simply "hitting the big [beats] and then finding vignettes for all the characters ... so we could get snapshots of where they could end up." According to Pendarvis, storyline writing for

18117-443: The first season of Adventure Time ), Merriwether Williams (who served as head story editor for the show's first and second seasons), and Nick Jennings (who became the series' long-serving art director). Drymon, in particular, played a key role at this time, ensuring that both Cartoon Network and the show's production crew were on the same creative page. Thurop Van Orman , the creator of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack ,

18300-411: The first season. He assembled a team made up largely of "younger, inexperienced people", many of whom he discovered on the Internet. Many of these individuals had backgrounds in indie comics , and Ward has called them "really smart, smartypants people" who were responsible for inserting more idiosyncratic and spiritual ideas into the series. For the show's first four and a half seasons, Ward served as

18483-404: The forefront of the series' plot. During the last seasons of Adventure Time , there was talk at Cartoon Network about concluding the series. Olivia Olson , who provided the voice of Marceline, said that since this discussion wore on for a while and "the ending of the show was getting stretched and stretched and stretched". Chief content officer Rob Sorcher told the Los Angeles Times of

18666-439: The fourth season, as Steven wrestles with his conflicted feelings about his mother's actions, the Gem empire leaders Blue Diamond and Yellow Diamond begin to turn their full attention to Earth. In the fifth and final season, Steven learns that in fact his mother was Pink Diamond, who faked her death to assume the identity of Rose Quartz; he uses this revelation to persuade the other Diamonds to try to take responsibility for and fix

18849-421: The gender-swapped Fionna and Cake characters, was ordered by HBO Max. On June 12, 2024, it was revealed that two additional spin-offs, entitled Adventure Time: Side Quests and Adventure Time: Heyo BMO , had also been greenlit by Cartoon Network Studios. Each Adventure Time episode is about eleven minutes in length; pairs of episodes are often telecast in order to fill a half-hour program time slot. Before

19032-440: The last few seasons, however, [when] the episodes started to arrive in more of a scattershot fashion scheduled around multi-part specials [it became easier to miss] the random airings of certain episodes". The series' initial run concluded in 2018, after the airing of its tenth season. Reruns have aired on Boomerang and Adult Swim . Upon its debut, Adventure Time was a ratings success for Cartoon Network. In March 2013, it

19215-403: The latter. Ward has also named Home Movies and Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist as influences, largely because both shows are "relaxing" and feature "conversational dialogue that feels natural [and is neither] over the top [nor] cartoony and shrill". The series can trace its origin to a seven-minute, stand-alone animated short film of the same name (this short was later identified as

19398-464: The list she immediately asked them to join her team because she was familiar with their work. Freelance artist Danny Hynes, whom the former supervising director Ian Jones-Quartey knew from his own project Lakewood Plaza Turbo , became the show's lead character designer. Steven Sugar was assigned as the background designer after his work on the original pilot, and was assisted by Dart, Michalka, Lai, background painter Amanda Winterston and others. During

19581-427: The little brother". When the original pilot was presented to Cartoon Network executives, they told the crew the series would air in 2013. Cartoon Network released the original pilot in May 2013. Sugar and her team panicked because the series was going to be very different from the pilot episode. The pilot was popular when it was released, engendering forum discussions in which people expressed their hopes of seeing it on

19764-593: The middle of the show's seventh season . Finally, Alex and Lindsay Small-Butera, noted for their web series Baman Piderman , contributed animation to the eighth-season episode "Beyond the Grotto" and the ninth-season episode " Ketchup ". The series' 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

19947-431: The network's decision to end the series, saying: Adventure Time was playing less and less on Cartoon Network, yet we were moving towards a large volume of episodes. And I really began thinking "[The end] can't come quickly as a sudden company decision, it needs to be a conversation over a period of time." And it did also strike me that if we don't wind this up soon, we're going to have a generation of fans graduate through

20130-428: The official debut of the first season, Cartoon Network aired both "Business Time" and " Evicted! " on March 11 and 18, respectively, advertising these showings as "previews" of the series-to-come. The show officially debuted with "Slumber Party Panic" on April 5, 2010. During the latter part of its run, the show began to experiment with the miniseries format. The first of these was Stakes (2015), which aired during

20313-444: The original Nicktoons short. This tactic proved successful, and in September 2008, Cartoon Network approved a first season, which was produced by Cartoon Network Studios . "The Enchiridion!" was the first episode to enter into production. Ward and his production team began storyboarding episodes and writing plot outlines, but Cartoon Network was still concerned about the direction of the new series. McHale later recalled that during

20496-557: The pilot and sang the theme song while being recorded. Garnet, the Crystal Gem leader, was voiced by Estelle , a singer, songwriter and actor. Cartoon Network asked Estelle to take the part, her first voice-acting role. Steven Universe was also the first animation voice role for actor Michaela Dietz who voices Amethyst and The Party singer Deedee Magno Hall who voices Pearl. Sugar wanted Tom Scharpling , whom she knew from his podcast The Best Show with Tom Scharpling , to voice

20679-400: The pilot helped Sugar develop the show's concept; she said, "to know that there is so much more that you can't see and the way that knowledge frustrates and excites and confuses and scares you". The title character Steven is loosely based on Steven Sugar, Rebecca's younger brother. During Steven Universe 's development, Sugar repeatedly asked her brother whether naming the show after him

20862-670: The pitch of an episode titled "Brothers in Insomnia" (which, for various reasons, was scrapped) the room was filled with executives from Cartoon Network. The pitch went well, but the production staff was soon inundated with questions about the stylistic nature of the series. Around this time, Cartoon Network paused the production of the show in an attempt to resolve these creative issues. A number of writers and animators were let go, and in their place, Cartoon Network management hired three veteran animators who had worked on SpongeBob SquarePants : Derek Drymon (who served as executive producer for

21045-468: The post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, which was ravaged by a cataclysmic event known as the "Mushroom War", a nuclear war that destroyed civilization a thousand years before the series' events. Throughout the series, Finn and Jake interact with major characters, including Princess Bubblegum ( Hynden Walch ), the sovereign of the Candy Kingdom and a sentient piece of gum ; the Ice King ( Tom Kenny ),

21228-462: The premise was later changed. Sugar developed the Gems' history in conjunction with the pilot episode. While the first season of the show introduced the human and Gem characters and their relationships, Sugar began to plot and explore second-season storylines involving the Crystal Gems. Eventually, Sugar created a chart with taped printouts about a 2,000-year Gem and Earth history, with a number of events needing to be "fleshed out" for production. Although

21411-481: The premises and outlines while the storyboarders wrote and drew the episodes. Everyone would wait at least a day to get together and discuss. The writers wrote potential episode names on paper cards, which they pinned on the conference room wall to review what they have written and plan their meetings. They discussed episode pacing and varied each season's texture by balancing "lighter" and "heavier" story arcs. Changes in major-character appearances—such as Yellow Diamond—in

21594-413: The previous year. The program was viewed by 1.661 million children aged 2–11, which marked a 110 percent increase from the previous year's figures. It was watched by 837,000 children aged 9–14, a 239 percent increase on the previous year's figures. Between the second and sixth seasons, the show's ratings continued to grow; the second-season premiere was watched by 2.001 million viewers,

21777-497: The production crew "became more aware of what we're really saying by excluding [LGBTQ] characters" from children's TV—a situation which felt "more and more dire" to her. She thus began working hard to put "LGBTQIA characters in G-rated content" in the years to follow. Zeroing in on the relationship between Marceline and Bubblegum, Sugar tried to foster their relationship. In a March 2021 Vanity Fair interview, Sugar said that she

21960-412: The public was revived. On November 20, 2015, the label Spacelab9 released a limited-edition 12" LP featuring many of Marceline's songs, followed by a 38-song series soundtrack in October 2016. The show is set in the fictional "Land of Ooo", in a post-apocalyptic future about a thousand years after a nuclear holocaust called the "Great Mushroom War". According to Ward, the show takes place "after

22143-506: The relationship between them; Osborne did the recording. Before the sessions, Sugar and the voice actors discussed new plot elements and showed them the advanced storyboards. Magno Hall said she enjoyed the group recording sessions because the funny faces the cast members make while recording lines requiring emotion or movement often cause them to laugh. Steven Universe features songs and musical numbers produced by Sugar and her writers, who collaborated on each song's lyrics. Multiple drafts of

22326-425: The release of full seasons of adult TV series—which are "crucial to a network's vitality in an increasingly internet-based television world". In May 2018, Cartoon Network apologized to fans after one of the channel's promotional videos contained unaired footage with significant spoilers for future episodes. In response to the video, former series producer Ian Jones-Quartey noted in a later-deleted tweet that "being

22509-573: The rest of Beach City for the series; he was painstaking in his attention to detail. Sugar also designed people, houses, cars, buildings and restaurants. Because of Rebecca Sugar's redesigned drawings, the two original locations had to be redrawn. To find inspiration for the show's backgrounds, the Sugars and Jones-Quartey went to their favorite beaches. The series' setting, Beach City, is loosely based on Delaware beaches Rehoboth Beach , Bethany Beach and Dewey Beach , all of which Rebecca Sugar visited as

22692-548: The rest of the crew and make any necessary changes. After the team discussion, the storyboard artists drew a revised board—based on the thumbnail board—on a full-size panel with notes. The storyboards are again discussed, corrected and finally approved. The production of background art would begin after the approved storyboards were received. If the characters visited old locations, the pre-existing backgrounds would be modified for authenticity; locations would likely change slightly over time. Steven Sugar liked to hide narrative bits in

22875-410: The score to Sabre Media Studios for the final mix with their sound designs. Each character has a leitmotif expressing their personality, which changes slightly depending on the situation. Pearl is often accompanied by a piano, Garnet by a synth bass, Amethyst by a drum machine with electric bass and synths, and Steven with chiptune tones. Sound palettes were produced for the human characters to represent

23058-482: The season with the episode "The Thin Yellow Line", for a total of 26 episodes. This new episode count for the season was cemented by the release of the complete seventh season DVD on July 18, 2017, which included episodes "Bonnie & Neddy" through "The Thin Yellow Line". As such, the episode and season number sequence is accordingly changed, as follows: For its first six seasons, episodes regularly aired once

23241-543: The season-one finale as a minor story arc. To develop new ideas for episodes, the writers played writing games. In one, a scenario with characters was drawn and passed to another writer. The second writer added a few sentences before giving it to a third, until the drawing had a three-act story. Episodes such as "Island Adventure", "Future Boy Zoltron" and "Onion Friend" were written this way. The writers also played drawing games, which designed new Gem characters and technological ideas. Burnett said he and Levin used fewer ideas from

23424-521: The seasons have been released on DVD, and the first six have been released domestically on Blu-ray . A box set containing the entire series was released on DVD on April 30, 2019. On March 30, 2013, the first season of Adventure Time was made available on the Netflix Instant Watch service for online streaming; the second season was made available on March 30, 2014. Both seasons were removed from Netflix on March 30, 2015. The series

23607-556: The series "a hybrid sci-fi/fantasy/horror/musical/fairy tale, with echoes of Calvin and Hobbes , Hayao Miyazaki, Final Fantasy , Richard Linklater , Where the Wild Things Are , and the music video you made with your high school garage band". Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker praised Adventure Time ' s unique approach to emotion, humor, and philosophy by likening it to " World of Warcraft as recapped by Carl Jung ". Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club concluded that

23790-427: The series during her travels, accompanying herself on a ukulele. Not every episode features a song; according to Sugar, she uses them occasionally, to avoid forced creativity. Most of the show's incidental music was composed by the chiptune piano duo Aivi & Surasshu , with guitars by Stemage . Jeff Liu, who was familiar with producer Aivi's musical score for the video game Cryamore , recommended them to Sugar as

23973-409: The series ended in mid-November 2016, with the last storyline meeting held on November 21. A tweet by Osborne revealed that the series' final script was pitched to storyboarders, with Alden and Nyström in attendance, on November 28. This episode was then pitched to the show's producers during the third week of December 2016. Voice recording for the episode ended on January 31, 2017, as confirmed by

24156-426: The series have been released. The themes of the series include love, family, and the importance of healthy interpersonal relationships. Sugar based the lead character on her younger brother Steven, who was an artist for the series. She developed Steven Universe while she was a writer and storyboard artist on Adventure Time , which she left when Cartoon Network commissioned her series for full production. The series

24339-423: The series on a limited basis. Ward—a self-professed fan of ambivalent emotions , such as feeling "happy and scared at the same time"—has called the show a "dark comedy". He has also cited the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons —of which many of the show's writers are devotees—as an inspiration for the show. In the United States, the series is rated TV-PG ; Ward said he never wanted to push

24522-569: The series premiered on Cartoon Network on April 5, and it ended its eight-year run on September 3, 2018. The series drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and video games. It was produced using hand-drawn animation; action and dialogue for episodes are decided by storyboarding artists based on rough outlines. Because each episode took roughly eight to nine months to complete, multiple episodes were worked on concurrently. The cast members recorded their lines in group recordings, and

24705-522: The series regularly employed guest actors for minor and recurring characters. Each episode runs for about eleven minutes; pairs of episodes are often telecast to fill half-hour program slots. Cartoon Network announced on September 29, 2016, that the series would conclude in 2018, after the airing of its tenth season. The series finale aired on September 3, 2018, which was followed by the Adventure Time: Distant Lands specials and

24888-479: The series runs a different intro sequence that mirrors the original, with the major exception that all the characters are gender-bent , and the theme is sung by former storyboard revisionist Natasha Allegri . Likewise, the intro to the series' three miniseries are each unique: the introduction to the Marceline-centric Stakes (2015) places most of the emphasis on Marceline, and the theme song

25071-569: The series' first two seasons. Following this, several other region-1 compilation DVDs have been released, including: It Came from the Nightosphere (2012), Jake vs. Me-Mow (2012), Fionna and Cake (2013), Jake the Dad (2013), The Suitor (2014), Princess Day (2014), Adventure Time and Friends (2014), Finn the Human (2014), Frost & Fire (2015), The Enchiridion (2015), Stakes (2016), Card Wars (2016), and Islands (2017). All of

25254-422: The series' humor. The pilot is a slice-of-life episode that does not involve major events because the series' world was still in development. Sugar and her production team focused the plot on interaction between the Crystal Gems and Steven. Sugar strove to make her pilot distinctive in terms of its artistic and aesthetic detail but was hampered by the time limit imposed upon her by Cartoon Network. The problems with

25437-412: The series' logo because he saw them as a versatile symbol. He later said he overused them, and they were criticized at the art presentation. The art presentation's drawings were by Rebecca Sugar, Jones-Quartey, Hynes, Paul Villeco (a writer and storyboard artist) and Steven Sugar. Michalka did the painting. During the development of the Steven Universe pilot, Sugar focused much attention on the design of

25620-488: The series' music. Another mobile game, Steven Universe: Dreamland Arcade , was released in 2017; it is a collection of arcade games with characters from the series. Steven Universe characters appear in Cartoon Network's kart racing game Formula Cartoon All-Stars and in the side-scrolling, beat-'em-up game Battle Crashers . In common with other Cartoon Network series, several browser-based games—including Heap of Trouble , Goat Guardian and Gem Bound —are available on

25803-441: The series' overall plot was established, the writers improvised to arrive at its ending; according to Matt Burnett, the storylines will be resolved by the series' end. Sugar wanted the series to focus on comedy and positivity before exploring controversial subjects involving the main characters, thinking it was "more honest" to begin the show with happiness instead of action or drama. The writers—formerly Levin and Burnett—would write

25986-482: The series' principal and recurring characters. Ward once noted that the details behind the Mushroom War and the series' dark mythology form "a story worth telling", but he also felt the show would be better off if the show "dance[d] around how heavy the back-history of Ooo is". After the September 2011 episode " What Was Missing " hinted at romantic subtext between Marceline and Bubblegum, fans began to "ship"

26169-410: The setting as "candyland on the surface and dark underneath", noting he had never intended the Mushroom War and the post-apocalyptic elements to be "hit over the head in the show". He limited it to "cars buried underground in the background [and other elements that do not] raise any eyebrows". Ward has said the series' post-apocalyptic elements were influenced by the 1979 film Mad Max . Kenny called

26352-418: The shot featuring Marceline correct. After the panning sweep, the sequence cuts to the theme song, which plays while shots of Finn and Jake adventuring are shown. For this part of the sequence, Ward was inspired by the "simple" aspects of the introduction to the 2007 comedy film Superbad . When the theme mentions "Jake the Dog" and "Finn the Human", the characters' names are displayed next to their heads, with

26535-462: The show "in a 'Ghostshrimp World ' ". Ghostshrimp designed major locations, including Finn and Jake's home, the Candy Kingdom, and the Ice Kingdom. The position of lead character designer was given to Phil Rynda, who held this role for two and a half seasons. The show's lead production crew (which included Ward and McHale) was initially hesitant to bring him on board, but they were soon convinced by director Larry Leichliter , who assured them Rynda

26718-486: The show has developed a following among teenagers and adults. Adventure Time has received universal acclaim from critics, with much praise for its originality and worldbuilding . The show won eight Primetime Emmy Awards , a Peabody Award , three Annie Awards , two British Academy Children's Awards , a Motion Picture Sound Editors Award , and a Kerrang! Award . The series has also been nominated for three Critics' Choice Television Awards , two Annecy Festival Awards ,

26901-581: The show progressed, Basichis's friend Tim Kiefer joined the show as an additional composer. The two now work together on its music. The show's title sequence and theme song have stayed mostly consistent throughout its run, with seven exceptions. During the episodes featuring Fionna Campbell and Cake the Cat ( viz. season three 's " Fionna and Cake ", season five's " Bad Little Boy ", season six's "The Prince Who Wanted Everything", season eight's "Five Short Tables", and season nine 's "Fionna and Cake and Fionna")

27084-570: The show was "basically what would happen if you asked a bunch of 12-year-olds to make a cartoon, only it's the best possible version of that, like if all the 12-year-olds were super geniuses and some of them were Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and the Marx Brothers ". Adventure Time ' s willingness to explore dark, sad, and complex issues has received praise. Kohn applauded the fact that the show "toys with an incredibly sad subtext". Novelist Lev Grossman , in an interview with NPR , praised

27267-437: The show's original musical style no longer fit perfectly with the newer lyrical themes. An example is "Here Comes a Thought", sung by Estelle and AJ Michalka (who voices Stevonnie). The two were less inspired by a specific musical style, but rather by the song's "feel", which Sugar had explained to them. The pilot episode of Steven Universe was released on Cartoon Network's video platform on May 21, 2013, and an edited version

27450-403: The show's pilot post facto ). Produced by Frederator Studios , the short was created by Ward almost entirely by himself, and its production concluded in early 2006. It was first broadcast on Nicktoons Network on January 11, 2007, and was re-broadcast as part of Frederator's anthology show Random! Cartoons on December 7, 2008. After its initial release, the video became a viral hit on

27633-448: The show's seventh season. The following miniseries, Islands (2017) aired as part of the eighth season. The third and final miniseries, Elements (2017), aired during the show's ninth season. The show's seventh season was originally intended to comprise 39 episodes, ranging from "Bonnie & Neddy" to "Reboot". However, when it came time to upload the season onto streaming sites like CartoonNetwork.com, Cartoon Network chose to end

27816-579: The showrunner. In an interview with Rolling Stone , he said he had stepped down from this role sometime during the fifth season . As a naturally introverted person, he found interacting with and directing people every day to be exhausting. After Ward resigned from the post, Adam Muto became the showrunner. Until late 2014, Ward continued to work on the cartoon as a storyboard artist and storyline writer. After November 2014, he stopped regularly contributing to episode outlines, but still looked over stories, provided occasional input, and continued to storyboard for

27999-440: The space within a vase as being part of the vase that makes it useful". During the painting phase, the painters saw the lines as "descriptive bones" and color is used loosely, meaning the color is intentionally slightly off register, highlighting the distinction between color and line. The painters used "superimposed" watercolor texture before switching to Photoshop because the former made the backgrounds "very chunky". When painting

28182-419: The storyboard artists. And while it is a general rarity, the show also occasionally refers to popular music . Early during the show's run, Frederator, Seibert's production company, occasionally uploaded demos and full versions of songs sung by the characters to their official website, and when the production crew set up a series Tumblr account, this tradition of publishing demos and full versions of songs to

28365-420: The storyboarders than they previously did; storyboarders change fewer things than they did before because the episodes have a "stronger continuity". According to Levin, he and Burnett tried to balance the focus between the main characters—with Steven in the center—and the theme of episodes in their writing. The balance indicated Steven has the same interests on his human side as he does on his Gem side. Levin said

28548-467: The storyboarders, who create the action for the episode and write its dialogue. The storyboards were animated, using paper drawings and the production crew's designs, by one of two Korean studios, Sunmin and Rough Draft , and the production crew's designs. During the pilot development, Sugar wrote and sketched a number of plot ideas that later became episodes. The series' initial premise focused mostly on Steven's human side, rather than his magic side, but

28731-1046: The style of All in the Family . The Alvin Show from Ross Bagdasarian Sr. and Beany and Cecil from Bob Clampett are also sitcoms. The 1980s and 1990s were a renaissance of the animated children and adult television series. Various broadcast networks and media companies began creating television channels and formats designed specifically for airing cartoon and anime series. Companies that already had these types of formats in place began to revamp their existing models during this time. Most of this animations were American-based or Japanese anime. Listed below are examples of television networks and channels that include animated programs. American British Japanese Canadian Australian Examples of animation-focused networks and channels are listed below; but some of them aired live-action programs occasionally. American South Korean Canadian Japanese During

28914-503: The television programs Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Office to play various supporting or background characters. When Ward was developing the series' title sequences, the rough draft version consisted of quick shots and vignettes that were "just sort of crazy [and] nonsensical", which alluded to the show's theme of quirky adventures. These drafts included "the characters ... just punching random ghosts and monsters, jumping through anything and everything [and] there were

29097-435: The theme song's lyrics were written. Sugar composed the extended theme song while waiting in line for a security check at Los Angeles International Airport . The series relies on leitmotifs for its soundtrack; instruments, genres and melodies are allotted to specific characters. The music was influenced by the works of Michael Jackson and Estelle; and Sugar has cited Aimee Mann as "a huge influence". Sugar wrote songs for

29280-420: The third season for Slant magazine, wrote that "the short-form format leaves some emotional substance to be desired", and that this was inevitable for a series with such short episodes. The independent cartoon scholar and critic David Perlmutter, who otherwise applauded the show's voice acting and its ability to surpass its source material, argued that the show's vacillation between high and low comedy epitomizes

29463-503: The third-season premiere by 2.686 million, the fourth-season premiere by 2.655 million, the fifth-season premiere by 3.435 million, and the sixth-season premiere by 3.321 million. The show's seventh-season opener took a substantial ratings tumble, being watched by only 1.07 million viewers. Likewise, the eighth-, ninth-, and tenth-season premieres were watched by only 1.13, 0.71, and 0.77 million viewers, respectively. The series finale, "Come Along with Me",

29646-417: The three basic shapes—square, triangle and circle. Because of the characters' personalities, Garnet is square, Amethyst is a sphere and Pearl is a cone. Sugar wanted to give the Gems a superpower similar to those of classic cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny . The Gems' ability to shape-shift is a reference to older cartoons such as Tex Avery 's work for MGM , where characters would change at will. Although

29829-505: The two, referring to the pairing as "Bubbline". Some reviewers also discussed the possible relationship, with Kjerstin Johnson of Bitch magazine expressing hope that that show's "queer cartoon subtext" would turn into "a queer cartoon subplot". Eventually, Bubblegum and Marceline's relationship was confirmed in the series finale, " Come Along With Me ", which also featured the two characters kissing. While Bubblegum seems to have dated

30012-476: The way the elements are worked into the plot "very fill-in-the-blanks", and DiMaggio said, "it's been obvious the Land of Ooo has some issues". The series has a canonical mythology —or, an overarching plot and backstory—that is expanded upon in various episodes. This mythology mainly involves the nature of the Mushroom War, the origin of the series' principal antagonist the Lich, and the backstories of several of

30195-409: The while concentrating on "keep[ing] the good things about the original short [while also] improv[ing] on" them. The group's first product was a rough storyboard featuring Finn and Princess Bubblegum going on a spaghetti-supper date. Cartoon Network was not happy with this story, and so Ward, McHale, and Muto created a storyboard for the episode " The Enchiridion! ", an attempt to emulate the style of

30378-462: The works of Osamu Tezuka and Harvey Kurtzman . In drawing the characters for each episode, the crew has two weeks to make modifications. Character names and some designs were inspired by types of food, and some characters were redesigned because the pilot revealed discrepancies between appearances and personalities. Sugar planned for the characters' designs to receive visual benchmarks so the show's artists can draw them consistently. Sugar aimed to make

30561-460: The world, adding notes to her drawings. Inspired by the idea of foreign figures (Gems) living human lives, she drew many sketches depicting their world and history. The series' design was also inspired by her and her brother's interest in video games, comics and animation. After the series was commissioned, Sugar decided to redesign everything to make the series "flexible and simple" for future production staff to add ideas of their own. During this time,

30744-431: The world. In an interview with The A.V. Club , Ward said the show's writing process usually began with the writers telling each other what they had done the previous week to find something humorous to build on. He also said, "A lot of the time, if we're really stuck, we'll start saying everything that comes to our mind, which is usually the worst stuff, and then someone else will think that's terrible but it'll give him

30927-509: Was a good idea; she stopped asking when it was commissioned. Her brother had no problem with it and trusted Sugar to use his name wisely. In an interview with the New York Times , Sugar discussed developing the background of the show's protagonist, saying she wanted to base the character's viewpoint on her brother growing up "where you're so comfortable in your life because you get all the attention, but you also want to rise up and not be

31110-467: Was also hired to guide Ward and his staff for the first two seasons. The storyboard for "Prisoners of Love" assuaged many of the fears some Cartoon Network executives had expressed. As production for season one progressed, more artists were brought on board. Dan "Ghostshrimp" Bandit , a freelance illustrator who had also written and storyboarded on Flapjack , was hired as the show's lead background designer; Ward told him to create background art that set

31293-472: Was animated at Sunmin Image Pictures and Rough Draft Korea . The production team and animators communicated by email and sometimes used video chat when animating a major episode. Before sending the episode to one of the studios, animation director Nick DeMayo and his team created a plan for the animators after reviewing the animatics . They then added character movements on exposure sheets to guide

31476-431: Was created by Ben Levin and Matt Burnett. Guy Davis, a childhood friend of the Sugars, designed the early monsters and Gem architecture. Making a character "look alive" was always a priority in their design; according to Jones-Quartey, a character's emotions should be clearly delineated. The character design team's mission is for the characters to resemble a classic cartoon such as 1940s Disney cartoons, Dragon Ball Z or

31659-416: Was developed by Herpich, Wolfhard, Ashly Burch , showrunner Adam Muto , head writer Kent Osborne , Jack Pendarvis , Julia Pott , and series creator Pendleton Ward . Former head background designer Ghostshrimp returned after having officially left the series during the fourth season . According to Osborne, Cartoon Network provided the writers with "an opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking about

31842-578: Was encouraged by the "creative team to put their own life experiences into the character of Marceline," but when this led to a "romantic storyline between Marceline and Princess Bubblegum", Cartoon Network executives intervened. This moment led Sugar and the rest of the show's team to see the limit of what they could accomplish, in terms of representation. The writers initially responded to this roadblock by working queer themes into episodes as subtext to avoid controversy or network censorship, but later episodes would openly expand on these themes, bringing them to

32025-498: Was experimental because the stylist would have difficulty if a storyboard's character and background mixed together or a bright character walked unchanged into a shadow. Mistakes became rare as the crew planned and checked storyboards. The primary backgrounds were made in Burbank; the secondary ones were made by Korean artists. After the crew finished constructing an episode, the production team sent it to animators in Korea. The series

32208-474: Was hand-drawn on paper, which was then digitally composited and painted with digital ink and paint . Executive producer Fred Seibert compared the show's animation style to that of Felix the Cat and various Max Fleischer cartoons, but said its world was equally inspired by "the world of videogames [ sic ]". While the episodes were being handled in South Korea, the production crew in

32391-622: Was made available for streaming via Hulu on May 1, 2015. While in the United States, HBO Max becomes the primary platform to watch Adventure Time: Distant Lands , there are debuts of "BMO", the first special of the spin-off series, in different countries and regions in respective Cartoon Network channels worldwide, on different dates mainly in 2020; such as October 24 ( Turkey ), October 25 ( France ), November 21 (the United Kingdom ), December 12 ( Germany , Australia , and Taiwan ), and December 27 ( Russia ). In South Korea ,

32574-406: Was originally supposed to be a temporary version . Ward said, "I recorded the lyrics for the opening title in the animatics room where we have this little crummy microphone just so that we could add it to the titles and submit it to the network. Later, we tried re-recording it and I didn't like it ... I only liked the temp one!" Because the series' finalized theme song was originally recorded as

32757-474: Was released on July 20. The pilot was shown at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con , and Sugar hosted a 30-minute panel discussion about the series at the 2013 New York Comic Con on October 13. Initially, thirteen half-hours (26 episodes) were ordered for the first season; on November 14, the season was picked up for an additional thirteen half-hours. The series was renewed for a second season of 26 half-hours on July 25, 2014, which began airing on March 13, 2015, and for

32940-439: Was reported that the show averaged roughly 2 to 3 million viewers an episode. According to a 2012 report by Nielsen , the show consistently ranked first in its time slot among boys aged 2–14. The show premiered on April 5, 2010, and was watched by 2.5 million viewers. The episode was a ratings success. According to a press release by Cartoon Network, the episode's time slot saw triple-digit percentage increases from

33123-506: Was sanctioned because the company was dealing with "primarily visual people", and that by using storyboards the writers and artists could learn and grow "by actually doing the work". The storyboard artists generally worked on an episode in pairs, independent from other storyboarders, which, according to freelance writer David Perlmutter in his book America Toons In , countered creative ennui and prevented episodes from being "alike in either content or tone". The storyboard artists were given

33306-457: Was talented and could draw in a variety of styles. With the producers satisfied, Rynda quickly began designing characters that were simple but still fell in line with "Pen's natural aesthetic". Around this time, Rynda and McHale began drafting artistic guidelines for the show, so that its animation style would always be somewhat consistent. With many of the lead production roles filled, Ward turned his attention to choosing storyboard artists for

33489-418: Was viewed by 0.92 million viewers and scored a 0.25 Nielsen rating in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic, which means the episode was seen by 0.25 percent of all individuals aged 18 to 49 years old who were watching television at the time of the episode's airing. On September 27, 2011, Cartoon Network released the region 1 DVD My Two Favorite People , which features a selection of twelve episodes from

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