Crossover (Adventure Time)
Finn and Jake cross into Farmworld to stop a dimensional threat.
"Crossover" is the twenty-third episode of Adventure Time's seventh season, airing on Cartoon Network on January 28, 2016. Sam Alden and Jesse Moynihan wrote and storyboarded it from an outline by Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, and Kent Osborne. Guest stars include Kumail Nanjiani as Prismo, Lou Ferrigno as Bobby, and James Kyson as Big Destiny.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Adventure Time
- Story
- Adam Muto
- Jack Pendarvis
- Kent Osborne
- Writer
- Sam Alden; Jesse Moynihan
- Airdate
- 28 January 2016
- Guests
- Kumail Nanjiani as Prismo
- Lou Ferrigno as Bobby
- James Kyson as Big Destiny
- Length
- 11 minutes
- Season article
- Adventure Time season 7
Facts from the source article.
Plot
In the fourth-season finale "The Lich", the villain the Lich opens a portal to Prismo's time room. In the fifth-season premiere "Finn the Human", Prismo is revealed as a being that grants wishes; the Lich wishes for all life in the multiverse to end. Finn and Jake enter the time room, and Finn wishes that the Lich never existed, creating a wish-altered reality called Farmworld where magic is lost. In "Jake the Dog", Jake wishes for Finn and Jake to go home, and Prismo believes everything is reset. Prismo later summons Finn and Jake, revealing Farmworld still exists and Farmworld-Finn has teamed with the Jake-Lich, threatening the multiverse. Prismo gives them a device called "The Maid" to clean up inter-dimensional problems. After a battle, Finn, Jake, and Farmworld-Finn team up, and Finn and Jake use the Maid to remove the Lich's essence from Farmworld Jake, restoring Farmworld to normal.
Production
The story for "Crossover" was crafted by showrunner Adam Muto, Jack Pendarvis, and lead writer Kent Osborne. Sam Alden and Jesse Moynihan worked together on the storyboard, which they submitted for network approval on May 18, 2015, and Rough Draft Studios in South Korea handled the animation. Andres Salaff served as supervising director, while Sandra Lee directed the art. This marked the first time Alden and Moynihan had teamed up on an episode since "The Mountain." Returning guest stars Ron Perlman, Kumail Nanjiani, and James Kyson voiced Jake-Lich, Prismo, and Big Destiny, respectively, with Lou Ferrigno providing the voice for Bobby, the Farmworld version of Billy. The design of Jake-Lich took inspiration from a mutant dog with a human face seen in the 1978 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. For the final scene, Alden storyboarded Farmworld Finn's father emerging from ice to mirror a similar moment in "Escape from the Citadel" that Steve Wolfhard had storyboarded. Storyboard artist Tom Herpich grew concerned that the show couldn't logically explain why Farmworld still existed after Jake's wish, and Moynihan shared his worry. Moynihan added scenes of Prismo explaining this, but they were cut as unnecessary. He designed the multiverse sequences with help from Julia Srednicki's father, a former quantum physicist, who supplied articles and diagrams.
Reception
"Crossover" aired on January 28, 2016, and was seen by 1.13 million viewers, scoring a 0.29 Nielsen rating in the 18- to 49-year-old demographic. The episode received positive reviews from critics. Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club awarded it an "A", calling it a thrilling episode with impressive visuals and noting its unexpected emotional gut punch. Sava praised Moynihan and Alden's storyboarding for balancing darker and humorous aspects, and commended Nanjiani's voice work and the episode's bold color choices and dramatic compositions. Andrew Tran of Overmental wrote that the episode's parallel universe plot device calls attention to fiction's function of counterfactual pondering, and highlighted similarities to contemporary news stories about historical revisionism and the fluidity of worldviews, suggesting that even a backwater dimension like Farmworld can influence the multiverse.
More in Television Episodes About Parallel Universes
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