Something Big (Adventure Time)

"Something Big" is the eleventh installment of Adventure Time's sixth season, first broadcast on Cartoon Network on July 10, 2014. Jesse Moynihan handled the writing and storyboarding, drawing from a story developed by Kent Osborne, Pendleton Ward, Moynihan, Jack Pendarvis, and Adam Muto. Guest voice actors include Jill Talley, Alan Oppenheimer, Keith Ferguson, and Steve Agee.

The show follows Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), a human boy, and his adoptive brother Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), a shape-shifting dog with magical abilities. In this episode, Maja the Sky Witch (Talley) summons a plant-based elemental named Darren (Oppenheimer) and orders him to attack the Candy Kingdom. Finn responds by bringing in the Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant (Agee) to counter the threat. After defeating Maja and Darren, Finn decides he can no longer command the Elephant and sets him free. The Elephant eventually chooses to help Maja recover from the coma he caused.

Its origins trace back to a scrapped Adventure Time television movie planned for after the fifth season. Moynihan had storyboarded the first ten minutes of that movie and, when the project was abandoned, suggested using parts of it for individual episodes. He used about half of his opening section as the basis for "Something Big." The death of Root Beer Guy was added at Pendarvis's request, as he voiced the character and reasoned that Root Beer Guy's promotion to head of the banana guards—without improving their incompetence—justified his demise. This death, mentioned but not shown, later inspired the seventh-season episode "Cherry Cream Soda."

The episode drew 1.86 million viewers and earned a 0.4 percent rating among adults aged 18 to 49, per Nielsen data. It was later released on the 2015 Frost & Fire DVD, which includes 16 episodes from seasons one through six. Critics responded positively. Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+, calling it "a bit unwieldy" but also "one of the most full-crazy, trippiest episodes the show's ever done." He highlighted a quote from Darren about a dream where soldiers birth warriors from their own blood as an example of the episode's absurdity.