I'm a pretty huge Adventure Time fan. I watch it every Monday, even spent the money on those ridiculously expensive hoodies and shirts they have for it at Hot Topic. So you can imagine my dismay when my family decided to have a little reunion one Monday night, meaning I would have to miss Adventure Time. “Oh well,” I thought, “There are a lot of sites that put up the episodes for free.” So I trudged along at the reunion that night, waiting until everybody had left. It was pretty late by the time they had all gone. Thankfully, school was off the next day, so I sat down at my computer and hoped that someone had streamed it already.
I quickly Googled “Free Adventure Time episodes” and got a lot of results. I checked the Cartoon Network website first. Not there yet. Went back to the results page. Most things were unrelated. Finally, on the 3rd page, I found something that looked promising. Shmowzow.com. Underneath the URL it said “free adventure time episodes”. I clicked it. Smowzow.com was made of incredibly basic HTML, white with a green play button in the middle. Above the play button it said, “this weeks episode the party”.
“Yes!” I said, a little bit too loudly. It had to have been the new episode, as there hadn't been one called The Party before. I clicked the play button, excitedly.
The classic Adventure Time intro started, and got to the part where there's a loud smack and you see Finn and Jake. That's normally when the music starts. This time, however, it lead straight to the title screen for the episode.
“That's weird,” I thought. “Maybe they don't have much bandwidth and they had to cut that out to host the video.”
The episode title screen was a white screen, just like Shmowzow.com with the words “the party” written small and messily. It stayed on this screen for what felt like a very long time; certainly longer than title screens of episodes past. It finally faded to black and the episode started.
Finn and Jake were sparring in the living room when their phone rang. Jake picked it up.
“Hello?” he said. The screen was split in half, with Jake on one of the halves. On the other half was the face of Tree Trunks, poorly lit and smiling widely.
“Hi there, Jake,” she said in her innocent old lady-esque voice.
“Oh, hi Tree Trunks! What's up, baby?” I laughed a bit. The way Jake conversed with other characters always amused me.
“Oh, I'm just throwing a little party over here in my trailer. Do ya'll want to come over?”
“Sure, Tree Trunks! We'll see you there.”
“Hahaha, alright.”
Jake put down the phone, and the entire screen was given back to him.
“Hey dude,” he said to Finn. “Tree Trunks is having a party. I told her we'd go.”
“Ew, why? Tree Trunks is...kind of creepy.”
“I know, I know, but we'll probably disappoint her if we don't go. Being a hero includes the little things to, you know.”
“Alright, buddy, let's go.”
They went downstairs and Finn reached for his sword.
“Dude, what are you doing?” Jake asked.
“We never know when evil might strike, Jake.”
Finn suddenly turned to the camera, his face dark and serious.
“Never.”
Things returned to normal and Jake grabbed Finn's sword and set it down on the ground.
“Dude, we're going to a party in Tree Trunks' trailer. I don't think much evil's gonna be lurking around there.”
Finn looked longingly at his sword.
“Okay,” he said, and opened the door and walked through it, Jake behind.
The scene cut to them in front of Tree Trunks' trailer. The door to it was slightly ajar, being pushed back slightly as Finn knocked on it.
“Tree Trunks?” he yelled, looking around.
“She's probably sleeping or something inside, dude. Let's just go in.”
Finn shrugged and pulled open the door, heading inside.
Inside, there was absolutely nothing, not even the stove or any of Tree Trunks' other furniture. The walls and the floor were painted stainless white, and the windows were all barred.
“Tree Trunks?” Finn called out, sweat dripping from his forehead. No answer.
“Man, I don't know about this. Maybe Tree Trunks snapped again.”
“Well, maybe she's just out getting someth--”
The floor beneath them fell through and they started screaming. I started taking screenshots at this point. It was all just too unnatural, not anything like Pendleton Ward would write.
It suddenly switched to Finn's point of view, and that's when things got really messed up. The art style completely changed. I'm not sure how to describe it, really. I guess the best way to put it is that everything was incredibly detailed, the opposite of the lovable simplistic style of the show. They were falling down what looked like a cobblestone shaft. Finn looked over at Jake. What showed on the screen made me jump out of my chair.
Jake had turned into a disgusting caricature of a bulldog, slobber dripping from his giant mouth with a huge overbite. His eyes were hidden under a thick layer of fat on his forehead. He was still Jake's classic yellow, though, which freaked me out even more. Finn looked down at his hands. Rough and bleeding, with the nails bitten and chewed. They finally landed, and I swear to god I could almost feel it in my own chair. I was screencapping like mad at this point. They were caught in a cage that was carved out of the rock, metal bars in front of them preventing their escape.
The only source of light in the room was a large fire in the middle that was huddled around by a bunch of small shadows. One of them turned around. It was Tree Trunks. She was terrifying in the new art style, toothless gums dripping with pus and blood and massive bunions and unsightly cankles on her legs. Her trunk was covered in tiny hairs, waving against her sickly green skin.
“Glad you could make it,” she said, her grin growing wider. Her voice had not changed with the art style at all.
“Now the fun can begin.”
She opened up the cage and grabbed Jake with her trunk. He began screaming. His voice stayed the same as well. In his struggle, the layer of fat that covered his eyes flipped up, and the screen zoomed in on them. They were splotchy gray and hideously bloodshot, and opened wide with alarm. The shot stayed on his eyes for well over 3 minutes as you could hear him being dragged by Tree Trunks, screaming all the way. The shot widened to reveal that Tree Trunks was dragging Jake to the large fire in the middle. The small shadows were less dim now, and they were disgusting versions of all the princesses. Tree Trunks called them over to her, and with a heave they threw him into the fire. Jake's fur was quickly burned away, followed by his flesh. He began to laugh. A hearty, good old laugh that Jake would make. Not one of those insane laughs where it's clear whoever's laughing has lost their sanity. No, it was as if he had just made a great joke and was laughing at it.
The Slime Princess, who had become a mass of organs and phlegm, moved over to Finn. She melted his clothes away, leaving him naked on the floor, writhing in pain. It cut back to his point of view. Through the dim light of the fire you could still see Jake's burning corpse laughing and twitching, and the mob of princesses, lead by Tree Trunks, coming ever closer. Tree Trunks broke away from the pack and sprinted for Finn. He tried to get away, but his body wouldn't let him. He couldn't move. It was as if I had taken control of his body, as I could hear every thought and feel every moment of pain as if I were him. Tree Trunks, mouth agape, leaped for him as it cut to black.
The outro began.
The outro began.
“Come along with me, through the butterflies and bees. We can wander through the forest, and we can do so as we please.”
