Want to know what time it is?! It's DVD watching time with Finn and Jake - two of the coolest heroes to ever hero-ize! They're traveling across the land of Ooo searching for adventure. But adventure isn't always easy. Sometimes you've got to battle mean little fire gnomes, battle frozen businessmen zombies. And of course battle the very, very, very evil ice king. What the cabbage?! It sure is a lot of battling for just the first season.
Yes, yes, yes! After two discs full of random episodes we finally have the entire first season! All 26 episodes are on this 2-disc set. I've marked the episodes that are new to DVD with an *:
Disc 1 (2:46:19)
Slumber Party Panic (11:52)
Trouble in Lumpy Space (11:55)
Prisoners of Love (12:00)
Tree Trunks (11:58)
The Enchiridion! (11:53)
The Jiggler* (11:42)
Ricardio the Heart Guy (11:55)
Business Time (11:52)
My Two Favorite People (11:56)
Memories of Boom Boom Mountain* (11:53)
Wizard (11:56)
Evicted! (11:52)
City of Thieves* (11:54)
The Witch's Garden* (11:41)
Disc 2 (2:23:07)
What is Life?* (11:58)
Ocean of Fear* (11:47)
When Wedding Bells Thaw* (11:54)
Dungeon (11:59)
The Duke* (11:58)
Freak City* (11:59)
Donny* (11:54)
Henchman* (11:57)
Rainy Day Daydream (11:57)
What Have You Done?* (11:50)
His Hero* (11:58)
Gut Grinder* (11:56)
Video
The Anamorphic Widescreen (1.78:1) picture on this set is very nice, and only contains a few issues. You'll probably notice some slight edge enhancement in the episodes, but it's not too bad. There are also some compression artifacts in the quick opening scene, which are very obvious when stepping through frame-by-frame, but not as obvious when watching at full speed. The discs have a "play all" option, as well as a chapter after the opening credits.
Audio
The set contains a fairly standard English stereo track; there are some decent directional sound effects, but nothing that's outstanding. There are English subtitles available for the episodes.
Commentary Tracks
Trouble in Lumpy Space - John DiMaggio, Jeremy Shada, Tom Kenny and Pen Ward
Prisoners of Love - John DiMaggio, Jeremy Shada, Tom Kenny and Pen Ward
Tree Trunks - Bettie Ward, Polly Lou Livingston
Ricardio the Heart Guy - George Takei, Tom Kenny, Hynden Walch, Jeremy Shada and Pen Ward
A Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (9:38)
This was completely shot on a iPhone by Pen Ward. Unfortunately the audio is pretty poor. Pen takes us around the offices and introduces us to a number of people.
Behind-the-Scenes of the Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (2:34)
This is bizarre.
Animatics (48:41)
Normally I'm not a fan of animatics, but these all feature commentary by Pen Ward, Adam Muto, Pat McHale and Derek Drymon, so they're worth watching.
The Enchiridon! (13:10)
Rainy Day Daydream (11:39)
Slumber Party Panic (12:11)
Dungeon (11:41)
Music Video (1:52)
Normally a "music video" for a TV show is pretty cheesy, but this one is really neat.
Finndemonium (1:58)
Shots of various Adventure Time fans and fan art, cut to cool music, and scenes from the show.
The Wand (2:08)
A short cartoon featuring Finn, Jake and the Ice King.
Summary
This is a wonderful set for the fans. Not only do you get all 26 episodes, including 13 that haven't been released on DVD before, but you also get some great bonus material. I think they could have simply put the episodes on a disc and most of the fans would be happy, but they put some effort into creating good bonus material. I usually find animatics to be a useless bonus feature, but the production team providing commentary turns a useless feature and makes it worthwhile. The behind-the-scenes featurettes were a bit weird, but fun to watch, and the other shorter video pieces were cool, and fit well with the show.
If you're a fan of the show, definitely pick up this set. It would also make a great gift for anyone between the ages of 8 and 80. Sooo... maybe we can get a Blu-ray release?
