Adventure Time

The adventures by the duo of Finn and Jake sit amongst the best tales of intrigue and whimsy and excitement and sadness and the full spectrum of human and non-human conditions.

Amazing voice acting and wildly imaginative animation that rarely exists outside of the brilliant work here, these action packed episodes clocking in at a brisk 11-minutes make this a perfect show to throw on in the background.

I'd say Adventure Time weaves an epic, tragic, and magical tale that shares some of the DNA of Calvin & Hobbes (compared with Regular Show's Beavis and Butthead roots). And I partly mention Regular Show because it and Adventure Time share tremendous overlap, having aired at the same time on Cartoon Network and borrowing many of the same artistic devices. But they're a bit different at their core despite the shared veneers.

I love this show dearly and it'll never get old to me (and I pray that I will never get too old for it). I strongly recommend turning off your brain and watching a few episodes to see if it can also help you.

There are a few spinoffs of the show with my favorite being the very similar Adventure Time: Side Quests. That version changes very little of the magical calculus while the others lean into other more mature elements to varying degrees of success. To me, brevity is the soul of wit and the balance of overtly dealing with magical whimsy and much subtler serious undertones in the original is a magic that's hard to repeat when leaning outside of the show's core setup.

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