Time Is An Illusion: ‘Adventure Time,’ My Daughter, and Me

We found Adventure Time several seasons in. When the groundbreaking series, created by Pendleton Ward, premiered in 2010, my daughter Skylar was only one year old. At that point, the only shows she watched religiously were Sesame Street, Wonder Pets, and Baby Einstein. One-year-olds aren’t usually thinking about the intricacies of animation, emotional storylines, and nuanced cultural references. They just want to see pretty colors and hear a lot of singing.

“Time is an illusion
That helps things make sense
So we’re always living
In the present tense
It’s seems unforgiving
When a good thing ends
But you and I will always be back then”

But a few short years later, when Skylar was three, she started to understand things on a deeper level; by that, I mean she dug shows that not only had pretty colors and songs, but also had characters that spoke in full sentences, related to each other, and weren’t merely trying to teach her about the various building blocks of growing up.
She had moved on from Sesame Street (though she still loved Elmo and the rest of the gang) and Wonder Pets (RIP to that catchy-as-all-heck theme song), to more “mature” fare like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (which, by the way, is awesome). And that, friends, is when Skylar and I discover the incredible land of Ooo.
What we found when we turned on our first ever episode of Adventure Time was a young boy named Finn, who was up for any adventure, challenge, or problem that might stand in his way, and his shapeshifting dog BFF Jake, who was loyal beyond belief and literally willing to put his body on the line to help his friends. What we found beyond that core relationship was a post-apocalyptic land full of beauty, fully-realized (albeit oddball) characters of all shapes, sizes, and kinds, and a story that not only satisfied the weekly rigors of episodic television, but also had the subtle strength and nuance to handle longer, more complex serialized storylines.

We had found the land of Ooo and it would become our second home for the next few years.

“Singing, will happen
Happening happened
Will happen
Happening happened
And will happen
Again and again
‘Cause you and I will always be back then”
Once we discovered it, the subsequent seasons of Adventure Time became appointment television for us. Skylar and I made sure we knew when each episode aired and had our popcorn ready. If, for some reason, it was impossible to watch that week’s episode live, we made sure that the DVR was set (with extra recording time before and after, just in case).
I stayed for the gorgeous animation, incredibly smart writing, and catchy tunes. Skylar was there for the non-stop laughs, colorful characters, and overall silliness that pervaded every corner of Ooo.
The quiet, subtle brilliance of episodes like “Jake the Brick” were my jam, but we could both appreciate the laughs in episodes like “Candy Streets” (I also secretly loved the way the show tackled Noir here) and the positive, fun-loving (though admittedly bonkers) message behind “James Baxter, the Horse.”
Adventure Time became our thing. (Heck, one Halloween Skylar dressed up as Princess Bubblegum and, when I came to watch her in her elementary school parade, I came decked out in all sorts of Finn and Jake gear.) My wife would often join us to watch episodes as well, but you’d really only catch me and Skylar running around the house saying “Mathematical!” or singing about being “a tough-tootin’ baby.” She did, however, join us in a breakfast of Bacon Pancakes one Saturday morning.

From this long-running animated series, Skylar learned so many things that I’m thankful for her having learned. Confidence and acceptance and fun and adventure and a willingness to embrace the silliest of concepts because…you just never know what might come of it. In the end, Adventure Time made her a better human being – in fact, it made us both better human beings – and that might best thing you can ask of any piece of art.

“If there was some amazing force outside of time
To take us back to where we were
And hang each moment up like pictures on the wall
Inside a billion tiny frames
So that we could see it all, all, all”
So imagine my excitement when the DVD containing the final seasons of Adventure Time showed up on my doorstep recently. The very product that contained the series finale (those glorious final forty-four minutes) was in my hands and I couldn’t wait to sit down with a big bowl of popcorn and enjoy the end of Ooo with my now nine-year-old daughter. Only that’s not what happened.
When I asked Skylar if she wanted to watch the series finale of Adventure Time with me, she said no. She was “too busy.” Too busy?! Too busy to watch the last episode ever of our show? The one that we watched every single week of her childhood?
I asked her again several more times over the next week, but the answer remained no. Nine-year-olds tend to be surprisingly steadfast in their decisions and Skylar is no different.
She was too busy with camp and swimming and her friends and talking on the phone and playing on her computer and watching her favorite YouTube stars and reading her graphic novels and doing all the other things nine-year-old kids do. The time to watch Adventure Time with Dad had, apparently, passed.
And, just like that, she was all grown up.

“It would look like
Will happen
Happening happened
Will happen
Happening happened
And will happen
Again and again
‘Cause you and I will always be back then
‘Cause you and I will always be back then
‘Cause you and I will always be back then”
I wanted to write this essay about how great Adventure Time was and how much fun it was to relive that magic for forty-four more minutes with my nine-year-old daughter. It was my plan all along.
But, if Finn, Jake, BMO, and the rest of the gang have taught me anything, it’s that things change, time moves on, and people grow.
The adventure-at-all-costs, take-no-prisoners, don’t-question-Princess-Bubblegum Finn of the series premiere is a far cry from the mature, take-a-moment-to-question-PB-and-call-her-on-her-mistakes Finn that we see in the series finale.
We all change and grow. Everything changes, but so much stays the same. I blinked my eyes and all of a sudden my baby girl was rapidly approaching adolescence, too old to want to watch cartoons with Dad.
That’s why it took me days to write this story. I set out to write something different, but I ended up realizing that the final lesson Adventure Time would teach me is that time only exists as “an illusion to help things make sense.” Time moves and yet we’re still here. Things will happen. Are happening. And then they’ve happened. Always and forever. Again and again.
So I sat there, in my office, and sobbed my way through the final episode of Adventure Time. My wife joined me for it, but time had caught up with her as well. Adventure Time had already happened for her and I was the last one left having it happen right there and then.
I sobbed and bawled as things happened and Ooo became what it became, and characters died, and Adventure Time wrapped up, but not before giving me one final gift in the form of Rebecca Sugar’s song “Time Adventure,” which perfectly encapsulated exactly what I was feeling when I realized that I’d be watching the series finale without Skylar. It is, perhaps, the most beautiful ending in the history of animated shows. Will happen. Happening. Happened.
“How was it?” Skylar asked me as I emerged from my office, red-faced and wiping tears from my cheeks.

“It was perfect,” I said. “You would have loved it.”
And then I hugged my big girl probably a bit more firmly than she expected.
“You should watch it one day,” I told her, knowing that she probably never would. Happened.
“Maybe one day,” she said before skipping off down the hall to her room.
I wiped another tear from my cheek and started back into my office.
“Love you, Dad,” I heard just before her bedroom door shut with click.
“Love you too, kiddo,” I said quietly enough for only me to hear. “Love you too.”

“That’s why
You and I will always be best friends”

*Lyrics to “Time Adventure” written by Rebecca Sugar for the series finale of Adventure Time.
Scott Neumyer is a journalist who has been published by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, GQ, Esquire, Wired, Men’s Fitness, and many more publications. He lives in central New Jersey with his wife, two daughters, and two cats. You can reach him at www.scottwrites.com.

Where to stream Adventure Time