'Adventure Time' Creator Pendleton Ward on Video Games, Zombies and Comic-Con
In Adventure Time, Finn, a young boy who uses exclamation like "algebraic!" and "mathematical!" even though he isn't very good with numbers, and his sharp canine pal Jake traverse the Land of Ooo, where they fight zombies, save princesses from the Ice King and embark a variety of other quests that may remind you of video games.
The series began life as an Annie-nominated seven-minute short that had garnered quite a bit of attention online. It first aired on Cartoon Network, originally under the name Adventure Time with Finn and Jake, last spring. At Comic-Con, the show will be the subject of a Friday panel featuring creator Pendleton Ward and members of the cast. Later that afternoon, they will be available for autographs.
We spoke with Ward, who is also known for his work as a storyboard artist for The Misadventures of Flapjack, about video games, The Simpsons and Comic-Con.
The plots of the show remind me of video games like Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda. Were those an influence on you?
Pendleton Ward, creator of Adventure Time
Yeah, of course. I grew up playing both of those games. Yeah, for sure.
We just did an episode where they go inside a video game and they collect coins and stuff and they bring them outside of the game and the coins turn into pennies and Jake's all mad because he took all those coins, he thought he was going to be rich.
There are lots of video game references or, not so much references, but, I guess, inspired by video games and playing with video game logic in the show.
What were your favorite video games to play when you were growing up?
A unique one was A Boy and His Blob. I liked that one a lot. I think it was for Nintendo. It was a little kid and he could feed this shape-changing blob of jellybeans and he would turn into different stuff like an umbrella or a ladder.
I thought it was fun just watching the blob jump around, so I would let the screen rest and watch the animation cycle of the kid and the blob and pretend I was the kid.
It's really hard to play. It's really challenging. You can't really beat it, I don't think. I never could.
Do you play any now?
Yeah, I think that's all I spend my money on are video games. I just go to work and I come home and play video games to relax. I like Left 4 Dead. I think that's cool. Zombies. There's another game called Nazi Zombies, which is a mini-game that's inside of another game called Call of Duty, which is fun. I like zombies a lot.
For the past couple years, zombies have been really popular. Do you know why?
No, I'm just really happy that it keeps going, though. You would think it would end, but it doesn't end.
I'm so happy that the production of zombie media is continuing to pour out of everywhere.
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