Adventure Time has been delighting fans since the series premiered in April of 2010 and, despite the original series wrapping up in 2018, shows no signs of ending its hold in the hearts and minds of many viewers (including me). The series has become a modern classic on the level of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, in the same way, launched a franchise that includes comics, video games, novels, and sequel (or prequel? or sidequel?) TV series.
Whatever the future of Adventure Time holds, the original series, with its more than 280 individual episodes, will always be the gold standard of the franchise. Here I’d like to argue for what I believe are the forty best episodes the series has to offer. Full disclosure at the top, I won’t be including the forty-minute finale.
40. Slumber Party Panic (Season 1, Episode 1)
The episode that started it all, “Slumber Party Panic,” introduces audiences to Finn (Jeremy Shada), Jake (John DiMaggio), and Princess Bubblegum (Hynden Walch), aka “PB,” and the Candy Kingdom as well as the tone of the show. The episode is a loose retelling of Night of the Living Dead as Finn has to defend candy citizens from zombies and is full of jokes that come at you so fast and are so silly you can’t quite catch their darkness on first viewing. It also sets up what would become an Adventure Time classic in a “here’s a lesson, but those are silly” style joke when Finn breaks a “royal promise” to Princess Bubblegum and there aren’t really any consequences.
39. Dungeon (Season 1, Episode 18)
“Dungeon” feels like an early acknowledgment on the part of the show that one of its two central heroes is much, much more capable than the other. The episode sees Finn attempt a dungeon crawl without Jake to prove he can complete them himself. But he struggles without Jake’s ability to shapeshift, grow larger, and smell like a dog. Again the episode shows that the series is willing to laugh at itself when we learn that Jake had just as much difficulty making it through another part of the dungeon alone because he’s incapable of spitting as far as Finn or ignoring a laser pointer dot. Beyond the meta-comedy, the episode lands on this list for its inclusion of the Demon Cat (Clancy Brown), with “approximate knowledge of many things,” that is one of the funniest characters in the entire show.
38. Rainy Day Daydream (Season 1, Episode 23)
One of the best things about “Rainy Day Daydream” is the simplicity of its first narrative beat: Finn and Jake are stuck inside because there’s knife rain; yes, that’s right, it’s raining knives. But that doesn’t factor into the episode any more than that it keeps them inside, and it’s never explained how or why knives are raining from the sky. The story of the episode makes great use of the limited location, though, by having the two have an adventure entirely built by Jake’s overactive imagination, which somehow begins to change the real world. It’s an early episode that highlights the creativity of the writing team and the many possibilities of the world they’ve created.
37. The Eyes (Season 2, Episode 2)
“The Eyes” is a narratively simple episode, but it delivers so many laugh-out-loud moments that I must include it here. The episode centers on Finn and Jake attempting to fall asleep while a strange horse watches them from a hill near the treehouse. Their initial attempts to get rid of the nuisance by closing the blinds and ignoring the horse fail, so they go outside to try to get it to move. But nothing, neither Jake’s attempts to lure the horse away nor frighten it with snakes, will get the animal to leave, leading Jake to diagnose the creature with “whacked out poo brain.”
36. Ghost Fly (Season 6, Episode 17)
Adventure Time is full of references to pop culture (there will be more coming up higher on this list), but one of the best one-two reference punches in the entire series arrives in “Ghost Fly.” The episode begins when Jake kills a fly trying to get into his soup, only to be awoken in the night by the ghost of that fly haunting him. The comedy is solid throughout, especially a moment with Peppermint Butler (Steve Little), aka “Pep But,” fleeing the scene after the fly steals his occult tools. But it’s the visual references to The Exorcist and The Fly movies that have secured this episode a place in my horror-loving heart.
35. Princess Monster Wife (Season 4, Episode 9)
Ice King’s character arc has been celebrated as one of the best in long-form television, and part of that is how incredibly well-developed and complicated Simon/Ice King (Tom Kenny) is as a character. There isn’t a simple switch from villain to, well, it’s hard to know what to call him by the show’s end. “Princess Monster Wife” is one of the best and most emotionally impactful episodes that draws out the complicated villainy and deep sadness at the heart of Ice King. The concept of him stealing parts from various princesses to make himself a wife is funny and villainous, but the relationship that we see blossom between him and his creation is genuinely touching.
34. Jake Suit (Season 5, Episode 27)
As a devoted fan of both physical comedy and Finn’s “Buff Baby” song, “Jake Suit” has always been one of my favorite episodes. That the episode also features Flame Princess (Jessica DiCicco) only makes it better. The episode begins with Finn abusing the privilege of wearing Jake’s stretchy body as a suit, urging BMO (Niki Yang) to do its best to hurt him and launching himself off the top of the tree house onto a gate. When Jake takes issue with Finn’s treatment, Finn says that Jake can wear him as a suit and do whatever he wants. The worst of that comes when Jake forces Finn to sing the “Buff Baby” song and dance its accompanying dance in front of some of Flame Princess’s relatives. But Finn won’t give up, and by the end of the episode, Jake accepts that Finn will use the Jake Suit as he wishes, even if that means literally jumping into a volcano.
33. The Monster (Season 3, Episode 6)
Lumpy Space Princess (voiced by show creator Pendleton Ward), aka “LSP,” is rightfully a fan-favorite character for her brashness and sometimes unearned confidence. For me, the episode that best characterizes LSP, and delivers several hilarious moments along the way, is “The Monster.” The episode sees Finn and Jake searching for LSP at the request of her parents, who have not heard from her for a while, and hunting down a monster that’s been stealing Fat Villagers’ (no, really, that’s what they’re called), only to learn that LSP is the eponymous monster. But the real joy of the episode comes from LSP regaling Finn and Jake with a story of her time living among wolves after running away from home and before stealing the villagers’ crops.
32. Time Sandwich (Season 5, Episode 33)
“Time Sandwich” is one of my most-quoted episodes, and it’s a quote that isn’t even finished. In “Time Sandwich,” the ever-jerky Magic Man (Kenny again, who, it’s worth noting, is also the voice of SpongeBob) steals a perfect sandwich Jake has made himself and traps it in a giant time-slowing bubble. Different characters attempt to retrieve the sandwich from the time-dilating space, but BMO delivers a line that’s become a part of my weekly (if not daily) lexicon. BMO has Finn and Jake build a skate ramp that it then uses to leap into the time-altering bubble, and as it flies through the air, BMO shouts, “This is siiiiiiii…” Of course, it’s not just that one moment that lands the episode, which is very funny throughout, on the list, but it plays a significant role.
31. Root Beer Guy (Season 5, Episode 43)
Some of the best episodes of Adventure Time relegate Finn and Jake to side or even background characters, and “Root Beer Guy” goes one step further and casts them as potential villains. The episode centers on the eponymous Root Beer Guy (Jack Pendarvis), who feels stuck in his soulless telemarketing job and can’t offer his wife the romance she craves but is passionate about writing his crime fiction novel. When he sees Finn and Jake kidnap Princess Bubblegum, he begins to investigate. From there, the episode becomes a procedural mystery as he connects clues and solves the crime by the end.
30. Marcy & Hunson (Season 10, Episode 7)
I’m predisposed to like any episode with Marceline “Marcy” the Vampire Queen (Olivia Olson). But episodes with her dad Hunson Abadeer (Martin Olson, Olivia’s real-life dad), are some of my favorites the show has to offer. “Marcy & Hunson” concludes the arc of their relationship as we see Hunson seriously embarrass Marcy at a concert of hers, but also see her accept that, in his way, he’s just doing his best as a dad. It’s also got an adorable (and embarrassing for Marcy) moment when Hunson says, “I am proud of my punk daughter!”
29. Memory of a Memory (Season 3, Episode 3)
Another great Marceline episode, “Memory of a Memory,” is also the first time we see Finn, or rather a memory of Finn as a baby, sing the “Buff Baby” song. The episode follows Finn and Jake as they are sent into Marcy’s mind to find and extract a memory by a mysterious wizard who turns out to be Marcy’s ex-boyfriend seeking to delete the memory of their breakup. But Finn realizes that he and Jake remember Marcy’s memory, leading to an Inception-like plot that sees the friends diving into Finn’s mind, where we see his singing and dancing memory, to find his memory of Marcy’s memory.
28. All the Little People (Season 5, Episode 5)
It doesn’t happen often, but some Adventure Time episodes are genuinely unnerving and upsetting. One of those few is “All the Little People,” in which Magic Man sneaks a bundle of smaller versions of all the characters onto Finn’s belt, leading Finn to experiment with the little version of himself and everyone he knows. His experimenting mostly centers on forcing characters into romantic pairings to see how they will work out. But by the end of the episode, he’s ruined their lives. Luckily, with Jake’s help, he discovers a way to communicate with them and fix things.
27. The Vault (Season 5, Episode 34)
Like the Demon Cat in “Dungeon,” Shoko (Isabelle Fuhrman) only really appears in one episode; but she makes a big impact. Shoko, a young thief who’s lost an arm, is a past-life version of Finn that we meet when Finn takes a journey into his mental “vault” courtesy of a hypnosis app on BMO. The episode tells the story of Shoko’s brief friendship with Princess Bubblegum, whose early Candy Kingdom she initially infiltrates with plans to steal from the princess. She’s a great character, and the episode does a wonderful job telling a story about her in just eleven minutes.
26. Hot to the Touch (Season 4, Episode 1)
I struggled with choosing a favorite Flame Princess episode to include here. I very much enjoy her dungeon strategy in “Vault of Bones,” but Finn’s initial condescension holds that episode back, leading me to go with one of Flame Princess’s earliest appearances in “Hot to the Touch.” The episode follows Finn as he follows Flame Princess, who he’s quickly developed a crush on, as the two attempt to talk with one another but keep having a very hard time, given that Flame Princess is literally made of fire and lights everything around her on fire. As with too many Finn and Flame Princess episodes, it makes you wish Finn would do better, but it ends up being one of the sweetest episodes in the series.
25. All Your Fault (Season 5, Episode 9)
As with Flame Princess, there are many episodes to choose from to celebrate Lemongrab (Justin Roiland), the not-quite-right candy person that Princess Bubblegum made and titled an Earl. “All Your Fault” sees Finn and Jake journey to Castle Lemongrap to deliver food seeds after the earldom, now led by two identical Lemongrabs, has run out of food. But when they arrive, they discover that the famine is a result of the Lemongrabs having discovered the formula for candy life (from Princess Bubblegum’s notes) and turning pretty much all of their food into sentient candy people. That plot is funny and troubling enough, but what really makes “All Your Fault” great are the scenes of Finn and Jake traveling through the almost empty castle and discovering organs that we later learn belong to the giant lemon person Lemonjon (Roiland).
24. Jake the Brick (Season 6, Episode 20)
“Jake the Brick” almost feels like a bedtime story. The episode centers on Jake, who has decided to be a brick in an old brick building when it collapses, as he tells the story of a bunny’s experiences with a deer and storm. But as Jake narrates the story he sees play out in front of him to himself, Finn picks it up on a walkie-talkie he left Jake. And as the story goes on, he brings his walkie to Starchy (Kenny again) to broadcast from his radio station. We see characters throughout Ooo sit by their radios, highly invested in what will happen to the bunny and its warren, and it’s lovely.
23. Return to the Nightosphere (Season 4, Episode 5)
“Return to the Nightosphere” doesn’t have as much Hunson Abadeer as one might expect, given that it takes place in the hellish dimension he rules. But his absence allows the episode to function as a sort of travelog as we see Finn and Jake, who have woken up imprisoned in the dimension with no recollection of how they got there, attempt to have an audience with the fearsome ruler. There are a lot of great jokes about the horrors of bureaucracy and imagery that riffs on the art of Hieronymus Bosch. But the funniest thing about it is the mystery of why everyone finds the bananas Finn and Jake found and are carrying around as possible snacks, gross. It’s not answered until the follow-up episode (they’re demon bodily waste), but the responses the pair get from Nightosphere residents when asked are pitch-perfect in “Return to the Nightosphere.”
22. Death in Bloom (Season 2, Episode 17)
“Death in Bloom” follows Finn and Jake as they take a trip to the Land of the Dead to recover the soul of a plant they swore to protect and let die. It’s one of the earliest episodes to highlight Peppermint Butler’s occult knowledge and power, as he opens a portal to the Land of the Dead that allows them to journey there. Once there, our heroes must overcome obstacles, including the mythical “The River of Forgetfulness,” which Jake drinks from to hilarious results, and a musical battle with Death (Miguel Ferrer). Things don’t go so well for them, though, and it’s their friendship with Peppermint Butler that saves them when Finn remembers to say hi to Death for Pep But.
21. Nemesis (Season 6, Episode 15)
While we get to see Peppermint Butler’s dark magic abilities on display in several episodes across the ten seasons, only “Nemesis” centers on Pep But’s magic and his, that’s right, nemesis. The episode introduces Peace Master (Rainn Wilson), who seeks to rid Ooo of “evil,” which in his case means the peppermint practitioner of the dark arts. It turns out that he mostly wants to destroy Peppermint Butler because his kids are really into dark magic, and he’s worried about them. It’s a fun episode that shows off some cool magic( at one point, Pep But bends spacetime) and ensures any viewers that just because he’s a master of the dark arts doesn’t mean Peppermint Butler is a bad guy.
20. Football (Season 7, Episode 5)
BMO’s rich, and perhaps hyperactive, imagination inspires some of the show’s most interesting, funny, and visually-striking episodes, and “Football” is among the best. The episode centers on BMO and Football, the reflection of BMO that lives in the mirror after they switch places, thereby allowing Football to live in the real world for a time. But after tasting freedom, Football doesn’t want to go back to living in the mirror, which is visualized in a beautifully unnerving and surreal way. The episode then turns into what feels more like a psychological horror story than an episode of a show ostensibly for children as BMO uses every reflective surface available to terrorize Football into switching back.
19. Dentist (Season 6, Episode 25)
Another incredibly quotable episode, “Dentist” has Finn “go dentist” when neither Jake nor Princess Bubblegum can help fix his toothache. It turns out that “dentist,” which is reached by being dropped down a well with snakes and rotten butter, is ants. Ants that are locked in a war with flies who employ monstrous worms and, therefore, must recruit larger mammals with teeth they can fix in exchange for tours of duty. That premise is enough to land the episode on this list, but the scenes that Finn shares with Jake’s old friend Tiffany (Collin Dean) make it one of the best in the series. Tiffany, who is prone to melodramatic speeches, hates Finn because Finn “stole” Jake from him, but in “Dentist,” the two have to work together, and they manage to do so to fantastic effect in a battle with the worms.
18. No One Can Hear You (Season 3, Episode 15)
“No One Can Hear You” isn’t just the most unnerving episode of Adventure Time; it’s one of the creepiest episodes of television I’ve ever seen. The episode begins, 28 Days Later style, with Finn waking up in a hospital bed with no knowledge of how long it’s been since he got there. He explores the Candy Kingdom, but it’s empty except for Jake, who’s acting strange and thinks that everyone is hiding so that they can surprise him for his birthday. The only problem with that theory: it’s been six months. The episode’s finale draws from the Alien franchise as Finn discovers an evil deer has been keeping the candy people hostage in its hardened spit. It’s freaky stuff.
17. It Came From the Nightosphere (Season 2, Episode 1)
The first episode with Hunson Abadeer, “It Came from the Nightosphere” sees Marcy’s dad unleashed on Ooo when Finn performs the ritual to summon him, hoping that he can talk with Marcy and mend their relationship. Instead, the demon king tours Ooo and sucks the soul of almost every living creature he encounters. In one delightful moment, he’s unable to suck the soul from the penguin Gunther and calls it “by far the most evil thing I’ve encountered,” and in another, he sings a jaunty little song about stomping on ants and sucking their souls. It’s a very funny episode that also develops Marceline’s character by introducing the idea that even immortal half-demon vampires have tough relationships with their parents.
16. The Hall of Egress (Season 7, Episode 24)
Adventure Time regularly plays with the mystical, but few episodes feel as otherworldly as “The Hall of Egress.” At the start of the episode, Finn becomes trapped in a dungeon room and discovers that the only way to escape is to close his eyes and walk through a wall. But behind that wall, there’s a complicated obstacle course, and beyond the obstacle course, Finn soon learns, is the problem that anytime he opens his eyes, he returns to the room in the dungeon. He escapes many times, and every time Jake forces him to open his eyes eventually, in part because Jake does not experience the repetition, living each of Finn’s escapes from the room as the first time it’s happened. Like many of the best Adventure Time episodes, it’s an episode about time and the different ways we can relate to it while also being a beautiful, micro coming-of-age story for Finn.
15. Sky Witch (Season 5, Episode 29)
As I said, I’m a big Marceline fan. More than that, I’m a Bubbline (the ship name for Princess Bubblegum and Marceline) fan, so any episode that furthers their romance is a big deal for me. And that’s a huge part of why “Sky Witch” lands so high on this list, but it’s not the only reason. The episode centers on Marcy enlisting PB’s help to get her beloved doll Hambo back from the eponymous sky witch Maja (Jill Talley), who uses items imbued with feeling in her magic. That setup allows for some of the most impactful moments in the Bubbline story, like PB trading Maja a beloved shirt she got from Marcy for Hambo, but also delivers some great comedy, like PB extremely quickly analyzing a room for clues and everything that Maja’s Crabbit Familiar (Dee Bradley Baker) does.
14. Varmints (Season 7, Episode 2)
Another episode that centers on Marcy and PB, “Varmints” is also another episode that heavily draws from horror and action movie history. The episode is essentially a retelling of Aliens as the exes work together to rid PB’s pumpkin patch of varmints by taking the fight to the creatures underground. Throughout the episode, we hear the two work through their past relationship, apologize for how they hurt each other, and grow. It’s really beautiful stuff and some of the best writing I’ve ever seen on TV, in any show. Add the fighting monsters element and some of Marcy’s coolest transformations, and you’ve got one of the best episodes of the show on your hands.
13. BMO Noire (Season 4, Episode 17)
If you know anything about me, the fact that my favorite BMO-centric episode is also the one that’s an homage to/parody of film noir makes perfect sense. The episode, which switches to black and white from color early on, centers on BMO’s investigation of who stole Finn’s sock and why. Throughout its investigation, BMO visits club owner Bebe (a remote control), petty criminal Ronnie (a rat), and femme fatale Lorraine (a chicken), all of whom are voiced by BMO, who is creating the narrative. It’s a delightfully small-scale episode that lets BMO do what BMO does best in creating an entire world and beautifully draws us into it by adapting the art to BMO’s vision.
12. Simon & Marcy (Season 5, Episode 14)
The second most emotionally impactful relationship throughout the show, after PB and Marcy, is Marcy’s long and complicated bond with Ice King/Simon. “Simon & Marcy” expands the backstory of their relationship as we see Simon attempt to get the young Marcy some chicken soup while also struggling with the powerful wish magic of the crown that’s turning him into Ice King. It’s an incredibly sweet episode that makes it easy for the audience to understand why Marcy won’t give up on Ice King and why he will always have a place in her heart, but that also just makes it all the more tragic.
