“I can’t change fate. We might rip a hole in the space-time calliope. And if that happens it’ll create a temporal pair of socks!”
From Pendleton Ward, the guy who brought us the crazy antics of Adventure Time, and Breehn Burns, who subjected us to the disturbing chronicles of Dr. Tran (because somehow they became roommates), comes Bravest Warriors1, a cartoon somehow less child friendly than either of those series while still making you feel like a kid. The series is broadcast on the Cartoon Hangover YouTube2 channel. Each episode is six to seven minutes long, with a surprising amount of production value. It utilizes the Adventure Time animation style and several of that show’s background cast (including comedian Maria Bamford3).
In the year 3085, the children of the Courageous Battlers (who fell into the “see-through zone” two years prior and hadn’t been seen since) travel the cosmos helping people with a mixture of ingenuity, moxie, and a certain amount of mucking about. The Bravest Warriors are:
- Christopher “Chris” Kirkman (Alex Walsh): the leader of the team with the power of emotions.
- Beth Tezuka (Liliana Mumy): the spunky female warrior who enjoys butter lettuce…Also Chris “likes” her.
- Wallow (Ian Jones-Quartey): the brains of the operation. Just watch out for the A.I. in his glove. It gets jealous easy.
- Daniel “Danny” Vasquez (John Omohundro): The cool guy. He invents stuff and plays the banjo.
When they aren’t traveling through space in their killer whale space ship, they live in NeoMars City Park in the invisible hideout (it’s not secret, just invisible). They’ve got a pool, a holo john (yes…a bathroom that is a holodeck), and some pets. There is Catbug (half cat, half ladybug), he is child-like and adorable, and lives in two separate realities. Impossibear is some sort of sociopath, rainbow-colored, Care Bear with a giant mustache. Then there is Wankershim, a little, purple, hologram, elf who likes pranks. Also space chickens. Lots of space chickens.
There are some clues that the series takes place in the future of Adventure Time, like the moon dragon and a single frame of Earth with a chunk missing from the same spot, but those could just be production references.
While each episode does the share meandering, sometimes entirely circumspect, story structure of Adventure Time, there is quite a bit of the Ohmygod!Wheredidthatcomefrom?Thatissowrong! humor of Dr. Tran. This is particularly the case whenever the Emotion Lord shows up with his reality warping powers. It’s clear why fans of either of those series just eat up this show, but that can also make it too manic and weird for others.
There are currently twelve episodes of the first season, with five mini-episodes under two minutes, and some of behind the scenes specials. A second season is in the works. Additionally there is a comic series produced by Boom! Comics.
1: Also Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi who were the minds behind The Adventures of Pete & Pete.
2: http://www.youtube.com/user/CartoonHangover
3: Also there was this Arrested Development cross promotional thing in the form of a www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLhzniPQAUQ.