Evicted!

"Evicted!" is the twelfth episode of the first season of the American animated television series Adventure Time. The episode was written and storyboarded by Bert Youn and Sean Jimenez, from a story by Adam Muto. It originally aired on Cartoon Network on March 18, 2010 as a preview for the series; it later officially aired on May 17, 2010. The episode guest stars Erik Estrada as King Worm. The episode marks the first appearance of Marceline the Vampire Queen (voiced by Olivia Olson), who would go on to play a larger role in the series as a friend and companion to Finn and Jake.

The series follows the adventures of Finn (voiced by Jeremy Shada), a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake (voiced by John DiMaggio), a dog with magical powers to change shape and grow and shrink at will. In this episode, Finn and Jake search the land of Ooo for a new home after Marceline claims the duo's treehouse as her own. Finn and Jake search all of Ooo for a new home, before settling temporarily in a cave. After a final confrontation, Marceline relents and gives Finn and Jake their house back because she finds them entertaining.

The character of Marceline was present in the series' pitch bible, but she had not yet appeared in an episode prior to "Evicted!". Olson was cast as the character after she initially read for the part of Princess Bubblegum; she was later pleased with her casting, praising Marceline's varied design. "Evicted!" also features the first song that was produced for the series: "The House Hunting Song". "Evicted!" was watched by 1.88 million people and received largely positive critical attention, with Cam Shea of IGN naming the episode the fourth best episode of Adventure Time's first season, and Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club noting that the episode is an example of the emotional complexity of the series. "Evicted!" also drastically increased Marceline's popularity with fans of the series.

Plot

During a rainy night, Jake tells Finn a story about a supposed vampire that used to live in their tree fort. Finn, scared by the sounds outside the house, goes downstairs to talk to Jake. Suddenly, their window is blown open and the lights go out. Finn and Jake soon discover that Marceline the Vampire Queen has snuck into their house. Both Finn and Jake are terrified that Marceline will kill them and drink their blood, but she reveals that she has no intentions of killing them, noting that she really only eats the color red. However, she explains that the tree house used to belong to her, and she promptly evicts them from their residence.

Finn and Jake then attempt to find new homes. Initially they are unable to find a suitable home until they stumble upon a cave. They clean up the cave and hold a house-warming party, which Marceline crashes. She explains that the cave also belongs to her. Finn, having had enough starts a fight with Marceline, who grows into a huge demonic bat. After she seemingly kills Jake, Finn goes into a rage and violently punches Marceline, who promptly shape-shifts into her regular form and then kisses Finn on the cheek, making him blush. Jake—who was able to use his shape-shifting powers to save himself—runs over to Finn, and Marceline states that the fight they had was fun and that the two of them can have their old house back, as a gift. Once Finn and Jake return to their old abode, they are promptly hypnotized by King Worm (voiced by Erik Estrada).

Production

Marceline is voiced by Olivia Olson.

"Evicted!" was written and storyboarded by Bert Youn and Sean Jimenez, from a story developed by Adam Muto. The entry was directed by Larry Leichliter. The storyboard for the episode is substantially different from the finished episode. The dialogue between Finn and Jake near the beginning is longer, and the "House Hunting Song" is not found; instead, a dialogue note merely reads, "montage music begins", and the storyboard shows Finn and Jake looking for new houses, sans dialogue. Substantially changed scene included Finn and Jake's encounter with the Ice King (in the original version, Finn and Jake huddle in a group of penguins, which incites the Ice King's anger), the manner in which Finn and Jake discover the cave (Finn and Jake fall through the top and are nearly impaled by stalagmites), as well as the ending (which originally featured Jake and Finn dealing with a werewolf).^[2]

The aforementioned "House Hunting Song" was the first musical piece produced for "Adventure Time". The song—which was originally called "Oh Marceline"—was sung by Ward and Olivia Olson. The lyrics were written by Ward, who recorded a rough demo of the song a cappella. Patrick McHale later re-recorded the song with guitar, and Ward then recorded both a different, "high intensity" version and a more subdued variant. When the crew was deciding which version to use, Ward wanted to use McHale's recording, but Derek Drymon urged Ward to use his own.^[3] McHale later posted his demo for the song through his official Twitter account.^[4] In a 2016 Tumblr post, McHale explained:

When I was working on Season 1 of Adventure Time (2009? 2008?) we had to write a montage song for the episode "Evicted!" while Finn and Jake are looking for a new house. Pen wrote a bunch of lyrics, so I brought them home and fine tuned them and put them to music. I recorded a demo that was too long, so I just digitally sped it up to be the right length (which is the recording above). [The song] was supposed to sound sort of... lame... like sort of… like a lame singer songwriter guy who’s into Dave Matthews but isn’t nearly as talented. That was, like, a thing in the early 2000s… a lot of people played this certain acoustic guitar style, but I don’t know the name for it. Maybe it has tinges of what was called "Emo"? Or… what does Hoobastank sound like? Uhh, I don’t know. Who cares. I’m old now and I don’t remember anything. [...] In the end I didn’t want to sing the final version, so Pen did the singing in the show. He did more of a Blink 182 style thing. Blink 182? Is that right?^[5]

Ashley Dzerigian played all of the bass in the episode. According to series composer Casey James Basichis, she is "classically trained as a bassist and can do just about anything".^[6] Ryan Conner recorded guitar feedback that Basichis later autotuned into melodies.^[6]

The episode marks the first appearance of Marceline, one of the main characters in Adventure Time.^[7] Although she did not appear in the series' pilot, the groundwork for her design and character were present in the series pitch book, penned by Pendleton Ward.^[8][9] Marceline's name is based on the name of a childhood friend of Ward's friend, named Marie, whose middle name is Marceline. Ward described Marie as someone who likes the horror movie Psycho and wearing dark clothing.^[10] Ward purposely set out to make Marceline's character complex, as he explained in an interview that "with the female characters it’s easy to either write them as clichés or write them as the extreme opposite of those clichés […] I just try to make them have faults and strengths just like Finn and Jake have."^[11]

Marceline is voiced by Olivia Olson; she had originally auditioned for the role of Princess Bubblegum. After her initial audition, she was asked to read for the role of Marcelline, and was "definitely impressed by the character" after seeing design drawings.^[12] Olson is also the character's singing voice.^[13] The artistic design for Marceline was created by Ward, with small changes and additions added by Phil Rynda, former lead character designer and prop designer for Adventure Time.^[9] Olson later related in an interview that she was impressed by her character because, "she has really cool style […] I love what they come up with [in] every episode."^[12] The episode also features the vocal talents of actor Erik Estrada as King Worm; Estrada would reprise the role for the eponymous fourth season episode "King Worm".^[14]

Reception

"Evicted!" was previewed on Cartoon Network on March 18, 2010.^[15] The episode officially aired on May 17, 2010. the episode was watched by 1.88 viewers, and scored a 1.2/2 percent Nielsen household rating. Nielsen ratings are audience measurement systems that determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States, which means that the episode was seen by 1.2 percent of all households and 2 percent of all households watching television at the time of the episode's airing.^[16]

Critical reception to "Evicted!" was largely positive. Cam Shea of IGN named Marceline's introduction in "Evicted!" as the fourth best moment in the series' first season. He wrote that "sure, in this episode she evicts Finn and Jake from their home ... but hey, this is the first time we meet her and she's awesome."^[17] He later wrote that "Marceline = best".^[17] Marceline has gone on to be one of the most popular characters with the Adventure Time fan base, and after the release of "Evicted!" her popularity grew enormously. Ward later noted that he felt "good about that. It's nice".^[18] Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club named the episode one of the ten additional installments of the series that illustrates that "emotional complexity" lies "beneath Adventure Time's weirdness".^[19]

In the Ancient Psychic Tandem Warcast podcast, Zack Smith and Supernatural writer and producer Jenny Klein review the episode. Both Smith and Klein expressed an appreciate for Marceline as well as her voice actress, with the former noting that, "it's pretty hard to get past the awesomeness that is Olivia Olson."^[20] Klein compared the relationship between Marceline and Finn in this episode to the interactions between Kim Kelly (Busy Philipps) and Sam Weir (John Francis Daley), characters from the short-lived sitcom Freaks and Geeks. Klein also commended the "House Hunting Song", applauding the fact that it was sung by Pendleton Ward; she argued that it was an example of the author speaking directly to the audience, akin to listening to an audiobook.^[20]

Media release

The episode first saw physical release as part of the 2011 Adventure Time: My Two Favorite People DVD, which included 12 episodes from the series' first two seasons.^[21] It was later re-released as part of the complete first season DVD in July 2012.^[22] In addition, the 2014 limited edition 12" vinyl record release Marceline the Vampire Queen – Rock the Nightosphere included "The House Hunting Song" alongside other songs sung by Marceline.^[23]

References