As a long-time fan of Cartoon Network’s zany and often-times weirdly unknowable cartoon Adventure Time, I was absolutely buzzing when I found out the first panel on Friday would be the voice-acting cast. Not only would it be the voices I love from this show, but the likes of Spongebob Squarepants, Futurama, Amphibia, Rick & Morty, and so so many more. For those who aren’t familiar, Adventure Time features a boy, Finn, and his best pal, Jake (also a dog), who go off on weird quests and wacky pursuits that don’t exactly adhere to the norm both in story and physics.
John DiMaggio, Jeremy Shada, Tom Kenny, and Olivia Olsen all joined us in Seattle on the first full day of ECCC on the main stage. While I was too starstuck to get much down from the discussion it was obvious how much fun they have together working on the same show. All have had some level of fame outside of AT but this was really something special to them, and just like any great project you don’t really know what you have in your hands until it’s well underway if not over.
They talked of many things, one of which is their love for music. Not only are three of the four actively in music but they all have an adoration for the songs peppered throughout the series. DiMaggio serenaded us with “Bacon Pancakes” and Olsen sang her favorite Marceline tune accompanied by ukulele. It’s so fun to see the faces behind the voices that I’ve loved so long and find them joyful and full of excitement for the characters you love too is just a cherry on top.
(L to R) Jeremy Shada, Olivia Olsen, John DiMaggio, and Tom Kenny
Now after a long day at comicon, you’d think we would be ready to go home, but no no no, not us! We were ready to wiggle our butts to the half campy, half soul music that is Tom Kenny and the Hi-Seas. I say campy because they were so very obviously playing off the fact that Kenny is the voice of Spongebob (Hi-Seas… get it?). Soul music is definitely part of the repertoire but thrown in is a lot of over-the-top dance moves and on-stage antics as well as songs specific to the shows that Kenny can be heard in.
Not only did we dance to the normal tunes belted out with such fervor by the band but Kenny brought out his buds from Adventure Time to do a little singing with him. It was so much fun to see them all perform in ways we wouldn’t have thought and find such delight in performing with each other again.
