Jake hits up the skatepark in a solid and entertaining episode. And not only do we find out that his kids are more mature and put together than him, but it’s starting to look like his grandkids are, too. Better than that, though, it’s a exploration of growing older, staying relevant, while still keeping your cool. SPOILERS, probably.
1. Boy Boy Crazy Boy
It should come as no surprise that I’ve spent many hours playing the iOS game, Ski Safari Adventure Time. For the longest time, it was the only game I kept on my phone. It’s filled with all these tidbits and sound bites and in one of them, Finn loudly screams out, “YOUTH CULTURE FOREVER!” Usually while he’s doing a triple backflip and landing perfectly on the back of a fire wolf. The sound bite is from “Wizard,” a season one episode, incidentally.
I bring this up because both the show, and Finn, have sort of moved beyond this mentality, whereas Jake is still kind of stuck in his more immature ways. He’s loveable and goofy, sure, but there’s a deep-seated fear in him about being abandoned that causes him to make all manner of bad decisions. How can a guy who’s so comfortable with seeing his own death be so reckless and desperate?
The episode starts with him being tasked by Kim Kil Wan to find out why his daughter/Jake’s granddaughter, Bronwyn (“Wait, I’m a grawmpa?! Haha just kidding. I knew that”), is slipping in school, even though it looks like she’s always studying. Jake immediately discerns she’s hiding something, and comes to find her at a skate park, where he decides the most important thing in the world for him is to impress a bunch of preteens.
2. Get Cool Boy
Storyboard artists Graham Falk and Charmaine Verhagen play this for laughs, though really we’re seeing one of the sadder sides of Jake. Here’s a guy so desperate to be liked and considered cool he goes to great risks and lengths to be accepted in a group of kids. He even brings the coolest person he knows to try to impress them — “It’s my roommate, Finn!” he says. “He’s 16.” The kids think that’s way old — and launch a mashup of flute playing and beat boxing. Jethro Toll like. (Also, Huntress Wizard cameo!) “This is a horrible idea,” Finn even says at one point as Jake’s attempts keep escalating. Falk and Verhagen underscore this even more by having Jake’s granddaughter actually have an emotional arc, which goes unnoticed by Grawmps over here. As Kim Kil Wan talks to Bronwyn about her personal responsibilities and whatnot, they treat us to a bunch of sight gags of a beat up Jake smashing into things.
3. Got a Rocket
There’s also a good bit of managerial satire at the beginning of the episode. Where Kim Kil Wan is reluctant to approach talking to his daughter, he’s really strong at delegating his group and praising their individual marketing talents. What I liked in “Wheels” was that Adventure Time showed three different generations of Jake the Dogs processing and dealing with their whole worlds differently. But again, where Kim Kil Wan and Bronwyn sort of make progress, Jake nearly literally falls into a pit.
4. In Your Pocket
Eventually, the characters get to a thrash race after Bronwyn can’t stand Jake’s desperate attempts at coolness anymore. A lot of this comes at her own expense, incidentally. The scene has all these cool Tony Hawk Pro-Skater vibes and frankly, it’s a lot of fun. Even without the no magic biz clause Bronwyn throws in, there’s still a lot of physics-bending antics at work. You could watch the race a couple times and find all sorts of neat animation tricks and beats they threw it. Where something like Steven Universe probably features better action animation, these moments in Adventure Time where the artists get more ambitious are always a lot of fun.
5. Get Cooly Cool Boy
With its conclusion on the rise (and the fact that Cartoon Network has seemingly abandoned caring about it), it seems natural to think that Adventure Time feels its age. There’s still nothing quite as innovative or exciting as it on air, but it’s been on so long already and has proven so influential that a new crop of cartoons and shows are starting to mimic it. “Wheels” was a fun, enjoyable episode with some exciting animation and fun stretchy-Jake gags, but it also seems like the show is telling itself that it’s okay to be older, that relevancy comes from growing up and not trying to cater to some random base group.
Also, “Wheels” reminded me heavily of this.
