Adventure Time (S01E14)

Episode #014
'The Witch's Curse'
Season 1, Episode 14

Finn and Jake happen across a gated garden that grows donuts, which leads to Jake eating one of the donuts and being transformed into a half-dog man-baby who can no longer by a witch, who demands that Jake apologize for stealing from her or she won't give him his powers back. He refuses, so he and Finn go off to look for a mud puddle that could magically restore Jake's appearance and shapeshifting abilities.

There's something about watching Jake wander around with a chubby human body in underwear that is both hilarious and disturbing as hell. One of the things that really stands out about this episode is how Finn and Jake are in the wrong. As much as I like Jake, he is very much a heroic lead of questionable morals, as the only reason he feels the need to do what's right here is for fairly selfish reasons. We see this theme emerge from time to time, and it's used for humor and glossed over in weird ways. Jake is incredibly loyal to Finn, but also filled with a sense of overwhelming dignity so deeply ingrained that he puts even himself at risk over his own pride. While the previous episode shows how willing Jake is to be bad, this one solidified the fact that he isn't nearly as good to the core as Finn. I'm still not totally sure how I feel about this episode as a whole, but if anything it serves its two main purposes: to show that Jake is incredibly proud and equally as loyal. It's mildly funny for the witch character and watching Jake sociopathically learn absolutely nothing from the whole experience, but this still feels like a filler episode in the end.