Deathhammer
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Have you ever watched the children’s show Adventure Time? They recently dropped a reference to death metal. Here’s the clip. You have to watch about 20 seconds in before the metal reference shows up, but the lead in is necessary. Viewing after about 1:15 is optional – but it’s worth it, trust me. Watching the clip while high won’t hurt matters either.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGAmwsFjafo
Adventure Time’s musical battle with Death
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The clip is a clever take on the Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”, in which a violinist duels with Satan for his own soul. It’s amusing, even more so because Adventure Time is supposed to be for kids. Adventure Time is one of those shows that contains a lot of jokes, metaphors and references that children won’t understand.
It would be easy to view the clip above and assume that it’s parody; but I don’t find it insulting or parodic in the least. The show has a track record of referencing other bits of pop culture. The show’s creator, Pendleton Ward, is a Dungeons & Dragons fan, who has stated in interviews that his love of D&D influences the show. Some of the early episodes are portions of D&D games that he played, just translated for TV. In many ways, Adventure Time is a loving homage to D&D.
When you understand the caliber of jokes and references that the show features, Death playing death metal makes sense. Nods to D&D are just the beginning, as the show also features:
- An anthropomorphic peppermint butler with evil powers
- A bass-guitar wielding vampiress whose father is Satan
- A landscape littered with debris and ruins from the “The Great Mushroom War”
- Jokes about cannibalism, zombies, dance club booty-grinding
- Henry Rollins as the voice of a magical unicorn’s father
I find it amazing that the show is aired at all. Do the censors not get it, or are they not bothered by the adult humor?
I’d like to see more in-jokes like this one, just as I’d like to see more hookups between video games and heavy metal. I’ve heard a few metalheads opine that this sort of nod to heavy metal is inherently disrespectful. In other words, there is ‘heavy metal’ and there is ‘everything else’, and never the twain shall meet. I disagree with this mentality – up to a point; I’ve always felt like Metalocalypse was laughing at me, not with me. The Adventure Time clip is different.
Imitating heavy metal vocals, especially the screams and grunts, is a common way to mock heavy metal. In this case, the emphasis on Death playing double bass is too specific. Metalheads will instantly recognize the significance of double bass to death metal, whereas an outsider would probably not get the reference.
Ultimately, I think Pendleton Ward’s attitude towards D&D rubbed off on the show’s writers. At least one of them is a metalhead, and he or she decided to demonstrate that love in an episode, by making a reference for the rest of us metalheads to ‘get.’ There’s precedent for this sort of thing. When Jim Carrey had Cannibal Corpse playing in a scene in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, he did it because he loves the band. Because it’s smart, it’s respectful. The Adventure Time clip is the same, because the writers are laughing with us, not at us.
Death metal’s been around for too long for Death playing death metal to be an original concept. But Death playing death metal as an homage to both “The Devil Goes Down to Georgia” and heavy metal? That’s clever. Some metalhead wanted us to watch the clip and put a smile on our faces. If they want to view success as putting a grin on at least one face, then they’ve certainly succeeded.
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BUY ADVENTURE TIME
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