MIGHTY MOVIE PODCAST

Moving outward (there's a novel approach): Me-Mow, Jake, and Finn from ADVENTURE TIME.

Television has managed to deliver up no shortage of animated shows ostensibly aimed at kids that also manage to build a justifiably enthusiastic adult fan base. Even with that, ADVENTURE TIME stands out. The tale of a human boy, Finn, and a shape-shifting dog, Jake (who’s also Finn’s brother — long story), making their way as heroes in a wide-ranging fantasy world that’s actually a post-apocalyptic Earth, the show manages a distinctively gentle kind of anarchy that owes as much to the sophisticated themes of its stories — a recent episode served as rumination on the nature of evil — as to its inventive character design and animation.

In connection with the release of a new box set of episodes headlined by the fan-instigated “Jake vs. Me-Mow,” in which the dog has to do battle with a miniature cat assassin hiding out in his nose, I got a chance to talk with the show’s creator, Pendleton Ward.