Jake the Dog

This article is about the character. For the episode, see Finn the Human / Jake the Dog.

Jake the Dog
Adventure Time character
First appearance	Adventure Time (2008)
Last appearance	Together Again (2021)
Created by	Pendleton Ward
Voiced by	John DiMaggio
In-universe information
Species	Dog/shapeshifter hybrid
Gender	male
Family	Joshua (biological father) Warren Ampersand (biological/mechanical parent) Margaret (biological mother) Jermaine (brother) Finn (adoptive brother) Lady Rainicorn (wife) Charlie (daughter) Viola (daughter) Jake Jr. (daughter) Kim Kil Whan (son) T.V. (son) Bronwyn (granddaughter) Gibbon (future grandson) Pat (daughter-in-law) Farmworld Jake (alternate self) Weirdo Jake (alternate self) Beth (future descendant)

Jake the Dog is a fictional character in the American animated television series Adventure Time created by Pendleton Ward. He can stretch, shrink, or mold any part of his body to any shape and almost any size, ranging from becoming gigantic to becoming incredibly small. He acts as a confident mentor to his energetic adopted brother Finn the Human, though he tends to give somewhat questionable advice. Jake has a laid-back attitude in most situations but loves adventure and will eagerly fight when he needs to. His powers help Finn considerably in combat and transportation but are sometimes used as nothing more than pleasant forms of expression. He has a wife named "Lady Rainicorn" (voiced by Niki Yang); they have five children together, as seen in "Jake the Dad". He is quite skilled at playing the viola, which houses a worm named "Shelby Butterson the Worm Who Lives in Jake's Viola". A gender-swapped version of Cake called Cake the cat appeared in the third-season episode "Fionna and Cake", and is the main character of the spinoff series Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake.

Design and voice acting

Series creator Pendleton Ward spent much of his childhood at home, describing his "[indoor] adventure experience" as inspiring Finn and Jake the Dog's adventures. Early on in the development of the show, Ward had intended for Finn and Jake to be nomads who lived in tents. However, this was changed to having them live in a permanent home at Cartoon Network's request.

Personality and character traits

Jake is generally laid-back and tends not to worry about things. He's funny, loyal, supportive, friendly, good-hearted, easygoing, selfless, and plays like a loving big brother type for Finn. He relies heavily on his powers (or Finn) to get him out of any dangerous predicament. While he often cracks jokes at serious times, Jake always has a lecture or a song to cheers Finn up if he feels disheartened. Acting as Finn's world-wise mentor, Jake is always willing to give input and advice about a situation. Still, his suggestions are usually inconsistent, ranging from encouraging and helpful tips to ridiculous nonsense. He can be somewhat irresponsible, frequently leaving Finn to fight most of a battle on his own, but he always pulls through when he is needed most.

Pendleton Ward said that the personality of Jake was partly inspired by "Bill Murray's sardonic camp counselor in the 1979 movie Meatballs, a cooler-than-cool older-brother figure who can laugh at his charges without being mean and whose teachable moments are anything but cloying".

Jake loves to eat. He likes junk food, especially pie, burgers, and ice cream, but he states in "Slumber Party Panic" that eating chocolate or fudge would probably kill him, much like a normal dog. This has been contradicted in several episodes after "Slumber Party Panic", as Jake is sometimes shown eating chocolate. He is not afraid to try new foods (as seen in "Her Parents") and invents many of his foods. There is evidence of his ability to cook; he makes Korean food for Finn at the beginning of Apple Thief, and he cooks all the food that he uses to make the Everything Burrito. He makes coffee in Beautopia, bacon pancakes in "Burning Low" and also scrambled eggs in "Frost & Fire". He uses his cooking skills to create an incredible sandwich in "Time Sandwich" that contains several unusual and original ingredients such as lobster soul and a bird from the kitchen window.

Age

In the debut of the series, Jake is said to be 28 years old in "magical dog years", although, at the time, it wasn't specified how old that is in human years. In "Dad's Dungeon" and "Jake the Dad", he and Finn are seen as babies at the same time, meaning that he ages at a faster rate than humans, but at a slower pace than dogs usually do.

In "Memory of a Memory", inside Finn's memories, Finn is seen as a baby, and pictures on the wall show Jake and Jermaine as older kids hinting that Jake may be older than Finn in human years.

In "Joshua and Margaret Investigations", in the flashback of the day Jake was born, it is also mentioned that the events occurring after Flame Princess's birth in "Earth & Water" happened on the same day. This means that Jake would be 16 years old in human years. Before the premiere of the seventh season, he was stated to be 34 by writer and storyboard artist Steve Wolfhard. In "Daddy Daughter Card Wars", it is revealed that Jake has lost track of his age. Still, he assumes he's almost in his 40s.

Background

According to the series, Jake was conceived when his father, Joshua, was bitten by the shapeshifting extra-dimensional creature Warren Ampersand during a detective investigation with his wife Margaret, and was later born from a pustule on his father's head originating from the creature's bite. It is inferred that Jake's magical powers are a result of his biological relationship with Ampersand, though he is apparently unaware of the circumstances of his birth and instead believes his powers to be the result of having rolled around in a "magical mud puddle" as a pup. In one of the episodes that shows him as a pup, it shows that he had a best friend named Anna Spurrier that was a leaf bunny, but disappeared unexpectedly and was never seen again. After his birth, Jake was raised normally by Joshua and Margaret as their son, alongside their own biological son Jermaine and their adoptive human son Finn.

Little has been shown in the series about Jake's subsequent childhood life with his family, though in his youth, he was known to be a successful criminal and the leader of his own gang, a position he later retired from to take part in a more respectable life as an adventurer with Finn. Around this time, he also began a romantic relationship with Lady Rainicorn, with whom he has five children—daughters Charlie, Viola, and Jake Jr., and sons T.V. and Kim Kil Whan. The finale episode, "Come Along With Me", reveals that Jake's hybrid descendants will become the continent's dominant species in a thousand years.

Abilities

In the show, Jake's stretchy powers enable him to modify every part of his body's size, shape, and dimensions. Not only can he stretch and contort himself into particular forms, but he can also rearrange his internal organs and teeth. In "Evicted!", he can shrink and move his internal organs and blood into his left thumb. Also, in "Jake vs. Me-Mow", he enlarges his liver fifty-one times a dog his size, preventing him from succumbing to Me-Mow's poison. One frequent use of his powers is Key Hand, which he uses to pick locks. He also uses his arm as a bow, able to shoot arrows at a short distance accurately.

Although the character lacks the zeal for fighting that his brother Finn the Human possesses, Jake is a capable fighter. In the cartoon, he has toughness and magical brawn. He is a skilled hand-to-hand fighter and can transform his limbs into weapons. He can also stretch to entangle enemies or grow to gain a height and weight advantage. His shapeshifting can grant him supernatural strength, allowing him to overpower his enemies. However, Pendleton Ward has said in an interview that Jake uses his powers lazily and does not know their full extent, often hindering Jake's effectiveness in combat. Despite stating outright that he's multiple times stronger than Finn, Jake usually leaves the brawling to his adoptive brother.

As shown in "Mystery Train", Jake is also able to stretch himself to "create" an entirely new person, as long as they remain connected to him. In "You Made Me", he is shown to be able to move objects through his body freely when he lets Princess Bubblegum jump into his mouth and then pushes her up through his back. Jake can be stretched by force as seen in "Ocean of Fear" when Finn stretched Jake's ears to avoid making contact with the ocean and in "Beautopia" when forced into a paddle. Jake's powers are sometimes used against his will, as in "Power Animal" where Jake's stomach took the shape of a fist and punched him so that he would wake up and eat.

Jake's stretching ability is subject to the principle of conservation of mass as seen in "The Limit". However, the ratio at which he retains mass differs from what applies to other masses in Ooo. It is revealed in the episode mentioned above that while Jake can stretch his body to incredible lengths, his body could be pulled so long that it becomes dangerously thin.

Without his magical powers, Jake is relatively weak and can barely even run, as seen in the episode "The Witch's Garden". In the same episode, Jake claims to have obtained his powers by rolling around in a magical mud puddle as a puppy, but in an interview, Pendleton Ward stated that this is not how Jake got his powers; he could not remember. It is revealed in the episode "Jake the Starchild" that Jake's amorphous powers come from the same creature that bit his father's head in "Joshua and Margaret Investigations".

Being a magical dog, Jake displays an acute sense of smell in the series, as he can smell the precise location of an object miles away. In "The Chamber of Frozen Blades", he states that his sense of smell is "1,000 times better" than Finn's, although compared to normal dogs, this is a low estimate. He also claims in "The Enchiridion" that he could smell the book and that it was in a room inside a castle.

The character also owns a sword, a shield, and an ax but seldom uses them in combat. In "Mystery Train", disguised as the Conductor, he briefly uses a sword to fight Finn, who defeats him effortlessly. During the same time, he also displays a prowess for skateboarding, as he performs jumps, ollies, and grinds, several atop a moving train.

Jake also has a supernaturally powerful imagination (on the verge of having psychic powers) as seen in "Rainy Day Daydream". Anything he imagines becomes a reality; however, only he can see his creations.

Appearances

Jake the Dog is the main character of Adventure Time and often appears alongside his best friend and adopted brother Finn the Human.

Others

Main article: Adventure Time (franchise)

Since Adventure Time's inception, Jake has appeared in various comic book series, video games, and other merchandise. Jake's first console game appearance was as a playable character in Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?!!, which was released on Nintendo DS and 3DS in 2012. He was subsequently a playable character in Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know! (2013), Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom (2014), and Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion (2018).

Jake has also made crossover appearances in other franchises and media. He appeared in the seventh season Futurama episode "Leela and the Genestalk". The opening sequence couch gag in the 28th season The Simpsons episode "Monty Burns' Fleeing Circus", Homer Simpson appears as Jake in an extended couch gag parodying the opening sequence of Adventure Time. He also appeared in the OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode, "Crossover Nexus". Jake is a playable character in toys-to-life game Lego Dimensions (2015), crossover game Bloons Tower Defense: Adventure Time (2018), and fighting game Brawlhalla (2019). In November 2021, Jake was confirmed to appear as a playable character in the fighting game MultiVersus (2022).

Fionna and Cake

Main article: Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake

A gender-swapped version of Jake called Cake the Cat appeared in the season 3 episode "Fionna and Cake", and was brought back in subsequent episodes. Cake is a main character in the spin-off series Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake. The concept for Fionna and Cake came from drawings made by Adventure Time storyboard artist Natasha Allegri. Both Fionna and Cake the Cat became popular with Adventure Time fans. Cake later appeared in the fifth-season episode "Bad Little Boy", the sixth-season episode "The Prince Who Wanted Everything", the eighth-season episode "Five Short Tables", and the ninth season episode "Fionna and Cake and Fionna". Cake will star in the upcoming spin-off series Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake.

Reception

Jake, along with finn has become popular among Adventure Time's fanbase, as well as cosplayers.

Jake has received mostly positive reviews from critics. Brandon Zachary of Comic Book Resources claimed that Jake is the best character on TV, stating that "while Finn has experienced a strong character arc, Jake has proved to be far more fascinating." Dan Neilan of The A.V. Club claimed that "Jake is the ultimate sidekick," staing further that "Not only can he grow, shrink, and transform into any shape that might help his buddy Finn during battle, but he can also dance, sing, and make a mean plate of bacon pancakes." Richard Whittaker of The Austin Chronicle noted that he felt that the "strong but emotionally vulnerable" Cake was written in a way that successfully provided a female analog for Jake as a gender-swapped version. Cassidy Ward of Syfy mentioned of how "bizarre" the biology of Jake. Writing for Vox, Emily VanDerWerff called the series "this era's finest coming-of-age story", mentioning how Jake "has moved from happy wanderer to something like adulthood."

Jake became popular among Adventure Time's fanbase. In 2019, Rich Goldstein of The Daily Beast commented on Jake's popularity among cosplayers, saying "Halloween nights and comic conventions of the last few years have seen an increase in the number of children (and adults) all over the U.S. who wore Finn and Jake costumes." John DiMaggio recalled "walking around at conventions and seeing everybody wearing their Finn costumes and their Jake costumes and how the characters endeared themselves to people". A float in Jake's likeness was included in the 2013 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

References

Bibliography

• McDonnell, Chris (2014). Adventure Time: The Art of Ooo. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-1-4197-0450-5.