The season follows the adventures of Finn, a human boy, and his best friend and adoptive brother Jake, a dog with magical powers to change shape and size at will.
The season was storyboarded and written by Adam Muto, Rebecca Sugar, Kent Osborne, Somvilay Xayaphone, Cole Sanchez, Benton Connor, Jesse Moynihan, Ako Castuera, and Tom Herpich.
[2] After Adventure Time debuted on April 5, 2010, with "Slumber Party Panic" and "Trouble in Lumpy Space", the series was quickly renewed for a second season of 26 eleven-minute segments.
On the official Frederator site, contributor Eric Homan noted that he would "prefer [that the series] stock up on a few episodes before jumping into season two, but it ain't my network".
During the network pitch of the episode, Ward beatboxed and Sugar played ukulele and the two performed "The Fry Song".
[10][11][12] The exception to this is the sixteenth episode, "Guardians of Sunshine", which features roughly 5 minutes of 3-D animation that emulates the style of 8-bit video games.
[14] The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack creator Thurop Van Orman was brought in to work on the season as supervising producer and outline writer when his show entered a hiatus, but left shortly after Flapjack wrapped up production in order to concentrate on other projects.
Storyboarded artists for the season included Adam Muto, Sugar, Kent Osborne, Somvilay Xayaphone, Cole Sanchez, Benton Connor, Jesse Moynihan, Ako Castuera, and Tom Herpich.
However, due to scheduling delays, he was free to work on two episodes of Adventure Time—"Blood Under the Skin" and "Slow Love"—as a freelance storyboard artist.
[16] The voice actors for the season include Jeremy Shada (Finn the Human), John DiMaggio (Jake the Dog), Tom Kenny (The Ice King), Hynden Walch (Princess Bubblegum), and Olivia Olson (Marceline the Vampire Queen).
Former storyboard artist Niki Yang voices the sentient video game console BMO, as well as Jake's girlfriend Lady Rainicorn in Korean.
[20] "The Silent King" featured the voice of Michael J. Anderson, who portrayed Gummy, the Royal Goblin Chief of Staff.
Brian Baumgartner, Toby Huss, and Kate Micucci appeared as the three ghost friends of Marceline in "Heat Signature".
[17] Various other characters are voiced by Tom Kenny, Dee Bradley Baker, Maria Bamford, Steve Little, and Kent Osborne.
Tyler Foster of DVD Talk called it "a pretty decent example of all the notes the show can hit.
"[36] He was particularly pleased with the way "the rift between Marceline and her dad is handled with a nice seriousness that fits right in alongside absurd gags about penguins".
"[36] It was also called the "real highlight" of the eponymous DVD release by Charles Webb of MTV Geek.
[38] The episode was later nominated for a 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short-format Animated Program, although it did not win.
[39] Warner Home Video released multiple DVD volumes, such as My Two Favorite People, It Came from the Nightosphere, Jake vs. Me-Mow, Fionna and Cake, The Suitor, Princess Day, and The Enchiridion which contain episodes from the second season.
[64][65][66][67][68][69][70] All DVD releases can be purchased on the Cartoon Network Shop, and the individual episodes can be downloaded from both the iTunes Store and Amazon.com.