Ghost Princess (episode)

Synopsis
Finn and Jake head into Ghost Princess' Cemetery to find the cause of her death while she finds true love, ultimately revealing her tragic past.

Plot
The scene opens with Finn and Jake camping and eating hot dogs roasted over fire. Finn puts Softy Cheese on one of the hot dogs and offers it to Jake, but he declines. An eerie noise comes from the woods, and Ghost Princess starts haunting them. They agree to help her find out how she was murdered so she can retire to the 50th Dead World.

They decide to go to the Graveyard in which Ghost Princess was buried, but find no clues except the word "female" on her gravestone. After interrogating the spirit that resides next to Ghost Princess' grave, the group meets a ghost named Clarence. Ghost Princess and Clarence make fast friends, and she insists that Clarence is familiar to her. She and Clarence eventually decide to go to a Spirit Waves concert while Finn and Jake search the rest of the graveyard.

The guys dig up the grave of "Some Donkus" and find half of a broken dagger there. However, they are caught grave digging by three ne'er-do-well ghosts and are narrowly rescued by Clarence and Ghost Princess. Apparently one of the ne'er-do-well ghosts had accidentally broken something of Clarence's and he was "cool about it." It is then revealed to Finn and Jake that Ghost Princess decided she doesn't want to ascend to the 50th Dead World because she is happy with Clarence.

While Finn and Jake are leaving the Graveyard, Jake reveals he looted the graves for treasure, saying he didn't know it was wrong. Finn insists they return to the graveyard to put back the stolen items. While inspecting the broken dagger, Finn discovers that "rence" is engraved on the side. Finn connects what had happened and decides to dig in Ghost Princess' grave and discovers the other half of the dagger reading "Cla." He takes the other broken dagger and they fit together perfectly, reading "Clarence." Finn and Jake rush to find Ghost Princess and inform her that Clarence was the murderer, causing her to remember that she was once Warrior Princess, who fought and was killed by Clarence in battle (even though they were also in love). Remembering this causes her to ascend to the 50th Dead World, and she forgives Clarence for killing her and tells him to come with her. Clarence tries to hold her hands but finds he can't because he doesn't know the cause of his own death - and he is apparently left behind. Clarence says to himself "my life is like a fart" in his frustration and despair.

Moments later, Jake recognizes Clarence's saying "My life is like a fart!" It is revealed by flashback that Jake and Clarence met in a convenience store called Squeez-E-Mart when Clarence was alive. Clarence screamed, "My life is like a fart!" after eating a can of Softy Cheese. He committed suicide by consuming a huge serving of cheese directly from a Softy Cheese machine, causing him to explode. The cheese splashed all over Jake, traumatizing him - the reason he was reluctant to eat the hot dog in the beginning of the episode.

Clarence then begins to ascend to the 50th Dead World with Ghost Princess, having discovered the cause of his death. The two have a passionate kiss on the lips as they evaporate into the sky. Back at the campfire, Finn feeds Jake a hot dog with Softy Cheese, getting him over his fear.

Main characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Ghost Princess
 * Clarence

Minor characters

 * Ghosts
 * Boilbee
 * Muscular Ghosts
 * Spirit Waves
 * Squeez-E-Mart Employee
 * Warriors
 * Snail

Trivia

 * In her mortal life, Ghost Princess was originally known as Warrior Princess and also had blonde hair.
 * When the Ghost Announcer introduces the Spirit Waves, he mentions a website by the name of ghostdates.com. The actual site shows a concept art .gif of the Spirit Waves dancing.
 * Clarence is voiced by Sam Marin, the same person who voices Benson, Pops, and Muscle Man in the other Cartoon Network show Regular Show.
 * When the host was introducing the ghost dancers, he mentioned a website, therefore, the internet still exists even in the post-apocalyptic world.
 * Clarence's casket has a shield on its lid, while Ghost Princess' casket has the Greek letters Alpha and Omega on the lid.
 * On iTunes, this episode along with the episodes "Another Way," "Dad's Dungeon," and "Incendium" are incorrectly labeled as part of season four.
 * The treasures Jake loots are: a flexible straw, a plastic arm from an action figure, a pencil, an empty soda can, a ring, a roll of duct tape, a wrapper, a key, a cookie, a wallet, an earring, a six-sided die, a twenty-sided die, a bag of mojo magic, an ancient skull, a few marbles, a few coins, some gemstones, a mouse from a computer, and the hilt of Clarence's dagger.
 * Pendleton Ward stated at Comic Con 2012, that due to Cartoon Network's censorship the writers had to change all the word 'murder' to 'moitered' and 'murtlelurtle'.

Cultural references

 * Ghost Princess' body was buried at the Hamburger Hills Cemetery. Hamburger Hill was a nickname for the location of an infamous battle during the Vietnam War, where U.S. soldiers suffered heavy casualties before overtaking the point (only to be ordered to pull out shortly after).
 * The promo art for this episode is a parody for the poster of the 1987 horror film, The Lost Boys.
 * Ghost Princess and Clarence's story is similar to the myth of Achilles and Penthesilea.
 * A die from Jake's booty resembles a die used to play Dungeons and Dragons.
 * Finn and Jake use the Good Cop/Bad Cop routine.
 * Finn tells Ghost Princess "I'm the hard-boiled sleuth who's gonna crack your case wide open!," both hard-boiled and sleuth are used to refer to crime fiction, especially detective stories.
 * This episode uses the "I'll Tell You When I've Had Enough!" trope; Clarence tells the Cashier "More!" (referring to softy cheese) and the cashier replies to him "Think you've had enough, man."

Episode connections

 * This is the second episode in which the snail appears in a promo. The first was "Holly Jolly Secrets Part II."
 * When Jake is caught looting graves and is told that it's bad by Finn, he replies "Oh, I didn't know it was wrong." This is a continuation of Jake's trait of not always knowing right from wrong (starting in the episode Apple Thief) where Jake tells Finn that he used to steal bikes and old ladies' purses, not knowing that it was wrong. This is also a continuation of Jake's particular weakness to stealing (revealed in the episode City of Thieves).
 * At the Squeez-E-Mart the music is the music they played in the title card of "Go With Me."

Errors

 * Clarence must have been alive recently due to the fact that Jake witnessed his death, however Ghost Princess has been in Hamburger Hills Cemetery longer than almost everybody according to the ghost of the individual buried next to her which seems to indicate she died far in the past.
 * It would be impossible for Clarence, Ghost Princess, and Boilbee to eat the cheese-puffs, as they would go right through them, unless this was some sort of ghost-brand cheese-puff company.
 * Clarence threw two cheese puffs to Boilbee. However when he comes back to his tomb, only one is shown.
 * The mini-sword that was hanging from Clarence's left horn changes to his right horn when he says "I can't, my soul is stuck."

Production notes

 * It's the first episode based on Jesse Moynihan's idea.
 * This episode was initially going to include a plot point with Magic Man, but that part of the story was ultimately developed as a standalone episode for season 4. The mausoleum Ghost Princess and Clarence are in when they ascend has a sarcophagus with what appears to be a giant hand inside, perhaps a victim of the Magic Man.

Storyline analysis

 * In the episode "Mystery Train," Finn is terrible at solving the mystery of who was the murderer even though the clues made it extremely obvious. This suggests that he may be bad at solving mysteries. However, in "Ghost Princess," the clues were much more difficult to follow, yet Finn is able to solve the mystery quite well, showing that he has since become a better detective.