Food Chain

Synopsis
On a field trip to the Candy Kingdom Museum of Natural History, Finn learns about the food chain by becoming the food chain.

Plot
The episode begins with candy children that have bodies resembling different shapes sliding down a slide, shouting with excitement. The kids are viewed from an horizontal angle in the next scene as they go through a playground-like structure. Finn and Jake are examining the 'Worm Family'. After watching Princess Bubblegum teach the children about the Food Chain, they head to the snack bar as Finn found Princess Bubblegum's class useless.

While they're walking Magic Man appears behind the two without them knowing, and transforms them into birds. After singing an electronic version of "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen," they fly down below to a place with an oasis on it. Jake eats some worms, which disgusts Finn. After that Finn tries eating the caterpillars and pukes on the ground. In the next scene, Finn and Jake are shown to be very chubby and sitting on the ground lazily. Finn becomes confused for why he became full from eating few worms. Jake informs him that they have been eating for hours. Soon, Finn and Jake notice a shadow on the ground that gradually becomes bigger. They look up to see a big bird trying to attack them. Finn and Jake dodge this attack and attempt to fly away. However, because of Finn's chubby body, Finn is not able to fly and skids across the ground. As the big bird flies closer, Finn cowers. The big bird does not recognize Finn and flies onward. As Finn tries to fly away, the big bird notices and flies towards him once again. Just as the big bird was close enough to strike, Magic Man converts Finn into the big bird.

Finn then flies next to Jake. Jake does not recognize him, stating him as big and old. Finn hallucinates Jake as meat. Finn drools awfully, and states that Jake looks awesome and tasty. Finn asks Jake if he wants to go inside his mouth. Jake accepts and sits in his mouth. He states that Finn has a lot of saliva. Finn tries to eat Jake before he could escape from Finn's mouth. Finn attempts again to eat him. Finn elevates lower until he hits the ground. He lays on the ground while the sun sets, stating how hungry he is, and dies.

However, Finn is turned into hundreds of bacteria. The bacteria notices the dead body of the big bird as food and eats it. Jake is also turned into a bacterium and states that Finn eating the big bird is disgusting. The bacteria becomes full after the big bird results as a skeleton. The bacteria is then swept away by a gust of wind. Finn and Jake then find themselves turned into flowers.

Finn and Jake sing "We're Plants." during the song, caterpillars eat Finn and Jake's leaves. Small birds come to eat the caterpillars. Finn and Jake are then turned into worms.

Finn and Jake spot Erin who faints from the heat. Finn crawls to Erin quickly, madly in love with her. Finn and Jake crawl with her in search of an oasis. Erin faints again, and Jake finds an oasis. Finn, Erin, and Jake eat the leaves in the oasis. After a short discussion, Erin and Finn decide to get married.

The scene changes into a leaf with a group of caterpillars with Jake hosting the marriage. Finn agrees to the marriage and everyone cheers. Suddenly, two birds are shown flying to the leaf, eating the caterpillars. Finn and Jake then changes into the birds eating the caterpillars until Finn was back into reality. Finn had caterpillars stuffed in his mouth in which he spitted them out.

Back into the reality, Finn realizes the lesson of the Food Chain and sings "Food Chain."

The end shows Finn transforming into a worm-caterpillar-plant hybrid while the kids leave due to boredom, once again entering the slide seen in the beginning.

Major characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Erin
 * Magic Man (non-speaking)

Minor characters

 * Candy Kids
 * Princess Bubblegum
 * Birds
 * Catapillars

Songs

 * Electronic version of "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" (Queen of the Night's Aria) from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute
 * "We're Plants"
 * "Food Chain"

Trivia

 * This episode, like "A Glitch is a Glitch," is animated in a style different from most other episodes due to having a guest animator.
 * Also like "A Glitch is a Glitch," this episode exists outside the show's main canon.
 * This episode also has a different opening with different animation, different camera angles, and different character faces including replacing "Finn the Human" with "Finn the Flower," and "Jake the Dog" with "Jake the Caterpillar."
 * This is the first episode to have the title card without music.
 * Erin is the first character Finn has had a relationship with that wasn't royalty of any sorts.
 * This is the only episode where Magic Man appears but doesn't have any spoken dialogue.

Cultural references

 * When Finn and Jake are first turned into birds, the music playing is "Queen of the Night's Aria" from the play  by.
 * The scene where Erin and Finn are falling while holding hands bears similarities to a scene in Hayao Miyazaki's The Cat Returns.
 * The final "Food Chain" song sequence is reminiscent to the works choreographed by director Bob Fosse, in particular the 1979 film All That Jazz, where his main character (based on himself) has musical fantasies as he is dying from overexertion while simultaneously choreographing a Broadway show and directing a movie.
 * The hybrid Finn becomes at the end of the episode looks similar to depictions of.

Errors

 * The arrows on the food chain wheel are pointing the wrong way.
 * The sign under the bird digestion slide is missing the "s" at the end of "caterpillar."
 * Most of the lip-syncing in this episode is slightly out of place.
 * When we first see Finn as a caterpillar, his pattern is green, dark green, green, but when he is rushing towards Erin, his pattern changes.
 * This episode does not have the hidden snail in it due to the fact of this episode was created by Masaaki Yuasa.

Production notes

 * This episode was animated by Masaaki Yuasa.
 * The episode's opening was sung by Masaaki Yuasa.
 * Compared to the sneak peek, the time when Finn and Jake chirps out "The Queen of the Night's Aria," they chirp a little bit more staccato.