Fionna and Cake

Synopsis
Fionna (the gender-swapped version of Finn) puts up with the sudden courtship of Prince Gumball (the gender-swapped version of Princess Bubblegum) while taking advice from her partner Cake (the gender-swapped version of Jake) in dealing with guys.

Plot
The episode opens with alternate versions of Finn and Jake, using gender swapped characters. Fionna and Cake are helping Prince Gumball decorate for the Biennial Gumball Ball when Prince Gumball asks Fionna if she would like to go to it tonight with him "as pals." Their conversation is interrupted when Cake's tail frizzes up,  sensing incoming danger. Fionna rushes to the balcony and sees the Ice Queen coming down from dark clouds to kidnap Prince Gumball. She breaks into the castle, forms a slush beast around herself and goes after Gumball. Cake turns into a morning star that Fionna uses to smash the slush monster, with Ice Queen and Gumball inside. The room fills with snow, and Prince Gumball appears unharmed, but Ice Queen has mysteriously vanished. Prince Gumball then asks Fionna to "go out" with him, and Cake agrees for her to meet him again in an hour at the Castle Gardens.

At the Tree Fort, Fionna and Cake argue over whether or not Gumball asked Fionna on a date. Cake insists that he did, and decides to come along to help Fionna, taking her dulcimer with her as a "conversation starter" (the alternate instrument to Jake's Viola, apparently). Fionna reluctantly agrees to this, and they go meet Prince Gumball at the Castle Gardens. Prince Gumball is joined by Lord Monochromicorn. Prince Gumball gives Cake a satchel of catnip that Lord Monochromicorn picked himself, and gives Fionna a bouquet of posies with a retractable crystal sword inside it. Fionna is much more excited by the sword than the flowers.

The group rides off - Fionna riding on Cake's back, and Prince Gumball on Lord Monochromicorn. Cake urges Fionna in an undertone to tell the Prince that he's "hot." Fionna does not like the idea, and Cake insists that "guys like to hear that they're hot!" Prince Gumball interrupts to challenge Fionna to a race to Marshmallowy Mweadows. The group races there, and Fionna and Prince Gumball jump off their friends and into the flowers. Suddenly Prince Gumball dives under the flowers and disappears. Panicking, Fionna dives after him and pulls him out. Gumball explains he saw a pearl pygmy skull in the flowers that reminded him of Fionna's sparkling eyes. Fionna giggles, her eyes growing wide and glimmering like Gumball's. Later the group flies off on Lord Monochromicorn, and Prince Gumball sings about Fionna while Cake plays along on her dulcimer. The flight ends when Cake and Lord Monochromicorn drop Fionna and Prince Gumball off in a grassy field, leaving them alone together. After lying on the ground talking for a while, Prince Gumball asks Fionna to come to the ball with him as his girlfriend.

Fionna rushes back to the Tree Fort and excitedly yells to Cake that she is now going to the ball as Gumball's girlfriend. After Cake dresses her up in a fancy gown, Fionna asks how she is supposed to fit weapons in her purse. Cake says she does not need weapons at a ball, but Fionna takes with her the retractable crystal sword that Prince Gumball gave her anyway. When Fionna and Cake get to the ball, Marshall Lee floats by and gives Fionna the "horns" sign. Prince Gumball is seen talking to the female Cinnamon Bun, then he comes to Fionna and takes her to his room, decorated with candles and rose petals, and locks the door. She becomes flustered and, blushing, backs away when he begins to take his shirt off. A drop of water lands on her shoulder, she looks up to see the real Prince Gumball trapped inside a giant icicle on the ceiling. The fake prince is revealed to be Ice Queen, now taking off her disguise.

Enraged by the deception, Fionna takes out the crystal sword to fight, but the sword is another one of Ice Queen's tricks and turns into a ball of ice around Fionna's hands. Cake hears noises from downstairs and senses Fionna is in trouble. Undaunted, Fionna uses the ice to beat Ice Queen over the head. Ice Queen pushes her off in burst of snow, which allows Fionna to get close to enough to break Prince Gumball free. Ice Queen gets knocked down by the broken icicle pieces just before Cake bursts into the room. Seeing Gumball standing next to Fionna in her torn dress, Cake jumps to the wrong conclusion and lunges at the prince. Fionna stops Cake from hurting Gumball and tells her it was the Ice Queen all along.

Just then Ice Queen recovers and blasts Cake away from Fionna with a torrent of icicles. Fionna knocks her magic tiara off, squelching her powers, and then punches her for "yanking her heart-guts." Cake then uses the tiara's power to bury the Ice Queen in snow. Fionna swats the tiara off Cake's head, saying, "you'll catch her crazy!" The real Prince Gumball is impressed by Fionna and asks her on a date, but she quickly turns him down. Fionna decides she does not need a boyfriend because she knows who she is and that she is not interested at the moment, but adds that she would give anything to date the Ice King. Cake agrees, saying "Ice King is the real deal!" and Lord Monochromicorn appears and agrees too by tapping his front hoof in code. As she praises the Ice King, Fionna's voice suddenly becomes the Ice King's as the scene changes to the real Ice King's throne room. He is lounging in an armchair and reading a fan fiction he wrote to Finn and Jake, whose bodies are trapped in ice. Ice King closes the book, which has a picture of Fionna kissing Ice King, and asks. "So, what did you think of the fan fiction I wrote about you guys?"

Finn, who is the only one with his head not buried in ice, hesitates to respond. Ice King raises his hand with ice power threateningly and yells, "Tell me you thought it was good!" Finn hurriedly placates the Ice King by praising the book.

Major characters

 * Fionna
 * Cake
 * Prince Gumball
 * Ice Queen
 * Lord Monochromicorn

Minor characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Ice King
 * Gunter
 * Marshall Lee
 * Lumpy Space Prince
 * BMO
 * Snail
 * Candy People
 * Ms. Cupcake
 * Female Cinnamon Bun
 * Ms. Candy Cane
 * Lollipop Boy
 * Jelly Kinder
 * Gumball Guardian

Opening sequence only

 * Snow Golem
 * Penguins
 * Candy People
 * Gingerbread Rebecca
 * Female Starchy
 * Gumdrop Lad 1
 * Gumdrop Lad 2
 * Donut Guy
 * Grape Popsicle Guy
 * Sugar Cube
 * Candy Corn
 * Raisin
 * Root Beer Float
 * Two-Headed Duck

Music

 * "Oh, Fionna"

Opening sequence
This episode features a modified version of the Adventure Time Theme Song, sung by Natasha Allegri instead of Pendleton Ward. The sequence is identical to the regular version, although most of the characters (Sugar Cube is one exception) are replaced by their gender-swapped counterparts. In the theme song, the sky is seen a lighter shade of blue, and the mountain that the main characters climb at the end does not have skulls, as opposed to the regular theme song. Also on the cliff, Cake appears to be sleeping, as opposed to Jake, whose eyes were open.

Aside from the main characters, most of the Candy People (including Lollipop Girl and Mr. Cupcake) and Tree Trunks have had their genders reversed. Where Gingerbread Muto usually appears on the castle balcony, a Gingerbread Rebecca can be seen instead, which is appropriate because Adam Muto and Rebecca Sugar were the storyboard artists for this episode. Notably, BMO appears the same, since it is genderless. After the original airing of the episode, the regular Adventure Time intro usually has been used with this episode. However, when the episode was rebroadcast on 5 November 2012 (one week before the start of Season 5), it again began with the modified intro; this took place again to begin the 18 February 2013 Fionna & Cake half-hour special, which aired both the original "Fionna and Cake" and the official premiere broadcast of "Bad Little Boy." A re-run of the episodes on 21 February 2013 once again featured the modified intro.

For a list of differences between the normal opening sequence and the "Fionna and Cake" opening sequence see the Adventure Time Theme Song page.

Pre-premiere internet leak
In mid-August, the episode was leaked and illegally uploaded to YouTube prior to its television premiere. The original source of the leak is currently unknown. Most illegal uploads of the video were terminated by copyright violation notices from Cartoon Network. This episode and "The Monster" were screened early at an Adventure Time event at the Paley Center. However, Natasha Allegri confirmed on her Spring that the leaked episode was posted days before the screening, and that the leaking of the episode was not related to the screening in any way. A similar leak occurred in March 2012, when the Season 4 episode "Hot to the Touch" was leaked on YouTube. Another similar leak occurred in November 2012, when the Season 5 episodes, "Finn the Human," and "Jake the Dog" were leaked onto YouTube two days prior to the premiere of these episodes. Yet another leak occurred in November 2012, when "Up A Tree" was leaked on YouTube a day before it was on television, in February 2013, with "Fionna and Cake's" sequel episode, "Bad Little Boy," and March 2013 with "Simon & Marcy" and "A Glitch is a Glitch." Images from "Puhoy" were also leaked, but not the whole episode.

Trivia

 * This episode has not been released in France/Belgium, as there was nobody to do the voices of the new gender-swapped characters.
 * This episode premiered to a total of 3.315 million viewers, making it Cartoon Network's highest-rated telecast for 2011.
 * It also set a viewership record for the show. The record was eventually broken by the fourth season episode "Burning Low."

Cultural references

 * The scene where Fionna, Cake, and Gumball ride on Lord Monochromicorn while they sing is similar to a scene from Disney's .
 * Fionna's ball gown is almost a carbon-copy of Princess Serenity's gown from Sailor Moon.
 * Before the final revelation of the Ice King's involvement in this fan-fiction, he had his characters speak of his "greatness," giving off elements of both being  and himself being a  character.

Episode connections

 * During an interview on Gaiaonline.com, Pendleton Ward confirmed another Fionna and Cake episode. When asked, he said the following: "New Fionna and Cake? Yes, there'll be another episode down the line starring Marshall Lee. It's awesome... Rebecca Sugar and Cole Sanchez wrote it... it's super funny and super sweet and has really nice songs in it that Rebecca wrote. I hope y'all like it."   This became the season 5 episode "Bad Little Boy."
 * The music used in the beginning of the Comic-con preview was the same music heard in the beginning of "The Enchiridion!" The music was changed in the official premiere of the episode, however.

Errors

 * For a split second in the opening sequence, one can clearly see that the artists merely pasted the gender-swapped characters over the previous characters. Ms. Cupcake has four legs, both Lollipop Boy and Lollipop Girl are present, and Gumdrop Lass 1's bow is visible above Gumdrop Lad 1's head.
 * Ice Queen's magic "Tiara" is actually just a small crown

Production notes

 * This episode was titled "Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake."
 * The original story outline did not feature Ice Queen at all, and that part of the episode involved a date at a restaurant. However, this idea was changed to add more action to the episode, because "...if there had to be a date, it would be a date with swords and skulls and fighting!"
 * The outline also consisted of Prince Gumball and Marshall Lee attempting to disrupt a date between Fionna and a new character.
 * One of Marshall Lee's lines cut from the script was: "You're in a dress?! That's crazy, sonnn!"
 * In the original storyboard, Fionna wears shorts instead of a skirt.
 * On iTunes, this episode includes both the gender swap and normal introductions.
 * Prior to this episode's airing, the "Coming Soon" section of the Cartoon Network website stated that the episode takes place in "The Land of Aaa." However, this is not a term used by the creators of the show. See Land of Aaa for more information.

Storyline analysis

 * When Fionna tells Cake to take off the Ice Queen's crown to "not catch her crazy," it has serious implications as to what parallels the Ice King is drawing between the Ice Queen and his own history.