Thank You

Synopsis
A Snow Golem takes in a lost Fire Wolf Pup and tries to take care of it, while Finn and Jake try to break open the Ice King's suit of ice armor for taking their sandwiches.

Plot
The day starts with an Alarm Clock Bird entering a Snow Golem's house and waking him up. The Snow Golem squishes the bird, but goes right through his hand due to the fact that he's made of snow. He wakes up, gets himself ready for the day and then goes to eat breakfast. He takes out a cereal box and a milk carton and pours it into his bowl. Instead of milk and cereal, out comes a pear and acorns. After he eats, he goes to his cabinet finding that he has no more food. On a piece of paper that acts as a shopping list, he draws a pear. He then puts on a wreath of sticks and heads out to get his pear and acorns (which was already drawn on his list of things to get).

Meanwhile, not far from the Snow Golem's home, Finn and Jake are getting ready to battle the Ice King for taking their sandwiches. Ice King confidently states that they wont get past his invincible ice armor, which is surrounding his entire body except for his face. Finn kicks it, but nothing happens. Ice King laughs in victory and exclaims that it's his time to shine.

The Snow Golem avoids them and continues on toward the forest, which is on the border between the Fire Kingdom and the Ice Kingdom. He goes to pluck some pears off of trees, when he turns around to find a pack of Fire Wolves. The Fire Wolves growl at him, and the Snow Golem slowly reaches down for a pear on the ground and throws it at a Fire Wolf and the whole pack attacks. Steam envelops the fight and eventually, after its ended, we see the Snow Golem pulling a tree branch from his eye. His cart (full of pears) is knocked over and one of its wheels has fallen off. He goes and gets it only when he picks it up, a small Fire Wolf Cub is biting it. He shakes it off and puts the cart wheel back on. As he's getting ready to leave, the cub then comes and starts running around him playfully. The Snow Golem picks him up using stick and puts the cub on a tree, then leaves. As he is leaving, the cub starts barking at him.

As he's coming back, we see Finn and Jake are still trying to get past Ice King's ice armor by attacking it with sticks, making no progress. The Snow Golem enters his house, takes off his wreath of sticks, and sits down in his chair, relaxing. His cart starts burning and explodes in a fiery blast. He starts screaming and puts out the fire. When the steam clears, he sees the Fire Wolf Cub has been hiding in his cart. He then takes a stick and picks up the cub and throws him outside of the house. The cub starts whimpering causing the Snow Golem to look outside then close the door. It keeps whimpering and he looks outside again, only to find vultures biting it. He then scares away the vultures, and seeing that its getting dark, he lets the cub into his house.

As he goes back into his house, he finds the cub is setting his stuff on fire. After putting the fires out (again) he takes the cub out of the kitchen using a stick (he will be using this stick to pick up the cub throughout most of the episode) and into a room where he can't burn anything. The cub makes itself comfortable and sits down. Then the Snow Golem puts a rock on its tail, keeping the cub in place. The Snow Golem tries to get the cub to eat one of his pears. The cub takes a bite and swallows. The Snow Golem looks happy knowing that he won't have a problem feeding it, but the cub throws it up and shivers in disgust. The Fire Wolf Cub starts making sucking sounds, meaning it wants milk. The Snow Golem takes the cub to a cow to drink its milk, and in the process, burns the cows udder. Even though the cow is moo-screaming in pain, the Snow Golem is happy.

The Snow Golem tries to entertain the cub by singing, with his two forefingers also singing. The cub is happy, but licks the Golem's finger causing it to melt. The Golem pulls back in pain, and the cub starts making whimpering noises and looks sad. The Golem then fixes his finger, making it even bigger. And in a weird sort of event, the finger becomes his head. He freaks out a little, but the cub looks happy, causing him to laugh.

In the next scene, he sings the cub to sleep on a chair. He hears the howls of the Fire Wolf pack outside. The cub begins to howl with them. This causes the Snow Golem to admit to himself that he has to give the cub back tomorrow. Meanwhile, Finn, Jake, and the Ice King are all sleeping. The Ice King is sleep talking about how they will never break his armor, and Finn, sleep-hits the armor with a stick. The next morning, the bird comes back, but gets a fire ball thrown at it by the cub. The Snow Golem wakes up, and starts taking the cub back to the Fire Kingdom. On the way, we see Finn and Jake destroying the Ice Kings armor with axes.

The melting Snow Golem, carrying the cub with a chair, climbs the mountain that the Fire Wolf pack is living on, when the cub burns through the chair and falls in a lower part of the mountain that contains a large amount of fire. Even though the Snow Golem tries to rescue the cub despite the possibility of melting. Regardless, he is determined to get the cub back. Being extremely melted, he eventually gets to the Fire Wolves. The wolves respond angrily to the Snow Golem being in their territory, but he returns the cub back to its parents, who starts licking the cub. The Golem looks happy, but the Fire Wolves growls at him more, and he leaves in disappointment. He gets back to the Ice Kingdom, as nothing more than a small body, arms, legs and is looking depressed. Finn and Jake, who have broken the ice armor and taken Ice King's crown, are enjoying their sandwiches on top of the captured Ice King.

The Snow Golem lets out a lonely sigh until the Fire Wolf pack come out of the snow bushes. The Snow Golem cowers in fear, but the cub comes running up and starts licking him while melting the Snow Golem into almost a gushy puddle. The Snow Golem is happy to see him, and says "You look real good, nice home," and starts laughing. Finn thinks the cub is attacking the "puddle" and asks Jake whether or not they should help, but Jake tells him that the puddle is a Snow Golem and that he's laughing. Finn tells Jake that he thought Snow Golems and Fire Wolves were supposed to hate each other, but replies that they can still get along. Ice King remarks that they should learn a bit from those "sandwiches." After thinking about it, Finn then bends down and kisses the Ice King on the cheek, and the Ice King whispers, "Thank you."

Major characters

 * Snow Golem
 * Fire Wolves
 * Fire Wolf Cub

Minor characters

 * Snail
 * Alarm Clock Bird
 * Cow
 * Vultures
 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Ice King

Episode connections

 * Finn is wearing the sweater he got from Princess Bubblegum in "Mortal Folly."

Errors

 * Before the Snow Golem fights the Fire Wolves, he has no pears in his wheelbarrow, but after it is full of pears, although it's possible the pears fell from the tree.

Production notes

 * This episode premiered on a Wednesday before Thanksgiving, as a holiday special.
 * This is the first time an episode of the series premiered on a day other than Monday.
 * This episode was chosen as "Oscar-worthy" by Cartoon Network and was given a sneak peek screening at the AMC 16 Burbank theaters on September 28–29, 2011 so that it could potentially qualify for an Academy Award.
 * It qualified as one of the forty-five animated shorts for the 2011 Academy Award, but did not become one of final ten nominees.
 * Starting with this episode, all episodes being aired as a block of two have their own section of credits, preceded by their title card, during the end credits.
 * An old tractor is seen buried in the snow outside the Snow Golem's home.

Videos
Video:"Thank You" Animatic|Animatic