Slumber Party Panic

Synopsis
Finn and Princess Bubblegum must protect the Candy Kingdom from a horde of candy zombies they accidentally created without the citizens of the Candy Kingdom finding out.

Plot
Finn and Princess Bubblegum are in the Graveyard doing a science experiment aimed to bring dead Candy People back to life, while Jake and Lady Rainicorn are playing in the forest. She tests her decorpsinator serum on the dead Mr. Cream Puff. However, he is resurrected into a Candy Zombie that craves sugar. Mr. Cream Puff then spills the serum all over the graves of the dead Candy People, and they rise as zombies too. Princess Bubblegum tells Finn that the Candy Zombies will go to the Candy Kingdom and consume the Candy People.

At the kingdom, Princess Bubblegum summons all of the Candy People to the main candy foyer, where she announces that they are all going to have a slumber party. She explains to Finn that if the Candy People find out about the zombies, they will explode in fright (although they do not explode in later episodes when they become afraid). At the same time, Starchie searches for Princess Bubblegum in the Graveyard to give her a bigger corpse shovel, but he explodes upon seeing a Candy Zombie. Back at the Candy Kingdom, Bubblegum makes Finn royal promise not to tell anyone about the candy zombies, then gives him orders to keep the people distracted while she tries to finish the serum in her lab. Jake hears part of the discussion and begins asking what Princess Bubblegum and Finn were up to. In an attempt to keep the promise, Finn avoids answering Jake and tries playing Truth Or Dare, where Chocoberry dares Mr. Cupcake to take off his wrapper. Mr. Cupcake then asks Jake whether he prefers chocolate or fudge. Jake says he cannot eat either because he is a dog, and if he eats either, he would probably die. But he says if he had to choose, he would choose neither fudge nor chocolate. Finally, Jake dares Finn to tell the truth about what's going on.

Finn tries to dodge Jake's question by starting a game of Dodge Socks, but when he throws his sock, Jake smells Mr. Cream Puff's scent on it, because Finn kicked the zombie Mr. Cream Puff when he attacked Princess Bubblegum earlier. To make sure Jake does not find out about the zombies, he gets Jake to play Seven Minutes in Heaven with Lady Rainicorn. Meanwhile, the zombies have arrived, and Finn tries to keep the Candy People ignorant by drowning out the zombies' noises with loud music and barricading all the exits and windows. Finn gets the Candy People to help him keep the zombies out of the castle by making up a game called Blockado, "the game of barricades." Knowing the blockades will not last long, Finn gets another idea when he takes a look at Manfried the talking piñata. He tells the Candy People that they're gonna smash piñatas (not Manfried) and blindfolds them so they do not see that the piñatas are really zombies breaking into the castle. Soon, they beat up all the zombies and start eating the candy that was stashed in them.

Jake and Lady Rainicorn come out of the closet and see all the dead Candy Zombies. When Finn tells him what happened, time suddenly stops. The only people who are not frozen are Finn and Princess Bubblegum, who hasn't finished her equation yet. Suddenly, two Guardians of the Royal Promise arrive and grab Finn and Bubblegum. For breaking his royal promise, the guardians plan to punish Finn with a trial by fire. However, since Bubblegum cares for Finn, they decide to make him solve math questions instead. Finn is terrible at math, and at first he is given a complicated math problem, but luckily one of the Guardians changes it to 2+2. Finn answers correctly and the Guardians reset time. Bubblegum realizes that 4 is the last figure she needs to perfect her decorpsinator serum, as she was too smart to see such a simple answer. Finn and Bubblegum bring the zombies back to life, including Starchie, and the Candy People reunite with their former dead relatives. Jake tells Finn that he should have just told him that he had made a royal promise to not tell about the zombies, since Jake knows "what's up." Finn promises Bubblegum to keep his promises from now on, and Starchie (despite not being a zombie anymore), craves for flesh and bites Finn's leg. Finn squeezes him, and Starchie farts.

Major characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Princess Bubblegum
 * Candy Zombies

Minor characters

 * Lady Rainicorn
 * Gumball Guardian
 * Candy People
 * Tree Trunks
 * Snail

Trivia

 * This is the first time Lady Rainicorn speaks, instead of the bird language she used in the animated short.
 * Princess Bubblegum's laboratory has a miniature version of one of the Gumball Guardians.
 * A zombie Finn can be seen in this episode. It is not mentioned by any of the characters and is not part of the plot.
 * When Jake and Lady Rainicorn's time in "7 Minutes in Heaven" are up, Jake comes out eating what looks like a jelly doughnut.
 * Candy people exploding from fear is inconsistently referenced in later episodes. In some major panics like in "The Comet" the candy people do not explode, but in "Something Big," Crunchy is shown to explode out of fear. It could be that Princess Bubblegum has largely solved this problem for the candy people, e.g. via calming exercises such as the one shown in "Hot Diggity Doom."

Cultural references

 * When the first candy zombie tries to bite Princess Bubblegum, it says "Gimme some sugar, baby," quoting Bruce Campbell's character, Ash Williams, from .
 * When Finn says, "Blockado, The Game of Barricades," this imitates common marketing slogans for classic board games (for example, ", The Game of Global Domination").
 * The games "Truth or Dare" and "Seven Minutes in Heaven" are party games that are still being played today.

Episode Connections

 * "From Bad to Worse" serves as the sequel for this episode.
 * The dancing women on the title card bear an uncanny resemblance to the Fruit Witches in "Dad's Dungeon."

Errors

 * Starchy had exploded in the graveyard, but in the scene after Finn suggests playing "Blockado," Starchy could be seen with all of the other Candy People. This could just be a graphic description of what would happen should candy people suffer extreme fear.
 * When Jake was surprised and the castle became blue, Peppermint Butler is seen without his white color in his tuxedo.
 * In the scene where the candy people are entering the castle, if you look closely, you can see Mr. Cupcake's wrapper is brown before the Truth or Dare part comes along.
 * When Jake runs out of the closet, the jelly doughnut becomes duplicated. One stays stuck the door while Jake holds the other.

Production notes

 * This episode, along with "Trouble in Lumpy Space," aired as the series' official premiere.
 * In its original broadcast on April 5, 2010, the episode was watched by 2.497 million viewers.
 * The episode was originally titled "The Royal Promise" and later "Slumber Party Slaughter."