Business Time

Synopsis
Jake thaws mysterious zombie-like business men from an iceberg who practice the ways of efficiency while forcing him and Finn into a sedentary lifestyle.

Plot
Finn and Jake are melting icebergs in Iceberg Lake to find items to build their Gauntlet Dock, but they find an iceberg with four men frozen in it. When their iceberg is melted, they turn out to be Business Men whom they then hire to help finish their dock. After seeing the great job they do, Finn and Jake decide to hire them full-time.

As Finn and Jake return to the tree house, the business men begin to improve on Finn and Jake's hero-skills through various minor additions, including cleaning Finn's sword and setting up a hero vision monitor to keep an eye on any evil in and around Ooo, allowing for the duo to take a breather to play video games and eat ice cream instead of always being on the alert. The first such evil disturbance discovered by the monitor is Hot Dog Princess crying for help when Battle Cubes attack her. At first, Finn feels the benefits of relaxation and becomes more excited to be going on the rescue mission. But while fighting the Battle Cubes, Finn and Jake get tired due to battling them for too long and leave it to the business men. As the business men battle the cubes, Finn realizes that they are helpful after all and accepts them. The quartet end up getting promoted for "taking one for the team" while Hot Dog Princess kisses her rescuers for saving her.

The business men soon begin to do all the work for Finn and Jake as they eat ice cream and play games on BMO. Unfortunately, by becoming so sedentary, Finn and Jake begin to lose their edge: they become more tired while growing fatter from sitting around their tree house, to a point where they can make "gut images" of others such as Ice King and Princess Bubblegum. Not even Lumpy Space Princess crying for help from a Swamp Giant on the hero vision monitor are enough to force them back into action.

Eventually, the business men turn into villains (who are narrowly thinking they are doing the right thing) and start vacuuming Fuzzy Friends into their giant Finn-bot's "care sack" to protect them. Finn fires them, and they fly into an uncontrollable rage, sucking in everything including Finn. Jake, using his fat to his advantage, gets stuck in the vacuum tube and keeps growing until the vacuum robot explodes. As Finn falls, he rehires the business men and tells them to refreeze themselves and float back into the lake. Jake instantly shrinks back into his normal size, reducing his fat. Finn tries to suck in his gut like Jake, but is still fat. It ends with a stark close-up on Finn's unhappy face with "THE END" on it.

Major characters

 * Finn
 * Jake
 * Businessmen

Minor characters

 * Flambo
 * Hot Dog Princess
 * Battle Cubes
 * Lumpy Space Princess
 * Swamp Giant
 * Fuzzy Friends
 * BMO
 * Snail (cameo)

Mentioned

 * Ice King
 * Princess Bubblegum

Trivia

 * As they are waving goodbye to the business men, one of the Fuzzy Friends says "Pancakes!"
 * In this episode, Finn eats about 18 containers of ice cream and Jake eats about 30 (totaling 48). The number of containers varies in each scene.
 * In the scene where Finn and Jake try the deck, one of the things is a Finger Slayer.
 * It is revealed that satellites still orbit Earth and are still functional.

Cultural references

 * The cover of Fantastic Story Magazine was the inspiration for the title card.
 * "Business Time" is also the title of a popular song and comedy sketch from the HBO series "Flight of the Conchords."

Episode connections

 * Finn and Jake play an Abraham Lincoln game on BMO, referencing the Animated Short.
 * The business men write "Fin & Jake Adventuring Incorporated" on their briefcases, misspelling Finn's name. This happens again with Lumpy Space Princess in "Gotcha!"

Errors

 * In certain shots of the business men riding in the robot, they all have red ties but a later scene showed that only one has a red tie and the others wore blue.
 * When Finn hears the Fuzzy Friends calling for help and says, "Jake did you hear that?" he is not wearing his backpack, but he is wearing it as soon as the camera switches back to him.
 * Before they get on the dock, Finn is wearing the glove on his right hand. When they are on the dock, the glove is on his left hand.
 * In Business Time, when a shot of the treehouse is shown it has a completely different build to other episodes. This may not be an error and Finn and Jake may have meerly rebuilt the Treehouse from a previous event causing the treehouse damage so much so that they rebuilt the whole thing.

Production notes

 * This episode was shown as a sneak peek on Cartoon Network on March 11, 2010.
 * This is the last episode to feature "Adventure Time with Finn & Jake Presents." All episodes title cards after "Business Time" use "Adventure Time Presents."
 * Pendleton Ward later stated in an interview that this episode was when the show's writers decided the Land of Ooo was post-apocalyptic.
 * When Finn and Jake were defeating the cubes, the music for the title card of "The Duke" was playing.

Storyline analysis

 * Due to the lack of knowledge about real business men in Ooo, it seems possible that the business men were frozen either before, during, or as a result of the Mushroom War. This could mean the business men were once human but have been 'zombified' due to being frozen for so long.