Finn and Jake return in new one-off-style episodes on the series Adventure Time: Side Quests, premiering Monday June 29th on Disney+ and Hulu. Joining me are the trio of executive producer Nate Cash, supervising director Victor Courtright and art director Nick Cross. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: Nate, you worked on the original series in several roles. How did it feel to come back to the world of “Adventure Time” and give us this new spin on the show?

Nate Cash: It was really cool. It felt like coming home again. And also when I came up with the idea to reset Finn to being 12 years old again, that opened up a whole thing — a wave of how much I love those early episodes when Finn was naive and dumb, in the best way.

Jackson Murphy: I think fans are gonna love this. Victor, the excitement of showing their younger days and these fun, one-off adventures. What excited you the most about this one-off style?

Victor Courtright: A lot of shows have been leaning away from that kind of storytelling. We’re doing outline-driven, which is getting more and more rare these days. Really fun to flex those creative muscles and tell stories visually. I was a big fan of the original show when it was airing. Didn’t work on it then. This is sort of a dream come true working with all of the wonderful people that created it before and all of the amazing people who are both fans of, and people returning to, the original series.

Jackson Murphy: I love that. I’ve screened a couple of the episodes. Nick, there are so many sunny colors and shades of colors. It’s delightful. What did you love about the showcase of art with this show?

Nick Cross: The world that was created in the original series is so dense and so varied. So it was fun to be part of that world and getting to put a new spin on the same kind of idea of the bright color palettes mixed with the very dark, moody environments. It’s such a varied world that was really fun to play around in.

Jackson Murphy: Nice. And Nate, the comedy of this show is so important. It’s fast-paced. A lot of memorable one-liners. How important is the comedy for you in structuring and planning out these episodes?

Nate Cash: Every episode we came up with was based on how funny it was gonna be between Finn and Jake. We have some episodes where it features somebody else, but resetting to the buddy comedy and that core — a 12-year-old human boy and a weirdly lazy 26-year-old magical dog. That was definitely the key to it — and doing 11-minute episodes that are standalone is so fun for comedy.

Jackson Murphy: Yeah. Tight runtime. You get the friendship. That’s the core of all this too, right, Victor? The friendship — and what the fans love.

Victor Courtright: Oh yeah. The characters are extremely the reason why we’re here. The world is so interesting and fun, but it’s also extremely flexible. It can be almost anything. You can tell almost any kind of story in this world, so having that amazing core of characters is incredible. Jake the Dog is maybe one of, if not the, best animated character of all time, I would say, personally.

Jackson Murphy: Up there for sure for so many people. Nick, the number of unique looking characters is kind of incredible. Was that a daunting task? How did you approach so many unique characters?

Nick Cross: It’s part of the whole “Adventure Time” universe. We’re still living in the same universe, so a lot of those characters are already fully fleshed out. The language of the show was already established, so it was nice that anytime we had to bring in a new character, it was fun for the team. “How do we put our own spin on this and work in this language?”

Jackson Murphy: Nate, you also worked on “Tiny Toons Looniversity”. We spoke for that a few years ago. And now with this show, you’ve got legacy, old and new fans of this brand, generations of fans coming to it. What does that theme of legacy mean to you when it comes to approaching projects like these?

Nate Cash: I think just being irreverent to what has already been done but feeling free to expand on what we all loved about it — because you can’t just keep making the same thing. You do need to put new voices and new stories into a familiar mold. And I think that was the fun and challenge of it — remembering our favorite episodes and then making new episodes that feel like they fit on that same shelf.

Jackson Murphy: Definitely. And Victor, you also worked on “Aquaman: King of Atlantis”, from a few years back. That show was about exploring the sea. You explore adventure here. Do you love the theme of exploration — and how you explore the art and the medium of animation?

Victor Courtright: Absolutely. Yeah. I would say that’s a major draw to a lot of creative people, in general. But exploring the depths of the ocean and what kind of wonders are down there is one aspect of it. [And] the land of Ooo is so multi-faceted. You can kind of lift any rock and find a little microcosmos underneath it to explore. Infinitely expandable.

Jackson Murphy: There’s a lot here for sure. And Nick, you won an Emmy for “Over the Garden Wall”, which I loved. An incredible miniseries that has had a lasting impact. The animation on that show has inspired so many people, as is the animation for “Adventure Time”. How does animation inspire you — and also giving you a sense of adventure through its power?

Nick Cross: What I like about animation is that you can create worlds and life in a very simple way, yourself. A single artist can create a world that’s very rich and dense. Animation feels like the most liberating, interesting and broad art form that exists. It’s boundless in that way.