Adventure Time Discussion: BMO Character Study

phillysports Out of all the characters on Adventure Time, BMO is definitely one of the best. The charming little robot just seems to view the world in a state of childlike wonder, basically because he/she/it basically is a child. BMO has a broad imagination, loves to play games, throws temper tantrums, and has an eye on the future just like any child would. But what makes BMO such a lovable character is that throughout all the bad things that has ever happened on the show, BMO still manages to keep a childlike innocence through it all. Over the course of the show, the world has been threatened numerous times, but BMO has always managed to see the positive side in every situation. He/she/it is essentially an embodiment of one of the show's numerous themes: happiness and optimism in the face of darkness and evil. And right now, I am going to do a brief discussion on one of the best characters on one of the greatest cartoons of all time.

Nowadays, BMO is one of the most appearing characters in the series. But that was not the case at all when Adventure Time just started. For the first two seasons of the show, BMO played a very small role and only had a handful of speaking parts in the earliest episodes. BMO was just seen as Finn and Jake's sentient video game system and nothing more. That started to change as the show entered its third and fourth seasons as BMO started to move more and more to the forefront. He/she/it was beginning to play a much larger role on the show. He/she/it was going on adventures with Finn and Jake, the character was starting to get more flushed out, and he/she/it proved that he/she/it could carry entire episodes by he/she/itself such as the Season 4 episode "BMO Noire". By the time Season 5 came around, BMO had jumped Marceline and LSP in terms of most frequent appearances and had become one of the Top 5 most seen characters on the show.

One of the main reasons that I'm referring to BMO as "he/she/it" is that we just don't know what BMO is. The character is voiced by Niki Yang (who's also famous for voicing the similarly adorable and charming Candy Chiu on Gravity Falls), and she does a fantastic job of altering her voice to make it sound gender neutral. BMO has been referred to as "he" in multiple episodes, feminine terms such as "M'lady" in other episodes, and just simply "it" in other episodes. The main point I'm trying to get across here is that BMO is one of the few cartoon characters in history where we just have no clue what gender it is.

BMO was created by a human named Moe Giovanni, along with thousands of other robots, many years before the events of the series. Though Moe created many different robots with specific abilities, he specifically created BMO to understand how to have fun. He wanted BMO to "be more" than all of the robots that he created and made caring its highest priority. Giovanni actually made BMO to help him to raise his own son, but his work prevented him from ever settling down and having kids. As a result, he released BMO to several other families, and the robot has managed to last hundreds of years through the Mushroom War's aftermath and ended up in the care of Finn and Jake. The specific details of how BMO ended up with Finn and Jake is unknown, but I predict that we will find out before the series ends.

Adventure Time is a show that features such a rich world with so many wonderful characters. But out of all the characters on the show, very few make me as happy as BMO does. The little robot just injects every scene that he/she/it is in with so much optimistic energy that it's hard not to enjoy he/she/its antics. Here's a bunch of my favorite BMO lines from the show:

"Who wants to play video games?" (Rainy Day Daydream)
"This DOES compute!" (Video Makers)
"BMO is camera!" (Conquest of Cuteness)
"When bad things happen, I know you want to believe they are a joke, but sometimes life is scary and dark. That is why we must find the light." (The Creeps)
"My alarm says it's time for Finn's bath. Finn, get naked." (Holly Jolly Secrets Part 1)
"If anyone tries to hurt Finn, I will kill them." (Incendium)
"I do not play such games...with Jake." (Card Wars)
"BMO chop! If this were a real attack, you'd be dead." (Card Wars)
"Sure he's a dirt bag born out of a mother, but who's not?" (BMO Noire)
"I feel like I got hit with a Dracula by King Kong." (BMO Noire)
"She's red hot like pizza supper!" (BMO Noire)
"You are so beautiful, and I love you." (BMO Lost)
"I just had the most wonderful dream." (Don't Look)

Let me know what you guys think about BMO!

Comments

Bmo Is Funny - VideoGamefan5 (3/19/2017)

Bmo is my favorite character after Marceline and Ice King - visitor (3/19/2017)

Another post well done. Fascinating. - visitor (3/19/2017)