Finn is returned to his former state, as is the alpha, who is revealed to be a beautiful woman. The episode ends with the woman turning into the Tree of Blight, thus scaring Jake. "Hug Wolf" was written and storyboarded by Somvilay Xayaphone and Bert Youn, from a story developed by series creator Pendleton Ward, Patrick McHale, and Kent Osborne. The episode came together after Ward drew several werewolf-inspired creatures with a fondness for hugging. He felt that the resulting story would be humorous, and the episode came into being. In addition, Ward himself voiced the father of the gumdrop girl Finn almost attacks during one of his hugging sprees. All of the lines were improvised while Ward was in the recording booth. The music that accompanies the climactic showdown between Finn and the Alpha Hugwolf was composed by Casey James Basichis. The composer thought up several novel ways to convey Finn's transformation through music, including "burying 8bit NES synths in distortion, playing guitar with my girlfriend’s many fur coats, [and] screaming into pillows". He eventually settled on using fur coats to produce a "warm, woolly" sound. The music's beat was crafted to sound like "unrelenting static electricity". "Hug Wolf" aired on Cartoon Network on May 14, 2012. The episode ranked as the number one telecast of the week among boys aged 6 to 11, and 2 to 11, and it was also the number one telecast of the day among children aged 6 to 11, and 2 to 11. The episode first saw physical release as part of the 2014 DVD, "The Suitor", which included 16 episodes from the series' first five seasons. It was later re-released as part of the complete fourth season DVD in October 2014. Oliver Sava of "The A.V. Club" awarded the episode a "B+", arguing that the episode was an analogy for the more serious topic of rape. He concluded that, "There’s no significant world building or a talking snail cliff hanger, but 'Hug Wolf' is a bizarre, clever episode with some great one-liners and visual gags. It’s not as madcap as some episodes, but it mines its central concept for all it can, squeezing out as much humor as possible from a hug-rape story."