Piggy's Pizza Palace

"Piggy's Pizza Palace" is a Season 5 episode of Rugrats.

Characters Present

 * Tommy
 * Chuckie
 * Phil
 * Lil
 * Angelica
 * Stu
 * Drew
 * Piggy
 * Ringo the Bull
 * Girl Patron
 * Girl Patron's Father
 * Boris (mentioned)
 * Spike (mentioned)

Plot
''The Rugrats wander around a pizza parlor with various games and play rooms. Will Chuckie be too scared to have a good time?'' - Description from Klasky Csupo

Summary
One bright and sunny day, Stu and Drew have decided to bring Tommy, Chuckle, Phil, Lil, and Angelica to one of their favorite places to eat and play: Piggy’s Pinball Pizza Palace (the series’ take on real life venues such as “Chuck E. Cheese's” and one of it’s predecessors, “Showbiz Pizza Place”.). As they roll into the parking lot, Tommy points out the restaurant to his friends in excitement: “There it is! Look! [Tommy also briefly imitates pig snort of Piggy, the restaurant’s key mascot]” Lil enthusiastically adds in: “Piggy’s house!” As they drive through the parking lot, looking for a place to park, Stu comments to his brother Drew: “The kids are really gonna have a ball today: They just installed that new animatronic stage show.” Drew adds in: “That’s not all they've installed little bro’.” Stu enthusiastically replies: “You mean!?” Drew finishes: “That’s right: They put in that new Reptar Unchained Pinball Machine.” Stu rebuttals: “Ooh!” The group at last finds a place to park (though they nudge an adjacent vehicle whist pulling in the space), and they get out and walk toward the restaurant; as the approach the front door, a larger-than-life animatronic of Piggy greets them: “[Snort] H-Hey there folks; I’m your old pal Piggy! Come on in and pig out on pizza! [Snort, snort]”

The group enters the restaurant, where the sounds of arcade machines fill the air; they walk up to a “walkaround” of another one of the restaurant’s characters, Ringo the Bull, who’s welcoming guests as they come in and he states to them: “Howdy there. Welcome to Piggy’s Pinball Pizza Palace. Have fun, pig out, and follow the rules.. [and he points out a board behind them that lists the venture’s rules] so Ringo the Bull don’t have to come over and remind you to play nice.” Stu replies (having apparently heard the same thing many times before) to the character “Yeah, yeah; we know the drill” and the group proceeds onward, though they stop not too long after in awe of the everything the restaurant has to offer, including the new Reptar Pinball Machine Drew was talking about earlier. Tommy states to his friends: “Here we are guys: Piggy’s ‘Pitball’ Palace! Isn’t it.. [but Tommy is suddenly interrupted when his cousin Angelica excitingly runs past him, nudging him unintentionally though rudely, and with a sack full of Redemption Tickets she had been saving]” As Angelica runs out into the open, she states enthusiastically to her doll, Cynthia: “Oh Cynthia, I saved and I saved for my whole life; and Daddy says I only ‘has’ to win only one more ribbon of tickets ‘till I can trade for.. [we cut to a view of a pink toy car that’s high up on a pedestal behind the restaurant’s prize redemption counter] the Cynthia Drive-away Dream Car!” Angelica then runs back to her father and states to him: “Daddy, I gotta win the rest of the tickets so I can get the Cynthia Drive-away Dream Car!” Drew hands her daughter a small bit of cash for game tokens (and he tells her to have fun) and she runs off to play; Drew then walks over to his brother and states to him: “That’ll keep her busy while I show you what a ‘pinball wizard’ can do.” Stu briefly makes a scoffing face and then puts his son in the “Piglet Farm” (the restaurant’s themed playpen for babies that’s decorated like an enclosure for pigs), telling him and his friends to play “while [he] shows [his brother] who’s the real wizard at pinball.”

We then focus on the babies, and Phil points out to everyone enthusiastically: “Oh boy, the Piglet Farm!” Phil walks over to a bail of hay (whether this is real or fake is never made clear), states out loud “Lookie! Cow food!”, and then eats some of the hay; Lil also puts some of the hay in her diaper, intending to save it for later. Chuckie then nervously states: “I just hope we don’t end up being piggy food.” We then focus on Angelica playing at a Skee Ball machine; she rolls a ball down the machine’s ramp and manages to get it in the bottom ring, the machine registers 5 points, a bell dings, and the machine dispenses the final amount of tickets Angelica needs to get the “Cynthia Drive-away Dream Car”. Angelica cheers and laughs in the utmost glee as she receives her ribbon of tickets, yells out loud that she won, and then dances around the venue in celebration, swinging her ribbon of tickets around and singing in “sing song”: “I’ve got the-tickets, the-Cynthia-Drive-away Dream Car’s mi hi hi-hi ie! Ma ha ha-ha ie! Ma ha ha-ha ie! Do do da-da da…” We then focus back on the babies, who are looking onward at Angelica’s celebrating and are wondering why she’s so excited. Chuckie states that Angelica sure looks happy, and Lil replies in question: “Suppose she ‘finded' a bug in her hair?” Tommy adds in that he believes it’s because Angelica won “that pretty ribbon she wanted.”

We then cut into the restaurant’s dressing room for the performers who play the “walkaround” characters; five costumes for more of the restaurant’s walkaround characters (a cat; a duck; a dog; a bull, presumably a second Ringo; and another pig, although this could be a spear Piggy costume) are hanging on a rack on the wall, and a male performer is dressing up in a Piggy “walkaround" costume. This particular Piggy costume he’s putting on is also equipped with a motorized spinning pig tail (which is rigid and sharp), with it’s on/off switch on the left wrist; the performer tests the tail (which checks out ok) and then puts on the costume’s head, stating to himself: “Okay kiddies, it’s show time!” As the Piggy character walks out of the dressing room and into the restaurant, Tommy points him out; Chuckie, who’s apparently nervous about Piggy, states quietly to himself: “Oh poop!” As Piggy interacts with a few of the other kids, Angelica excitingly dances up behind him and states to him in “sing song” “Hey pig, I just got a Cynthia Drive-away Dream Car!” whilst continuing to swing her ribbon of tickets around; the performer however doesn’t notice Angelica.

But just then, Angelica accidentally swings her tickets into the character’s motorized tail and they get tangled up in the spinning tail; the performer doesn’t notice this and walks away. Angelica, not understanding that the performer doesn’t know about the tickets and thinking that the character intentionally stole them from her, angrily shouts to Piggy “Hey you dumb pig, come back here!” and then runs after him. But Angelica, being Angelica, rather than getting the character’s attention and telling him about the tickets so he can give them back, violently kicks the character down in a karate like fashion (shouting “Kiai!”) and attempts to pin him to the floor (despite being much smaller and lighter)! Angelica’s rampage is interrupted by the ‘Ringo the Bull’ character from earlier, who (without noticing Angelica’s tickets caught on Piggy’s tail) picks Angelica up, and takes her over to the restaurant’s “Pig Pen” (a small cell for unruly guests); and, without consulting with Drew first, the character proceeds to lock Angelica in the cell for 10 minutes, telling her: “Sorry kid, you know the rules: You gotta do ’10’ in the pig pen if you get rough with Piggy or his barnyard friends.” Angelica replies sobbing “BUT-A, BU-, BUT IT WASN’T MY FAULT!”, but the character locks the defenseless Angelica in, and Angelica starts to cry!

Drew is too busy playing pinball with his brother to notice what the restaurant has just done to ‘his own flesh and blood’ without consulting with him first, but the babies see the whole thing from the “Piglet Farm”; Tommy points out to his friends: “Did you guys see that? Piggy just stole Angelica’s ribbon!” A shocked Phil adds in: “Just when she’s about to get her Cynthia car she’s been saving up for!” Chuckie further states: “I told you he was trouble!” Lil further points out: “And they give her ‘time out’ in the ‘Pig Pen’ too!” Tommy concurs: “It’s not fair! And we have to fix it! We gotta get that ribbon back for Angelica!” Phil and Lil reply: “Yeah! [and they raise their fists in the air]” We then focus on Drew and Stu at the Reptar pinball machine; Drew is playing and Stu is watching. As Drew plays, he states to his brother that “wrist tension” is the key; Stu scoffingly replies “Oh thanks bro, but i don’t take tips from ‘amateurs’. You know, in the 10th grade, I won the ‘fast flipper tournament’.” Drew applies in an intimidating tone: “I know, you still have the trophy on display in your living room.” Stu rebuttals in determination: “That’s correct!” We then shift focus to the babies, who have managed to get out of the “Piglet Farm” and are now crawling past Stu and Drew (who are too preoccupied to notice); Tommy spots the Piggy walkaround character (telling his friends: “their he is”), and we see Piggy (with Angelica’s tickets still caught on his tail) walk behind the other side of the restaurant’s larger-than-life ball pit (which is made up of a non-rigid thin plastic liner, like what a large backyard pool would be made out of). Tommy tells his friends that they’ll have to go though the ball pit on order to catch up to Piggy; Chuckie nervously states to himself: “Oh, I knew this wasn’t gonna be easy.”

Tommy and his friends walk up a small flight of stairs and though a short rigid tube that leads into the ball pit, and Tommy dives in; Chuckie on the other hand, upon looking down at the balls, hesitates to jump in with Tommy, claiming that he just remembered that he doesn’t remember how to swim. Phil comes up behind him and states that he’ll remind him, and he then pushes Chuckie into the balls; Chuckie struggles to the surface and gasps for breath. Phil and Lil then jump in and Tommy tells everyone to do the “doggy waddle” like his dog, Spike; Tommy, Phil and Lil manage to “swim” to the other side of the pit, but Chuckie struggles to get himself going. Tommy looks over the other side of the pit and sees the Piggy walkaround with Angelica’s tickets caught on his tail (and the performer still not aware of it); but he then hears his best friend Chuckie desperately calling for help as he’s sinking into the balls and can’t get out. Just as Tommy sees Piggy enter the dressing room, Tommy turns back to help Chuckie and he begins to desperately dig though the balls (throwing them around as he does so) to find the now submerged Chuckie; Chuckie manages to raise his right hand above the the surface and desperately tells Tommy that he can’t make it. At last, Tommy finds Chuckie, takes his hand and pulls him to the surface; a grateful Chuckie thanks him.

As Tommy and Chuckie catch up to Phil and Lil, they look over the side of the ball pit and Lil asks where Piggy went; Tommy catches up and points out the door he saw Piggy walk though, and they climb over the side and slide along the side back down on the floor (though it’s a dangerous fall for them, the babies somehow avoid injuring themselves, thank goodness). Meanwhile, back at the Reptar pinball machine, Stu is now playing and Drew is watching; as Stu plays and ranks up an impressive score (higher than what his brother got), he states to his brother: “The real secret bro, is to let it ‘flow’; you have to become one with the machine.” Drew replies in denial and slight jealousy: “Are you talking about pinball, or trying to give me a dance lesson?” Stu intimidatingly utters sarcastically “You could use help with both” as he continues to rank up an impressive score. We then focus back on the babies, who are now in the dressing room; the Piggy walkaround they’re looking for is however no where in sight, but the babies then notice those 5 other walkaround costumes (the cat, the duck, the dog, the bull, and the pig) that are hanging on the rack. The babies don’t understand however that the 5 characters just inanimate costumes and performers have to be wearing them to ‘bring them to life’, and Tommy tries to ask them where Piggy went; but of course, the inanimate costumes don’t reply. Chuckie points out that he doesn’t find the characters to be friendly; Tommy thinks for a brief moment, and then figures that the characters didn’t reply because they’re animals and can’t talk like he and his friends can. So, they all decide to try talking to the characters in animal talk.

Phil slowly states to the empty dog and cow costumes “Woof, Woof, Moo”; but of course, the two inanimate costumes are unable to reply. Lil states “Oinkity, oinkity” to the empty pig costume, and it of course doesn’t reply either. Chuckie slowly states “Quack, quack, quackity quack” to the duck costume, and it doesn’t reply either. Tommy then says something rather unusual to the dog costume; the costume of course doesn’t reply, but Phil, Lil and Chuckie look at Tommy in wonder of what he just said and Tommy notices. Tommy explains to his friends: “My grandpa Boris always says that to Spike.” Chuckie then looks around and notices a small door, and he points it out to everyone else; Lil points out that the door just their size and Phil adds in that it must be for them. Tommy then leads his friends through the door, saying goodbye to the inanimate costumes as they depart. We then focus briefly on Angelica, who is impatiently pacing the floor inside the locked pig pen. We cut back to the babies, who are walking though the small door, and we find that the door happens to lead under the stage for the restaurant’s new animatronic show; the babies however are not certain where they are, and Chuckie comments that it looks scary to him. Tommy then looks around for a “light button”, and he then notices a button on a piece of machinery that’s next to him and pushes it; the button (which is presumably there to allow technicians to test the show while working on it from under the stage) starts up the show (and the activated equipment lights up the space under the stage).

The show’s curtain rises, the animatronics on up stage begin to move around and music plays; the Piggy animatronic introduces himself and encourages the show’s audience to “enjoy the show and pig out on pizza.” The “Ringo the Bull” walkaround character who’s guarding Angelica hears the show starting and stats to himself: “Well that’s weird [and he checks his watch], the show’s not supposed to start for three minutes.” As the show continues, the babies hear the Piggy animatronic up on stage, and Tommy notices that it’s up a flight of stairs that leads up onto the stage; not understanding that the Piggy animatronic on the stage and the Piggy walkaround are 2 different Piggys, they proceed to go up on stage to approach Piggy and get Angelica’s tickets back. On the way out, Phil pushes the red button again to turn out the lights, and this shuts down the show (the music stops playing, the animatronics stop moving, and the curtain closes); the “Ringo the Bull” walkaround scratches his head in confusion. Meanwhile, back at the Reptar pinball machine, Drew is playing again and Stu is watching; Drew accidentally knocks into Stu, and the machine registers an illegal tilt. Stu tells his brother he tiled the machine and steps up to take his turn, but Drew denies he tilted the machine and feels Stu pushed it and refuses to switch places with Stu; the two brothers then began to fight over who’s turn it is.

Back on the now deactivated animatronic stage, the babies find the inactive Piggy animatronic and Tommy points out that “he has lots of friends” (the other animatronics). As they walk up to Piggy, Lil asks where Angelica’s “ribbon” is; Tommy replies that he must have put it someplace even though he isn’t wearing a diaper like they are. Tommy then points out the pockets on the overalls the animatronic Piggy is wearing (unlike the walkaround, which doesn’t have any clothes) and directs Chuckie to climb up on him and retrieve Angelica’s tickets; Chuckie nervously tries to back out of it by questioning what would happen if he wakes him up and feels that he would be extra cranky. Tommy points out that Chuckie is the tallest and they they are counting on him; Chuckie hesitates and nervously sighs twice, and states to Tommy that he wants him to have his potty should something happen to him. As Chuckie quickly (and impressively) climbs on the Piggy animatronic, Lil accidentally walks backwards into a large lever on the floor that also turns the show on and off and this turns it back on with Chuckie on top of the tall, reactivated animatronic! The curtain opens, the music starts playing, and the Piggy animatronic begins to open the show to the audience again; a girl and her father are in the audience enjoying their pizza, and she spots Chuckie on piggy: “Daddy, look at that boy on Piggy; he almost looks real.” We see Chuckie get tossed around as the Piggy animatronic moves about, and he accidentally smashes a large gap in the animatronic and gets thrown onto the floor; Chuckie (who’s fortunately not seriously hurt) sighs to himself and states that all he wanted was a slice of pizza.

Back in the audience, the father of the little girl notices the babies and openly wonders what they’re doing on stage, the little girl (feeling jealous) tells her father that she wants to be on stage too. Chuckie then notices the damage he caused to the Piggy animatronic; he points this out to his friends in panic and feels that Piggy will now be very mad at him for what he had done. As the broken animatronic further glitches itself to dysfunction, Tommy then looks inside the large gap that Chuckie accidentally made in it and realizes that the animatronic is “not the real piggy, it’s just a robot”; Chuckie replies in relief “It is?” Tommy points out to him that the animatronic is full of “metal stuff”, and Phil concurs that the “real” Piggy would be full of pizza. The babies then march off the stage to find the “real” Piggy; and all the while, the show continues to glitch up, and an alarm eventually blares. The “Ringo the Bull” walkaround who’s keeping an eye on Angelica notices the malfunctioning show and walks over to see what’s going on; Angelica notices that he’s gone, and the door somehow comes unlocked and opens by itself. Angelica runs outside and shouts out loud: “I’m free!” Meanwhile, in the dressing room the performer who’s still performing the Piggy walkaround (and still doesn’t notice Angelica’s tickets caught on his costume’s tail) is finishing up bandaging his right leg (having been slightly injured after his encounter with Angelica); he hears the malfunctioning animatronic show and says to himself that it sounds like trouble, and he puts his costume’s head back on and walks back out into the restaurant.

Tommy immediately spots the Piggy walkaround as soon as he walks back out, and Lil points out that he’s “wearing Angelica’s ribbon” on his tail; Tommy tells his friends “let’s get him” and they all begin marching toward him, though Chuckie hesitates nervously at first. Angelica also spots the pig and intends to take him down again; but before she can do so, the “Ringo the Bull” walkaround walks up to Angelica, asks her how she got out, and picks her up to put her back in the Pig Pen (feeling her 10 minutes aren't up yet), still without consulting with Drew first. This time, he struggles to hold a resisting Angelica and bring her back as she tries to free herself. The performer inside Piggy doesn’t notice this and only continues along, but he does eventually notice Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil coming toward him, and he feels it’s because that they love his character and want a hug; he stops in front of the ball pit, bends down and spreads his arms for a hug. But the babies jump into him and send him backwards into the ball pit, where his sharp tail rips the ball pit’s thin plastic liner and destroys it, sending a huge avalanche of balls all over the restaurant (all as he’s knocked over and carried away in the resulting avalanche)! The huge avalanche of plastic balls plunges straight into the “Ringo the Bull” walkaround before he can think to do anything about it whilst holding Angelica, and the balls send Piggy straight into him and knock him over, causing him to release Angelica and allowing her to grab her tickets off Piggy’s tail before being carried away in the huge avalanche of balls, which we see are also carrying the babies straight toward Stu and Drew. We focus on them and see Drew playing and Stu watching; but Stu notices the balls and the babies coming toward them and tries to warn his brother as he backs away nervously. Stu’s actions are too little too late and Drew is too preoccupied to notice, and they are both violently buried and carried away before both of them, plus Angelica and the babies come to rest in front of the prize redemption counter (and quite fortunately, no one is injured).

The group’s afternoon at the restaurant is ruined and so is the restaurant itself; although it serves Stu and Drew right for not paying enough attention to the kids (especially Angelica), and it also somewhat serves the restaurant right for locking up a defenseless 4 year old girl without consulting with her father first (even if it was fair punishment). But nevertheless, Stu and the babies have a good laugh (Drew is too shaken up to laugh), and Angelica is still able to trade away her tickets and get her Cynthia Drive-away Dream Car; and we cut to a little later on, after the balls have been cleaned up (the restaurant also apparently forced Stu and Drew to help clean up the balls as we see them walk by with buckets full of balls and plain expressions on their faces), and we see Angelica playing happily with her new car. As the babies watch, Tommy (having not seen what really happened) states to his best friend: “See Chuckie? Our old pal Piggy gave back the ribbon after all.” Chuckie rebuttals with a slight bit of remaining uncertainty: “Uh.. Well, I guess he wasn’t so bad.” The Piggy walkaround (who’s now more bandaged in more places than just his right leg, having been injured further in the avalanche) then walks over and to bid them farewell as they’re apparently about to leave for the day: “Bye bye kiddies; come back soon and visit your old pal, Piggy.” The character also bends down and does his trademark pig snorting for them, and this startles a freaked out Chuckie into screaming; the episode then ends abruptly as we zoom into Chuckie’s screaming mouth and down his throat.

Trivia

 * Another Nick cartoon, Invader Zim, parodies Chuck E. Cheese with a pig mascot: Bloaty's Pizza Hog. This restaurant, however, is considerably more sadistic.
 * The rules for Piggy's Pizza Palace:
 * 1. No Running
 * 2. No Yelling
 * 3. No Food Throwing
 * 4. No Cow Tipping
 * 5. No Threatening
 * Animation Errors: As the ‘Ringo the Bull’ character grabs Angelica after she gets out of the 'Pig Pen', the costume's mouth opens slightly and briefly as if it was a real bull. Although, it could potentially just be a part of the costume mechanics.
 * Near the end of the episode, when the babies are riding the avalanche of balls, Tommy's gums are briefly colored white, like teeth.


 * Ringo the Bull could've been arrested for kidnapping and false imprisonment, since it's entirely illegal for a public establishment to detain a child without first asking or consulting with the parents of the child.
 * In addition, if the Pig Pen's cell opened, it should have indicated that her 10 minutes were up and she was allowed out, so he should have known better than to grab her and try to take her back.
 * The ding-like sound when the robot Piggy's mechanics come out of its neck was later used in the 1998 Klasky Csupo logo (commonly known to many as the infamous "Robot" logo and/or the "Splaat" logo).
 * The end credits split Ringo the Bull's name into two. Therefore, he is billed as "Ringo, the Bull".