On to the next special, Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City. Here's hoping for some improvement here...
So it opens up in the morning as usual with Mr. Sun narrating again and Strawberry is currently putting up wallpaper in her house. Escargot, a delivery snail arrives with a letter for Strawberry. She takes it and she notices this is from 6 six weeks ago. After the obligatory "Snail Mail" joke, she finds out that her shortcake recipe won and she's one one two finalists that are going to Big Apple City for a cooking contest, with the top prize being a gazebo. However, the contest is on this very day. That's just poor postal service. She decides to haul ass and get going.
As for the other finalist? It's The Peculiar Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak. I know what you're thinking. "Didn't they become best friends at the end of the first special?" Yeah. There's a reason for why he went back to being evil and you'll find this out shortly. Also, I like how Mr. Sun describes him as a "Misanthropic fathead with a skinny physique". That actually made me chuckle. His entry is Kohlrabi cookies, which makes one of the berry birds gag and fall down. Oh, you want to know what Kohlrabi is? There you go!
However, he's Genre Savvy enough to know that Strawberry's a Supreme Chef and he's a Lethal Chef and decides to stop her from winning at any cost.
Oh, intro time! It's another song with her friends coming out and skipping behind her as she heads to the airport. By the way, take note of one of the lyrics. She's described as being "bouncy as a bubble of champagne." Oh, and this is the last time you'll see Plum Pudding as a boy, because he's going to be Put on a Bus and come back as a girl.
She reaches the airport where the "plane" is basically a single butterfly. She says her goodbyes and is about to take off, only to get caught by a butterfly net thanks to one of the Pieman's inventions. He tells Strawberry that his evil conscience made him go back to being evil and drives off in his ridiculous car to Big Apple City. I swear, that animation when he takes off in it made me laugh so hard when I first saw it, because it looks so ridiculous...
The butterfly tells her that he can break free with happy thoughts, so she tells him to think of a big, cool bowl of strawberry ice cream. He imagines it in his mind, then proceeds break free from the net and eats what he imagined in the process. I'm not making this up, I swear. They then head to Big Apple City together and we're treated to a short song about Big Apple City. I swear this song sounds like something I'd hear in the late 60's or early 70's...
Strawberry arrives at the hotel, but the manager tells her that there's no reservations for her until next week. Rather than attempt to investigate if there's something suspicious, she leaves in tears. Man, she's sensitive. The Pieman unveils his disguise and celebrates with his stupid dance. As she leaves the hotel, she sees a sign ahead that says Sentimental Park and decides to go there. A voice tells her to move out of the way while she's busy taking in the sights and sounds of the park. Strawberry notices a black girl painting there and it is here we are introduced to Orange Blossom. Might be me, but the voice she has sounds a little older than her age might suggest.
She's painting a sea shore even though she's at a park, explaining to Strawberry that she didn't bring her paints when she went to the beach last week. The only reason she paints it as well as she does is due to a good memory and plans to paint this park when she's in the mountains next week. Why not just do it right now, right as your finishing this one up? Strawberry tells Orange that she's one of the two finalists that's supposed to be in the bake off today, and they take an immediate liking to each other. They then decide to become friends and of course, sing a song about it. Might be me, but for two people who just met, they seem to be a little too close while they're doing this duet...
...Nah, I'm imagining things...
Orange Blossom says she lives in Spinach Village and offers Strawberry a place to stay there. She immediately accepts and they leave the park. However, the traffic light is stuck on red and it doesn't look like it'll change anytime soon. Orange informs Strawberry that they'll never reach the subway if the light doesn't turn green. And thanks to the Pieman sabotaging the traffic light, they're stuck. A Mexican mole known as Tamale appears, and realizes he's not in Acapulco. The girls offer him a place to stay in Spinach Village, but they need to wait for the light to change. He offers to take them there by following him, even though he has no knowledge of the area. I hope Orange is good at navigating underground. He'll probably take a wrong turn at Albuquerque with his piss poor navigation.
Meanwhile, the Pieman decides to head to the theater in Times Pear to further stop her efforts. He tries to cross the street but is barely hit by a car. No, seriously, a car hits him in the butt as tries to dodge it. "Hoisted by my own Petard!" he cries out. However, he sees a man carrying balloons and steals them so he can float towards his destination. I hope the wind screws him up and blows him off course...
Ten minutes later, the protagonists arrive at Spinach Village, and Orange decides to introduce Strawberry to her friends. First is Lemon Meringue, a famous model. She basically pretends to look at herself in a mirror with no glass for reflection in it so she can admire her looks. She clearly has some issues. Orange introduces Strawberry to her and Lemon says that she has lots of pictures everywhere around the city, except we didn't see any, so chances are she's lying and she's not really famous. Orange decides to move on and introduce her to the next neighbor, T.N. Honey, from England. She's an inventor, and basically uses a lot of Stock British Phrases. This ain't gonna get annoying, no sir... The last one is a baby named Apricot who has pet a bunny named Hopalong and somehow can only speak big words like "indubitably". Just what have they been feeding this baby anyway?
They're invited to come along and basically support Strawberry during the contest, and decide to take a horse-drawn cab to Times Pear. Also, that horse named Horseradish is ugly as heck and never so much as had a toy in the line. Gee, I wonder why? They arrive at the theater at the same time as the Pieman. What a coincidence...
The person running the show is the Network executive, Coco Nutwork, who's a one-man network literally trying to run the cameras, host the show, do the soundtrack, and other such things. He's also trying wayyyyy too hard. Seriously, I'm amazed this guy is even trying to do all of these jobs, much less one. Also, the audience consists of Strawberry's friends and nobody else. This contest must not be well promoted. Also, when Coco introduces the contestants, the Peculiar Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak doesn't dance when he says his full name. It's a miracle!
First, the contestants must check their ovens. The Pieman's is fine, but Strawberry's is frozen solid. Despite having just arrived, he somehow find the time to cheat a couple more times. However, thanks to T.N. Honey, the oven is fixed, but the Pieman has a head start, and Strawberry's cooking ingredients are missing. They've been replaced with crappy ingredients such as bubble gum, patching plaster, axle grease and chalk water. Her friends decide to go to the market right quick, but the Pieman remarks that they'll never make it in time. They come through with the necessary ingredients for Strawberry despite having a long line. Five bucks says they cut through it for the sake of a friend they just met a hour ago. But hey, Power of Friendship and what not, am I right?
The Pieman finishes his batch of cookies, but he has one last plan up his sleeve. He decides to hypnotize Coco and tell him Kohlrabi cookies are the best and that he's the winner. Much to everyone else's annoyance, it works and while Strawberry's friends cry foul, she decides to go the Graceful Loser route even though he blatantly cheated. For crying out loud, Strawberry, grow some backbone and call him out on his cheating! He then gets the prize and Coco dresses up like a model which soooo screamed a goofy screenshot moment.
Just as the Pieman is about to get his prize (Which is waaayyyy to feminine for him, I might add, though he'll probably add his own touches), her friends pointed out that he never tried the cookies. Realizing this, Coco tries one and basically wishes he hadn't. In fact, it's a miracle that his dumb recipe even made the finals. And as for Strawberry's Shortcake, it tastes delicious and she comes out the winner. But this was far from surprising.
He offers Strawberry her own TV show, but she starts to get homesick, so she turns down the offer and decides to head back home. Her friends decide to tag along, including the executive, for some dumb reason. As for the Pieman's punishment? Coco makes him becomes the Vice President of the Network, which is "a fate worse than Berry Talk". I don't know about that, to be honest. He could probably start a propaganda network or something promoting his atrocious cooking or some other nonsense. Then again, we saw Coco in drag earlier...
They head back home and that's the end of that special. Well, it's better than the first one at least, but just barely. This did have a few funny moments to it's credit at least, but it's basically a Foregone Conclusion that Strawberry was going to win, even without the Pieman invoking Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat for all of his actions. Besides, I still want to know what kind of judges allow for crap like kohlrabi cookies to make the finals of a baking contest. Oh, and with the exception of Orange Blossom, Lemon Meringue, Apricot and Hopalong, none of the other characters she meets on her journey will reappear in future episodes.. Not even in cameos.
But let's be honest, some of those characters didn't even contribute much to the plot in all fairness. We already have a brainy character in Plum Pudding and a baby character in Apple Dumplin', Tamale would've felt out of place, and what was Coco Nutwork planning to do in the country anyway? Probably nothing. Still, it's better than the first, but only slightly...
Well, it's on to the third special...
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