Western Animation / Ratchet & Clank: Life of Pie

Get your OmniWrenches ready!

Ratchet: And I believe I heard someone say free pizza!
Clank: Yes. I have accumulated the precise amount of coupons for one free Cosmic Crust pizza!

Ratchet & Clank: Life of Pie is an animated short based on the Ratchet & Clank series and animated by Mainframe Entertainment, the same studio behind the 2016 movie.

Presumably taking place sometime after the events of the film, Ratchet and Clank go on a trip to get a free pizza with the coupons Clank has collected. However, tension quickly begins to grow between the two once its revealed that the coupons are for a Cosmic Crust Pizza, which Ratchet has a strong dislike for. Their debate gets interrupted when they accidentally come across Dr. Nefarious' space station, where he is unveiling his latest invention: The Portalizer, which allows him to open portals into other dimensions. Seeing this as an opportunity to get better pizza from a "pizza dimension," Ratchet steals the Portalizer for himself. From there, things take a turn for the cheesier, meatier, crustier, and the worse.

The short was released suddenly on February 12th, 2021 on the Canadian streaming service Crave, with no word on a worldwide release.

The tropes have more flavor than the pizza!

• Adaptational Dumbass:
  • Captain Qwark's intelligence has dropped significantly, in comparison to both the film and even the majority of games— namely, his first reaction upon hearing of a dimension entirely full of pizza is to consider becoming a spokesman for it, and upon reaching said dimension he begins nonchalantly eating the sentient pizza toppings.
  • Ratchet himself, apart from being more of a jerk, is also portrayed as being more fixated on obtaining a pizza even in the face of an interdimensional crisis.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Both Ratchet and Clank, as they are at odds with each other throughout the short. However, Ratchet's more impulsive and ego-driven portrayal is more in-line with the games than the film was.
• Alternate Continuity: Is one to the games, as stated by PlayStation themselves. May or may not be one to the film as well (see Broad Strokes).
• Attack of the Monster Appendage: The kraken only shows its tentacles, which it sticks through dimensional portals to attack those on the other side.
• Bad Boss: Nefarious, as usual. He shoots several of his robot servants when they don't clap hard enough for him. This bites him in the end when he's glitching and the bots line up to apply an excess of Percussive Maintenance on him.
• Book Ends: The short starts and ends with Ratchet running into a billboard for Cosmic Crust Pizza.
• Broad Strokes: It's implied that this short takes place later into the continuity of the 2016 film due to its much smaller cast, Ratchet lacking his game counterpart's character development, and the mention of Dr. Nefarious' work on the Deplanetizer. However, there are a few inconsistencies— Zed is still working for Dr. Nefarious despite quitting his job later into the film, Ratchet, Clank and Qwark's personalities are relatively altered overall (with Ratchet now hating Qwark outright), and the planet seen in the short is entirely different to Kerwan and its Aleero City in both appearance and layout, combined with how the majority of characters the film introduced have been Put on a Bus.
• Butt-Monkey: Bruce, the weapons vault guard, gets (briefly) roboticized by Qwark playing with the Biobliterator, and then ends up sheepinated and stays that way for the rest of the short.
• The Cameo: The Plumber makes his obligatory appearance once the pizza toppings begin attacking the city.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Ratchet and Clank discuss whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza while being attacked by a horde of sentient pizza toppings.
  Ratchet: I mean, who puts pineapple on pizza anyway?
  Clank: Statistically speaking, the combination of sweet and savory flavors are enjoyed by many.
  Ratchet: Statistically speaking, I am not one of them.
• Chekhov's Gun: Qwark shows off the Groovitron when he, Ratchet, and Clank go to the weapons vault. Later, Ratchet uses it to subdue the attacking pizza toppings and Nefarious' minions.
• Companion Cube: Qwark acts as though his cardboard cutout is a living entity, even entrusting it to keep the Portalizer safe. Even Dr. Nefarious treats it as one for a brief moment.
• Denser and Wackier: The short is noticeably more surreal than any of the prior games or the film it is based on— for one, the antagonists of the short are killer sentient pizza toppings.
• The Dog Bites Back: As payback for mistreating them throughout the short, Nefarious's goons line up to thrash him... while he's malfunctioning.
• Double Entendre: While Ratchet and Clank are debating about whose fault it is for Qwark causing sentient pizza toppings to begin attacking, Clank suddenly tells Ratchet "You suck!" Ratchet is understandably confused by this until Clank reveals he's using the Suck Cannon on the toppings and is literally telling him to suck with the weapon while he goes to find more weapons.
• Exact Eavesdropping: After getting attacked by a space squid from another dimension, Ratchet decides to track the source of the dimensional portal. It turns out to be the lair of Dr. Nefarious. Ratchet and Clank get there just in time to secretly watch Nefarious show off his Interdimensional Travel Device to his minions.
• Forced Transformation: Qwark accidentally turns the guard of the weapons vault, Bruce, into a sheep.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: At the beginning of the short, Ratchet flies past a directional sign post with signs saying "Lactosa (non-fat Milky Way)", "ominous nebula", "Marcadia" and, interestingly enough, "Uranus".
• Ironic Echo: The first time Ratchet runs into a billboard, Clank warns him by saying "Proximity alert." At the end, Ratchet says the same thing before intentionally running into another billboard.
  Clank: You did that on purpose.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: Nefarious' Portalizer.
• Jerkass Has a Point: While Ratchet is quick to deflect blame onto Clank for Qwark stealing the Portalizer from him, it is not entirely unjustified as Clank was the one who asked Qwark to tag along and told him what the device did simply to spite Ratchet for stealing it in the first place.
• Killer Rabbit: The inhabitants of the pizza dimension are simply sentient pizza toppings with cute 2D faces. Once Qwark angers them, however, they gain much more scary faces and begin attacking the city.
• Manipulative Bastard: Qwark, who pulls off a surprisingly clever gambit on Ratchet and Clank— once learning about the Portalizer and Pizzaverse, he takes the two into the Galactic Weapons Museum, and in the midst of showing off and toying with each of the weapons seen, stuns them with the Chimp-O-Matic when they least expect it, and grabs the Portalizer for his own use.
• The Multiverse: The Portalizer allows the wielder to open up portals to other dimensions.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The logo for the short is the same one used for the comic series, albeit with a different ampersand.
  • Many of the weapons seen in the games return as cameos, the most notable being Qwark's use of the Chimp-O-Matic and Clank's Holo-Knuckles, although both receive some changes: The former makes the target act like a cymbal monkey instead of turning them into a chimp, and the latter produces actual holographic gauntlets instead of holographic blunt objects.
  • Dr. Nefarious' robot minions are repainted versions of the warbots seen in the 2016 film and game.
  • Zed mentions that Dr. Nefarious' past successes include the Deplanetizer and Biobliterator prior to his creation of the Portalizer. However, the Biobliterator here is redesigned from a giant mech into a handgun with the appearance of the Dynamo of Doom.
  • Dr. Nefarious' grand scheme here is to use a portal device to conquer all dimensions. This references the Dimensionator from Tools of Destruction... and by proxy, his own use of said Dimensionator technology in Rift Apart (which would also be the closest game to this short's original release).
  • This isn't the first time in the franchise that a giant grabby tentacle creature has burst out of a portal to wreak havoc.
  • True to form, Nefarious short-circuits and plays a Lance and Janice radio broadcast whenever stress hits him too hard.
  • Just like in the film, Clank records everything Ratchet says.
• Never My Fault: Despite him being the one to grab the Portalizer for his own use in the first place, Ratchet blames Clank for putting it in Qwark's hands. Although to be fair, Clank did invite Qwark to accompany them to the weapons vault simply to spite Ratchet.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: A double whammy; Ratchet steals the Portalizer from Nefarious to go into the pizza dimension, which leads to Qwark stealing it from him where he then angers the inhabitants of the Pizzaverse, which causes them to start attacking the city.
• Pineapple Ruins Pizza: When Qwark starts eating the inhabitants of the Pizza Verse, he recoils when their leader, a pineapple named King Toppings, confronts him, stating how no one likes pineapple on pizza.
• Planet of Hats: Or rather, "Dimension of Hats," as the various dimensions shown off include the dimension of man-eating kittens, the land where robots grow body hair, the calamari quadrant (which is seemingly comprised entirely of octopus tentacles), and, the one most important to the short, the pizza dimension.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: The short clearly intends to try and kick off a potential Ratchet & Clank animated series.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: An obvious one to Life of Pi.
• Pun: Ratchet uses one when he uses the Suck Cannon on the pizza toppings:
  Ratchet: Sucks to be you!
• Put on a Bus: None of the characters that appeared in the film or its tie-in video game outside of Ratchet, Clank, Qwark, Nefarious, and Zed appear.
• Rage Breaking Point: Ratchet trying to use the Portalizer to go into the Pizzaverse for a 367 topping pizza is this to Clank, who puts Ratchet's ship into control overdrive with himself as the operating system as revenge for the former ignoring all his requests throughout the short, refusing to return control to Ratchet until they safely deliver the Portalizer to the authorities.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Ratchet is more concerned with getting a better pizza from the pizza dimension than he is about the potential trouble that could arise from using the Portalizer.
  • When Nefarious' space station begins to get enveloped by tentacles, Clank claims they need to go back simply so he can retrieve one of his coupons.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Nefarious's Portalizer sounds an awful lot like the Dimensionator from the Future Saga, both of them being Interdimensional Travel Devices that could cause a lot of cosmic chaos if handled poorly.
• Tentacled Terror: The kraken, a giant alien squid from another dimension that ruthlessly attacks anyone on the other side of any dimensional portals that are opened. What makes this creature interesting is that its suction cups actually form the shapes of faces that change based on the kraken's mood.
• Too Dumb to Live: Qwark's first instinct when meeting the inhabitants of the pizza dimension is to start eating them, which of course leads to the pizza dimension's inhabitants attacking him.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Despite bickering with Clank all throughout the short, Ratchet shows he really does care for his friend at the end when he reveals he managed to retrieved Clank's last coupon from Nefarious' space station, much to the little robot's delight.

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