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Kiki’s
Pizza Delivery Service
Although this is yet another cartoon of little plot
advancement, it does stand out for working in one of Steven’s powers. In some of the more serious situations, he’s communicated with other Gems in his dreams or used his dreaming to take control of other creatures. He’s also used his
dream powers on a human, Lars, and this cartoon has them involved with one of
the Pizza daughters, Kiki.
He notices
how much making pizza deliveries are tiring Kiki out. Once Steven nods off, his dream powers kick
in, and the cartoon instantly gets more creative. Dreams are one of the things best expressed
in animation where artists can bring anything they imagine to life. This show is always creative with dreams, and
they’re most engaging when they bring a dark atmosphere. This dream is light-hearted at first, but
charming to watch with a pizza-themed environment of happy colors of yellow and
red suggesting cheese and sauce. Slowly,
the tone becomes darker when Steven finds Kiki in the middle of a cheesy river
prompting him to save her, dream style.
This brings the suggestion that Steven got into Kiki’s dream, and the
next day confirms this.
Kiki explains that since she started doing
deliveries, she’s had the same dream of drowning in a river of cheese, only
this time was different because Steven saved her. Steven continues to help Kiki with her pizza
nightmares as a “dream warrior.” This comes with many creative pizza-related ways to save
Kiki from drowning or getting attacked by cheese creatures, mainly through
imagining giant pizza tools to save the day.
While this goes on, there are scenes of Kiki agreeing to do favors for
her sister, Jenny, who usually does deliveries, but there’s always something
she has to do so she can skip working.
This becomes relevant when Steven finally gets too tired from spending
most of his dreaming helping Kiki. He
and Kiki agree that the best thing to do is to track down the source of Kiki
having the same dream.
It plays to the
foreshadowing of the scenes with Jenny starting with them flying into a cheese
version of Kiki’s head, a clever metaphor for her dream coming from a personal
problem. Among a darker version of the
main pizza environment, Kiki’s inner demons reveal themselves
as a pizza version of Jenny. Her cheesy arms stick to Kiki to drag her into a
pit as she moans like a zombie for Kiki to cover for her. As Kiki goes down, Steven realizes that even
though she says so, Kiki is not up for covering for her sister, and that’s true
in reality as well. He claims that Kiki
can save herself if she does what’s best for her and say she can’t cover for
Jenny. This is a very believable virtue, tying into the message on the
importance of leisure I’ve seen quite a bit of in what I’ve reviewed. Anyway, the dangers of being dragged down by
this pizza doppelganger of her sister are a heavy way to help Kiki learn this
lesson. When she shouts "no" and pizza Jenny turns away, it’s an engaging
moment of relief, and a far more appropriate end to the nightmare than any
fight would.
The last
scene of things working out between the twins brings the promise for a
healthier life for Kiki and further shows how much Beach City values
Steven. It’s true that you’re constantly
reminded that there are more interesting things that could be focused on which
can get distracting. If you have the
right attitude though, you’ll easily get caught up in the creative dream world
and relatable messages. You may want to
get some pizza afterwards though.
A-
The Ranking
- Mr. Greg
- Gem Drill
- Super Watermelon Island
- Too Short to Ride
- Beach City Drift
- Barn Mates
- Hit the Diamond
- Same Old World
- Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service
- Steven Floats
- Restaurant Wars
- The New Lars
- Drop Beat Dad
The next Steven Universe review is once again all about Gem lore as we learn crucial details about corrupted Gems.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is episode 48 of Animaniacs.
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