Sooga Size Me

"Sooga Size Me" is the third cartoon part of episode 23 of the animated series Pucca which premiered April 16, 2007 on the cable television network Jetix.

The title is a pun played on Morgan Spurlock's 2004 documentary "Super Size Me".

Plot

An obnoxious Texan couple named Tex Lugie and Sloppy Sew visit Sooga Village driving in their gas-guzzling RV from out of the ocean, assuming they drove across the bottom of the sea.

Out comes Tex and Sew emerge from their vehicle dry, but immediately encounter the locals, calling them "foreigners" and that the only way to speak to them is really loud believing that no one speaks their language. Uncle Ho quickly disproves Tex's assumption that no one speaks Tex's language by yelling back at him.

Tex and Sew are wealthy but spoiled with riches to the point that Sew uses a cattle prong to brand everything she sees is hers.

All this driving however has made the imperialistic couple very hungry, and so they drive about ten feet from the shore to the Guh-Ryong to try out the local cuisine. Displeased with the normal-sized portions, the couple tells the chefs that they plan to construct their own restaurant that is larger than the Guh-Ryong that serves larger portions.

When the restaurant is complete, Tex tells Uncle Dumpling that he changed the names of the meals so that the Guh-Ryong chefs wouldn't sue him for copyright infringement. Tex's goal is to eventually run the Guh-Ryong out of business.

The Vagabond Ninjas work at the new restaurant. Binggure(Clown) is their corporate mascot. Jing-Jing(Chief) works as a cashier. And Jumong(Shaman) works as a cook. Under Tex's orders, food is cooked using Texas Crude Oil instead of cooking oil. Tex stated that people still buy it regardless if they notice it in their food.

Just then, music began to play in the restaurant, to which Tex and Sew can't help but dance to the country music.

Eventually, the food does become noticed when people start littering the town with the oil tycoon's styrofoam boxes. The town's people become addicted to the food, making them overweight and lethargic.

Tex installs a conveyor belt where people queue outside coming out significantly fatter than they were when they came in. The problem becomes so bad that Abyo and Garu can't spar with each other because they are overweight, and the Guh-Ryong is force to close their doors, something Pucca refuses to accept.

Pucca collects all the garbage and balls it into one big styrofoam ball and knocks down Tex's restaurant. Tex and Sew respond by activating a feature on their RV that transforms the vehicle into a fighting robot. The robot then begins to smash building throughout the town.

Since Pucca can not fight the war machine with her kung-fu, she runs back to her room back at the Guh-Ryong and finds a fiddle. When Pucca starts playing the fiddle, the robot can't help but dance to the country rhythm which then gains lyrics from Pucca's uncles. The square dance leads the robot to walk off a cliff. As the robot falls down the ledge, Tex and Sue vow to return, which may happen as the series continues to develop.

The day is saved. The Guh-Ryong restaurant reopens and Pucca takes advantage of the plump Garu by working him back into shape.

Parodies and Satire

This episode is full of references, parodies, and satire. The animated series of "Pucca" is written in Canada. Because of the Canadian influence, this allowed the writers to possibly vent their frustrations as well as make a few subtle comments about American imperialism.

* Binggure's job as a corporate mascot parodies McDonald's Ronald McDonald.
* Tex's comment that he seeks to run the Guh-Ryong out of business with his big restaurant may be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Wal-mart squeezing out local small businesses.
* "Tex and Sew" may be a homonym for "Texans! Ew!" but to be kind, the writers decided to call them Tex Lugie and Sloppy Sew.
* Aside from the parody title, this episode makes a few references to "Super Size Me".
* Tex and Sue may be parodies of United State president George W. Bush and his wife Laura Bush, but to avoid making the show political, the characters were drawn differently. Sloppy Sew seems to reference Tammy Faye Bakker. The crude oil reference supports the intentions of the writers.
* Another possible tongue-and-cheek jab may have been about Jetix which shows the Power Rangers television series. The show the general precedes Pucca in the programming line-up often features giant fighting robots.
* The RV robot may also reference the Transformers cartoon series.

External links

* [http://www.tv.com/pucca/itsy-bitsy-enemy-within---puccahontas---sooga-size-me/episode/997891/summary.html "Sooga Size Me"] - episode information from TV.com
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800898/ "Sooga Size Me"] - episode information from IMDB