#risk e. rat's pizza and amusement center

[weeddennis]

idk if it's intentional but it's fun how in risk e rat's charlie, mac and dee all interact with mascots that match (one of, in charlie's case) their respective animal motifs

[fancynuts]

[kod-lyoko]

5 july 2024, exactly a year ago, THE charden episode of s16, Risk E. Rat's Pizza and Amusement Center aired

(and the hype before it aired with people saying charlie and dennis are going to fuck in the back of risk e rat will live forever in my heart <3<3)

and maybe we didn't get charden fucking in the episode but the charden moments were so great that i can forgive them this. and i know i might be biased but i wanna talk about the charden highlights, and well, a lot of those moments were improvised:

(the script is available here)

the aspirational boobs - not scripted

kicking the wall reminiscent of the gang solves the north Korea situation - not scripted

the monster talk - not scripted

honestly, the script kinda sucks and you can see how glenn and charlie carried this episode on their backs but the script has this iconic line which i cannot pass by without mentioning it

and this line takes place during charlie mirroring dennis™ moment btw

moreover, imo risk e rat fits glenn's principle on making charlie laugh and now i know we didn't get any bloopers but i just know that that's what happened here:

anyways, happy birthday Risk E. Rat's Pizza and Amusement Center, love ya

[prettysymbiosis]

risk e. rat’s pizza and amusement center

the awkwardly long name (read: it’s always sunny in philadelphia) - both character and show meta incoming and I feel like that’s the first hint of the latter

am I the only one who keeps thinking risk e. rat’s pizza is the pizza for you and me…

“they make kids feel like they’re the ones in charge” - so interesting coming from mac mcdonald. soon followed up by “they were the first set of boobs I ever saw since my mom’s” which ties right into the burgeoning mommy issue thread

at the end of the day it’s all part of the fun!

just the gang singin’ in the car :)

dennis “that’s not my name” reynolds

how have I just NEVER noticed that dee is left-handed???

the broken water fountain - does it mean anything? I’m too tired to figure it out I need my tumblr brain trust

maybe mac being clean-shaven this season is to make him seem more boyish? I have a new theory for this every episode

I think I saw someone else say this but I do think it’s fitting that charlie and dennis are together on the titties storyline because of their shared baggage around childhood sexuality, like no one else in the gang would really be able to relate to dennis here and if charlie is figuring his shit out with that then he'll definitely serve as a parallel for dennis having to figure it out too

I like how they represent three different eras of risk e.’s (frank, gang, present day) to really explore changing values and how things getting softer can be bad in some ways but good in others. this episode definitely feels in keeping with lethal weapon 7 as a very sunny way of critiquing sunny that feels satisfyingly self-aware but also fairly true to form which is a pretty fine line to walk, to give credit to rcg and the rest of the creators

also if you haven’t seen the john oliver piece on chuck e. cheese go watch it because it provides so much context and crazy true history of these types of places that was definitely in my mind while watching this episode

dee and frank paired up again, and in a childhood place, probably ties into the dee parent-issues thing I hope they’re building up to

each character really tells on themself about what fucked up stuff they’ve come to believe is acceptable or even enjoyable but should be questioned:

frank - violence and verbal abuse toward children and everyone; sexually harassing women with impunity; calling people the r-slur

dee - ethnic humor, not racist humor; making her explain how it’s funny and realizing it’s not; ecologically irresponsible plastic cheese that gets immediately thrown away; dimwit duck or whatever his name was; not understanding what satire really is!!! ← they really took one of their biggest critiques head on

here’s a question I have about dee’s character - she tries to justify her problematic sense of humor and every time frank points out the truth behind it, illustrating what’s really awful about it without really meaning to, and dee seems to genuinely recoil like she doesn’t like that. does she feel bad and react that way because she doesn’t want to do harmful things, or just because she doesn’t want to be perceived as being un-pc because that’s what’s uncool now? like remember when charlie said “I think I might’ve called an old lady a cunt this morning” and looked kind of aghast at himself? could dee be developing more of a conscience too and if so, what does that say about her? or is she just a vehicle for rcg to navel-gaze about the show? also remember in lw7 how mac was like “if you don’t praise me for being a good person then why am I doing it?” I lie awake at night wondering how much rcg want to be better people vs. how much they don’t want to be kicked even further down the hollywood totem pole for being yucky. please share thoughts if you have any

mac - simulating real-world violence to get it out of his system; shame - “if you got no shame, you’re never gonna hate yourself enough to stop being bad”

dennis and charlie - being unprotected growing up; that’s what the bone’s for! (there’s nothing like a glenn and charlie riff btw); is it wrong because she’s underage?

sunny is really amping up the inner child work for the gang, I mean arguably the gang have always been childish but this season I feel like they’re exploring it in a more comprehensive way like via the setting of this episode. and it ALSO works as a perfect commentary on the show and we love the layers

there’s no adults around…

“cause we need monster representation” we need some representation for those who are freaky and fucked up okay??

I wish I could remember who said it but someone suggested that the de-breastifying of justine has to do with dennis’ heteroness disappearing and that is a very fun take - I do think it says something that they’re fixated on a very abstracted version of sexuality via these almost disembodied tits that aren’t even human… like are we overcompensating for something gentlemen? can the characters and the show itself have any relationship to women that doesn’t objectify or otherwise dehumanize them?

I for one think sam is supposed to look like a young mac, I saw some people questioning why they cast that kid and this is my theory. this is important for both the inner child and possible child-rearing stuff they’re bringing in

“hey man, I’m a licensed psychotherapist–” “you’re a talking dog”

“guys I hate to admit it but this place sucks now”; “that’s crazy, this was like one of the best bars in town, man”; “they could redeem themselves in the show” all very meta

“you cannot call a place a website” hahaha

“so that these kids can have the same experience that we had when we were younger” fucked up childhoods, the cycle of trauma, but also the show being how it used to be

and of course, an attempted revival of all that leading to immediate disaster. let’s move forward, not backward :)

[cruiseshipmoment]

Mac's throwaway lines about religion and morality are so heartbreaking and so accurate to growing up in a church where they teach you that you are fundamentally wrong as a person.

"They're supposed to be bleak and dreary so we can focus on how bad we are."

"It should be terrifying. That's how you know God loves you, Charlie."

"If you feel no guilt, you feel no shame. If you got no shame, you're never going to hate yourself enough to stop being bad." (Emphasis mine.)

[badnew2005]

ok. risk e rat liveblogging in the replies 😁😁😁

[wizardwiener]

the gang was responsible for the bite of ‘87, you can’t change my mind

[charhuahuakelly]

3 wishes for Risk E Rat’s:

1. Mr. Tibbs Jr

2. Mac keeps his earring

3. dance dance revolution moment

[angrymac]

16.06 spoilery thoughts

love when sunny trojan horses us with a “ha ha funny” episode that actually turns out to have a gut wrenching undercurrent of tragedy throughout

made my heart smile to see them all singing in the car together

Mac and Dennis standing like a couple, Dennis acting nice so that he can send his boyfriend off and distract him while he goes to look at robot boobs, they’re so married

Dennis filling out his form then saying “that’s not my name” when he just spent months pretending to be someone else in order to date Mac (I’m delusional and imagining that he put Johnny on the form)

Dennis wanting to see the boobs bc he views it as a crucial experience that he missed out on. Something so earnest and tragic about the way Dennis checks off life experiences like milestones on a checklist just bc he thinks that’s what his life is supposed to look like and he’s always craved that sense of normalcy

“There’s no adults around” bc Mac still subconsciously sees himself as a kid. ouch

“bye Jesse” and mozzarella sticks bit were funny even though Dee still needs her own plot

Dennis worrying about the robot’s age :(

Everybody reverting this episode oof

“I don’t feel punished. Where’s the shame I should be feeling?” Gang goes to Hell!! Oh Mac my darling he hates himself and he has so much shame and I just (curls up into a ball sobbing)

“I don’t 100% understand what satire means” meta humor I see you

“Let’s give it another shot” “one last shot” macden meta hm?

Dennis touching Mac’s back at the end

this episode was so well-done, truly an elite balance of comedy and absolute emotional devastation

[weeddennis]

still trying to detangle dee and frank's subplot in risk e rat's. since mac and charden's subplots are pretty easy to grasp.

I think for dee, who's routinely positioned as the outcast of the gang, she's looking for someone to take it out on. I don't think it's a coincidence that the character she's upset about not being 'different' anymore is... a giant bird. but it's not acceptable to do that anymore, it was never acceptable, oh God maybe my childhood was just was twisted as my father's under a veneer of 'progress'? it was never about actually about treating people better, just saying the right words?

also i'm fairly sure the last time the r-slur was used on this show was in a dee-centric episode, 'sweet dee is dating a r*tarded person', that ended with her being dumped and publicly humiliated. in Recyles Their Trash, they conspicuously replace it with 'donkey-brained'. having frank say it here feels like a VERY deliberate choice.

dapper duck gets to move on because he's a fictional character, a performance, but dee, fellow giant bird, who's a real human woman despite her best efforts, is still constantly belittled and demeaned, even in her own head. sunny, the show, can try and move on from its history, but it's still there no matter how hard people try and pretend it's not?

[omgitzlongdennis]

so glad they went back to killing and maiming and violence

[kod-lyoko]

would cutting to black just one second later kill them

[padddyspub]

what if we kissed at Risk E. Rat's Pizza & Amusement Center (and we were both boys)

[a-nice-egg-offering]

I loved when Dee choked Robbie rat out so nice when they let her have her hobbies on the show