Oven Trouble (originally titled Lemon's Explosive Oven) is the 3rd episode of the first season of Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City. It premiered on September 25th, 2021.
Summary[]
Strawberry’s business is booming but her oven is out of commission! Not to worry, Lemon Meringue is going to build her the oven of her dreams.
Plot[]
Strawberry is seen in her truck preparing for the crowd of customers waiting and giving out orders,
Cutaway: Strawberry establishes that her business has quickly found success and considers it flantastic, but she has one small problem.
Strawberry struggles to open her small microwave oven to put a tray of cupcakes in. She ends up falling over from pulling on the door too hard and accidentally tosses the cupcakes into the air, with several landing on her head. Strawberry sighs.
Cutaway: Strawberry finishes her sentence, explaining that her tiny oven is not fast enough to bake all of her customers' orders, which she admits is a good problem, but a problem nonetheless. She mentions that her Grandberry Jam told her that every problem has a solution. She says that she doesn't know how to fix ovens, but she knows someberry who does.
Strawberry asks Lemon Meringue about the oven, to which Lemon says she's come to the right berry, and that she'll give Strawberry an oven noberry has ever seen before in a sinister tone. Strawberry is briefly worried but decides to move past it, and gives Lemon some suggestions for improving her oven. She suggests increasing the size and adding a second baking rack, but before she can continue, Lemon offhandedly agrees and pushes Strawberry out of her truck. Strawberry tells Lemon to tell her if she needs anything, before getting interrupted by Lemon slamming the door.
Cutaway: Lemon proudly declares that she'll turn Strawberry's oven into a baking beast.
The outside of the Berryworks is shown as mechanical noises from the Extraordinary Berry are heard, as it transitions from day to night to the next morning.
Lemon brings Strawberry back to her truck while covering her eyes. She takes her hands off Strawberry's eyes to show her the oven, only for Strawberry, in shock, to ask Lemon what she did to the oven. As the two look on at the monstrous oven, it begins glowing with heat. Strawberry, slightly concerned, mentions it's very big...and grey, while Lemon looks proudly at what she had created, saying she knows. Lemon wipes away a tear of joy, saying that the oven is glorious.
Lemon shows off some of the features of the new oven: It has six burners, four oven racks, and she hooked it up to the Sparkberry tubes in the truck, making it powerful and energy efficient, she proudly declares the oven's not messing around. Strawberry reluctantly decides she can work with it, and mentions the six burners means she could finally make every color of the "Rainbow Fudge Pâte à Choux" that she wanted to try. She decides to go for it with enthusiasm and test what the oven can do.
The scene goes to a baking sequence, where she bakes and puts the uncooked batch into the oven, and everything seems to be working well.
Cutaway: Strawberry's glad Lemon came through for her, admitting she was afraid Lemon would get carried away and cause a disaster, but she should have trusted her.
The oven suddenly starts violently shaking, as a cooking pot on the oven suddenly shoots out a huge column of fire, and the sparkberry tubes begin glowing and speeding up.
Cutaway: Strawberry, disgruntled, takes back what she said about trusting Lemon to not cause a disaster.
Strawberry, worried, tells Lemon that she might have made the oven a bit too powerful. Lemon, who was tinkering with Strawberry's toaster, asks her what she means in disagreement, thinking the oven is great. Strawberry opens the oven, takes the Pate a choux tray out, and holds it up to the oven, where it instantly burns to a crisp. Lemon takes note, and reluctantly decides to tone down the oven, but only a little. She tries to adjust a dial, only for it to snap off, making her say "Uh-oh". Strawberry gets even more worried, asking what she means by "uh-oh", while Lemon looks at Strawberry with a nervous smile. The two look back at the oven, which begins to shake more and more, as the pot on the oven begins to bubble and overflow. Lemon puts on her goggles and whispers to Strawberry to run. Both of them jump out of the truck and hold the truck door shut as rainbow fudge starts flooding the truck, eventually bursting out and overflowing, covering the Extraordinary Berry and the two girls in rainbow fudge.
Lemon takes off her goggles and tastes the fudge, commenting that the fudge turned out great. Strawberry doesn't respond, Lemon wipes the fudge off Strawberry's face to reveal her growling in anger. Lemon tries to calm down Strawberry by telling her she'll make adjustments to the oven. Strawberry tells her to make it smaller and less explosive, which Lemon disappointedly agrees to, but when Strawberry tells her to make the oven pink, Lemon reacts incredulously... Until Strawberry gestures to her ruined truck, as more fudge pours out and begins rumbling. Lemon acquiesces.
A transition occurs, as Lemon introduces the new "Very Berry Oven", and Strawberry happily says how the oven fits her aesthetic way more. Lemon tells her that she adjusted the sparkberry intake so while it won't go "kaboom", it's still pretty powerful, even if it is pink as she shudders at the last part. Strawberry thanks Lemon, and turns on the mixer only to see it's broken. She comments about how she won't be able to mix batter with the broken mixer, which grabs Lemon's attention as she quickly offers to fix it. Strawberry immediately chucks the mixer out of her truck through the wall, nervously denying that she mentioned a mixer and pretending she never owned one, telling Lemon that there's no more inventions needed. Strawberry grabs a whisk to mix the contents of a bowl and decides she'll stir everything by hand.
Cast[]
Non-Voiced Appearance[]
- Mrs. Crumbcake
- Honeydew Sorbet
- Grandberry Jam (mentioned)
- Peanut Butter Crisp
- Berry Mary
- Hippy Berry
- Customer #1
Trivia[]
- This is Lemon's first prominent episode in Berry In The Big City.
- This episode establishes the Very Berry Oven, which Strawberry will use for the rest of the series.
- Raspberry's cart appears in the outer shot of the Berryworks, two episodes before she would properly debut.
- The episode was titled "Lemon's Explosive Oven" in its initial release. Later releases of the episode would give it the name "Oven Trouble".
- Strawberry mentions another relative of hers, Grandberry Jam, who is the second adult relative of Strawberry in the franchise after Aunt Praline.
- Lemon Meringue gets her first confessional cutaway segment in this episode. Her background is yellow with a lemon pattern.
- This makes her the first non-Strawberry character to receive a cutaway.
- This episode establishes some aspects of Lemon Meringue's character:
- She can get carried away when inventing and creates an unexpected disaster from it.
- She can be somewhat prideful of her creations.
- She hates the color pink a lot.
- The monstrous oven that malfunctioned and exploded marks the start of a new running gag in the series, where Lemon's inventions will occasionally explode out of nowhere.
References in Other Media[]
- In the R-rated M. Night Shamaylan horror movie, "Knock at the Cabin", this episode, along with It's My Purr-ty, can be seen playing on the T.V,, having been turned on to calm down Wen when her fathers Andrew and Eric were knocked out. It continues playing as the main antagonist, Leonard, gives his speech to the family. His assessment of the show being fun and educational, while instilling in kids a sense of empathy and understanding is meant to play into the irony of the fact he and his associates took a family hostage.
- This makes Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City a rare example of a non-1980s Strawberry Shortcake series being referenced in another work.
Errors[]
- When Strawberry tells Lemon that the oven is too powerful, the pot of rainbow fudge is not on the stove. But reappears after Lemon pulled out the oven dial.
- The pastry case with a cake keeps teleporting to different places of the counter in some scenes in the truck. it was originally at the right top counter near the oven. This stops happening when Lemon introduces the Very Berry Oven.
Video[]
Gallery[]
Click here to see the gallery of the episode.
Transcript[]
Click here to see the transcript of the episode.