Teleplay by Guy Toubes
Youngmee Song informs Blythe about her Aunt Christie getting a new car. They excitedly speculate on what it could be, only to find out Christie bought a food truck that serves desserts. The girls are a bit disappointed, but they figure they can still get some popularity through the sweets. Mid-discussion, Roger shows up, attached to a crudely-made training dummy, and excitedly describes the three-legged race at his workplace's Father and Daughter Picnic to Youngmee, proclaiming that he's the six-time champion.
The pets, meanwhile, admire the truck through the pet shop window and, despite Russell's protests, sneak their way on board. Russell, in exasperation, goes in with them. In there, they meet Sugar Sprinkles, a cat who lives in the truck. (It's ambiguous whether the Songs know about Sugar Sprinkles or not.) Before further introductions, Penny Ling quickly comes and licks the sprinkles off of the cat's head. Despite Russell's objection, Sugar actually encourages this while singing a quick tune. After her introduction, Russell climbs onto the driver's seat and fiddles with the controls. He goes into an Imagine Spot that ends in him pushing a button, causing a chain reaction that starts the car, releases the handbrake, and puts the gear onto Drive, sending the truck rolling down a hill. Blythe emerges from the shop to see the truck missing but spots it careening away in the distance, utilizing a nearby tricycle to attempt to catch up to it. The pets, inside the truck, try to stop it but only put themselves in more danger. Blythe eventually catches up to the truck, gets inside, and stops it, but not before destroying most of the desserts inside. As luck would have it, a cop pulls over and figuring Blythe took the truck out on a joyride, issues her a traffic ticket.
A livid Roger, still attached to his dummy, grounds Blythe in her room, takes away her smartphone, and makes her help Youngmee and Christie bake more sweets. The pets decide to clear Blythe's name, Russell proposing to stage a re-enactment using Blythe's phone's camera. They divert Roger's attention away from the phone and bring it into the sweets truck for the re-enactment. The other pets prove themselves incompetent at acting and Sugar Sprinkles uncooperative. A frustrated Russell inadvertently tosses his loudspeaker at the same button on the seat, once again causing a chain reaction that sends the truck down the hill. This time, the truck passes by Roger, who hops on board the same tricycle Blythe used earlier in the episode to catch up to the truck. He stops the truck in the same spot as Blythe and once again ruins the desserts. He gets the attention of the same cop and also receives a ticket. Spotting Blythe's phone in the truck, he sees the accidental footage of this second chain reaction and realizes Blythe, who is in Christie's bakery helping Youngmee replenish the supplies, was not to blame.
Roger and Blythe, once again on good terms, join in the three-legged race as Christie's sweets truck proves to be a hit among the participants—particularly the sliders, named so because Roger's actions caused the frosting to slide all over the cupcakes.
This episode contains examples of (YMMV entries go here):
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Though blended in better than many other examples, the sweets truck is clearly cel-shaded computer graphics any time it turns.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Roger is a bit too excited for his workplace's Father and Daughter Picnic.
- Ambidextrous Sprite: The traffic officer can be seen using both his left hand and right hand to write tickets.
- Brick Joke: Christie gets excited about round cupcake boxes. Later on, she complains that they keep rolling off the tables as we see her arranging them on their sides. Which is not how they are supposed to be stacked.
- Vinnie suggests appeasing the traffic officer with a cupcake. When Roger finds himself in the same situation, he tries it himself. Obviously, it doesn't work.
- Call-Back: For the second time, Russell fails to stop the other pets from impulsively wandering outside of the Littlest Pet Shop.
- Cannot Tell a Joke: Youngmee interprets Blythe warning the pets not to drive off because they don't have licenses as this.
- Blythe bounces it back at Youngmee for punning on the word "sweet" into the ground.
- Cassandra Truth: Blythe knows nobody would believe her story of a bunch of animals taking the truck out for a ride. Subverted in that Roger witnesses it, as well as Russell's footage, and becomes convinced.
- Continuity Nod:
- Blythe once again lifts a flat object resting on a flat surface looking for Russell. This time, it's a ramp lying on the road.
- Blythe once again borrows a faster way to travel from a bystander for a chase.
- At the very end of Act 2, when the pets are about to make a movie, Zoe gets starry Wingding Eyes in a similar fashion to Minka in "Bad Hair Day" before her art fantasy. The only difference is the former's being blue and the latter's being pink.
- Delayed Reaction: The first time when Vinnie steps on Sugar Sprinkles' tail in the middle of his dance. It takes a full fourteen seconds. They have this conversation before the latter cries out in agonizing pain:Sugar Sprinkles: I know you didn't mean that, but that really hurts my tail. So, promise me you won't be offended by what I'm about to do, okay?Vinnie: Oookay?Sugar Sprinkles: Aww. Thanks for understanding. (screams in pain)
- Dinky Drivers: A team of pets no more than two feet tall must operate a sweets truck to keep it out of harm's way.
- Disproportionate Restitution: Blythe gives a little girl a cupcake in return for her tricycle.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: Parodied. When Roger disembarks from the tricycle, it careens off to the side of the road and explodes the moment it hits a building.
- Flat Joy: Sugar Sprinkles is genuinely pleased to see the pets visiting again, but because of her speech patterns her reaction ends up sounding like this.
- Follow That Car: Blythe rides a tricycle to attempt to catch up to the sweets truck. She manages to catch up anyway, thanks to Minka briefly putting the truck in reverse.
- From Bad to Worse: Blythe successfully stops the sweets truck—but a cop pulls up when she's in the driver's seat and thinks she took it for a joyride.
- Here We Go Again! / Gone Horribly Right: Russell's attempt to re-enact the sweets truck going out of control causes the truck to go out of control again. This time, Roger takes the little girl's tricycle.
- High-Speed Hijack: Blythe leaps from the tricycle into the truck to take control of it. Roger then does the same thing later.
- Irony: Penny, the most emotional pet, plays the Spock Expy in the Imagine Spot.
- Plucky Comic Relief: This episode may have introduced Sugar Sprinkles, but she provides no real contribution to the plot. Her purpose seems to be watching the events unfold from inside the truck and playing the Deadpan Snarker.
- Potty Dance: Sunil does this during the imagination sequence. It is subsequently implied he wet himself because after an explosion happens outside, he claims he doesn't have to go anymore.
- Rule of Three: Roger accidentally slams his training dummy against Blythe's doorway as he tries to close the door three times.
- Running Gag: At first, it looks like Youngmee calling the truck a "sweet ride" would be this until Blythe puts a stop to it early on. Another running gag happens that doesn't become apparent until later on, however—until the very last scene, Roger almost always remains attached to his training dummy: It's there when Roger tells Youngmee about the three-legged race, it's there when Roger lectures Blythe and grounds her, it's there in the otherwise emotional scene where he expresses his disappointment in Blythe, and it's even there when Roger rescues the out-of-control truck and then gets ticketed. In the last scene, he's attached to Blythe, leaving only one scene where Roger is present but not attached to something or someone.
- Shout-Out: There is an Imagine Spot from Russell based on Star Trek: The Original Series with each of the pets corresponding to various characters. Russell also speaks in an exaggerated William Shatner tone. Sunil, a panicky guy with a foreign accent, gets McCoy's role.
- At the beginning, while discussing about the new car, Blythe and Youngmee talk about doing an excellent travel on it, complete with air guitar gestures.
- Tempting Fate: Blythe warns the pets not to drive the truck away when they hop into the truck. It happens by accident, however.
- Title Drop: Blythe and Youngmee refer to the sweets truck as a "Sweet Ride" early in the episode.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: When Zoe reenacts her jumping on to the pedals during Russell's movie, her dress gets caught on a broken spring and rips off, embarrassing her.
- Where No Parody Has Gone Before: It would've had to happen sooner or later.
- Who Is Driving?: Russell denies that the sweets truck is moving because no one is in the driver's seat. When he climbs onto the windshield, he panics far more than the normally-jittery Sunil.
- You Are Grounded!: Roger grounds Blythe when the former doesn't believe the latter that the pets drove the Sweet Delights truck.
