Mario needs wood for his pizza shop so he destroys an entire forest, while Meggy & Tari try to stop him.
Mario needs wood from the Showgrounds' forest to build his pizza shop, which puts him and SMG3 in direct conflict with environmentalists Meggy and Tari and the creature that inhibits the forest: The Lorax.
- An Aesop: Always stay true to what you believe in.
- Broken Bird: After failing to stop Mario and SMG3, Tari briefly becomes a reluctant Social Darwinist, declaring to Meggy that only the strong and cruel win.
- The Bus Came Back: To help take down the forest, Mario summons Steve, marking the latter's first major appearance in a very long time. Steve even says his catchphrase.Steve: (waving while failing to chop down a tree) "Hi guys!!"
- Call-Back: As 2023 is a very literal "rebuilding year" for the series, expect a lot of this.
- This episode is a continuation of the previous week's in which Mario fought Peppino.
- Isaac The Lion is still Tari's pet/friend after the events of "The Totally Legal SMG4 Show".
- While consoling Tari, Meggy reminisces about One-Shot Wren, a character who appeared in a flashback way back in "Mario Babies", an episode she wasn't even in but her backstory was.
- Determinator: To Mario's credit, he doesn't give up even after Meggy and Tari trounce him the first time, repelling the girls with a Humongous Mecha. The girls summon the Lorax for help, but Mario refuses to go down without a fight, and even when the mechs are taken down, he manages to sway the trees into turning into a decent enough pizza shop by having them taste his pizza.
- Epic Fail: Mario summoned Steve to help him take down the forest, but it turns out Steve can only obliterate Minecraft style trees. His chops impotently bounce off more realistic trees.
- Everyone Has Standards: Mario reminds SMG3 that the reason he got the humongous mechas to beat Meggy and Tari once and for all are just to get wood for the pizza shop rather than trying to obtain absolute power. SMG3, though briefly bummed, nevertheless forgets about it.
- Graceful Loser: After spending the whole episode fighting Mario to protect the trees, Meggy and Tari just shrug and declare the problem solved when the trees surrender to give Mario his pizza shop.
- Happy Ending Override: The previous episode ended with Mario and Peppino setting their business rivalry aside and agreeing to work together. In this episode, however, they apparently fell out again offscreen, as Mario has gone back to looking for a spot for his pizza shop where he won't run into Peppino.
- Karma Houdini: Despite all the harm he causes to the environment to build his pizzeria, Mario gets exactly what he wants by persuading the trees to sacrifice themselves through his excellent pizza cooking.
- Lost Aesop: Lampshaded by SMG3 as the apparent Green Aesop goes out the window when, after tasting Mario's pizza, the trees give themselves up to create a pizza shop for Mario, which was what he wanted all along. While Tari awkwardly tries to keep it up, Mario contends that the real moral of the story is pizza.
- Meta Twist: In most episodes where Mario is Temporarily a Villain and his friends try to stop him, it usually ends with Mario on the receiving end of some sort of comeuppance, deserved or otherwise. Here, he ends up getting everything he wants, and from the forces his friends recruit to take him down, no less.
- Moment Killer: The Lorax threatening to break the viewers' knees if they harm his trees comes right after Tari and Meggy's Golden Moment. Downplayed in that it didn't seem like he was trying to impede on their moment, since he spoke this way the entire episode, and the episode ends before they could react anyway.
- Rousing Speech: Meggy gives two of these to Tari.
- The first is after her breakdown mentioned above, explicitly rejecting her contention that bullies always win and motivating her to keep fighting.
- The second is more lowkey and comes at the end of the episode after Tari expresses her admiration for Meggy. Meggy admits she was inspired by others in her life but willing to be that figure for her.
- Supreme Chef: Or perhaps Supreme Conjurer. Clearly Mario learned something from his time with Peppino. Before they met, his attempt at pizza was about on par with Meggy. Here he is able to use his "Pizza-fu" to create pizzas so good they convince the Wise Old Tree to willingly turn himself into planks for Mario's pizza kiosk. Although with this show, who knows if Mario's aptitude will stick.
- Through His Stomach: Mario gets his pizzeria by conjuring up and feeding the trees with pizza so good that they happily sacrifice themselves to make his shop.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Exactly 10 seconds into the episode, Tari calls out to her new friend Isaac The Lion to let him know it's meal time, whereupon he's promptly run over by Mario's bulldozer. The girls never notice because Mario greets them as he drives by, and Isaac is not seen again.
