Grill or Be Grilled is the second segment of 5th episode in season 4 of Harvey Street Kids. The title was a pun on the term "Kill or be Killed".
Summary
Richie Rich wants to be recognized for his hot cheese sandwiches with the kids of the block.
Plot
The episode begins with Tiny dressed as a lemon offering lemonade at a roadside stand in the cul-de-sac of Harvey Street, below him Frufru and the Bloogey Boys are also offering lemonade. Richie for his part sells hot cheese bread, where Audrey asks him what he sells, he answers and tells her that she was there while he was preparing them. Richie gives context to the audience while talking to the Harvey Girls saying that he does it as one of the things on his childhood list, Dot says that he should avoid this task since managing a brand and a company is more than enough, but Richie responds that he wants to do it for pleasure. When Lotta asks him if he is selling lemonade, Richie replies that the lemonade is an outrage to the senses, receiving angry faces in response from the other boys. Luckily, Richie manages to remedy it.
He explains to the girls that he always had a taste for melted cheese since his childhood, so he has used it every time a business of his has been successful. Later, he receives a notification about another success, where Lotta notices Juanita Tennyson in a video call with Richie. She explains that she wants to crown Richie's invention, the photo filter bows as the queen of accessories. The girls and Richie, then celebrate by eating cheese, where the girls like the taste of it, and Lotta comments that she would buy more over lemonade, making Tiny jealous. Super Todd approaches where the Harvey girls act like inflatable figures and do cartwheels as a way to advertise Richie's stall, however it doesn't work since Todd is lactose intolerant. Below are several tertiary characters and Bobby who are not interested in what Richie has to offer, and Bobby asks him about replacement doll heads, where he directs him to The Bow.
Richie asks the girls for advice, where Dot tells him to focus on selling quality products instead of worrying about sales. He replies that all of his businesses are successful along with that he wants to share the flavor of his sandwiches. He comparing his results with previous inventions, says that these were great, and they showed off. After a scene with Lotta, he apparently acquires a place called Richeese in the center of the city, which is decorated as a restaurant with skates from the fifties, where he hires the girls as delivery women in skates of cheese-based products. Their first client arrives at the place, which turns out to be Lucretia and Dollcretia. Lotta escorts her to her seat, where it turns out that it also has wheels, including her plate and napkin.
However, before she could even take a bite, Lucretia got dizzy with so much movement, to the point of visibly wanting to vomit. Tiny arrives on the scene and sees Lucretia vomit, so he immediately leaves the place. It also doesn't help that the girls are somewhat inexperienced skating, as Audrey drops and breaks numerous plates. Richie wants to change the theme of the restaurant, so he leaves it in the dark, saying that customers will focus better on eating their food.
Under complete darkness, Tiny is bumped by Lotta and Lucretia is lost on the floor where she decides to eat her napkin instead of her cheese sandwich that she lost on the floor, because she finds it delicious. Richie looks at his cell phone where he says that the restaurant does not attract the attention of social media since they cannot take photos. Dot suggests a scary theme for the restaurant, where Lucretia is once again a customer. When she was about to eat the sandwich, she freaks out and passes out because Audrey scared her. Richie says that the scares make the food taste better to their clients, but Dot corrects him, saying that nobody can prove anything if they are up there, while the camera focuses on the sandwich that Lucretia threw on the ceiling when frightened. At the same time this scene can be interpreted as a dark humor joke implying that Lucretia had died.
Next, Lucretia is seen on the floor saying that she feels good to be alive, but that she doesn't care if a Harvey girl "kills" her, since she has always dreamed of it. In the next scene, there are some tertiary characters along with Frufru, Bobby and The Bow. However, Audrey again scares them and Dot tells Richie to go to the basics, which he misunderstands and gathers the kids to show them a new invention called "Nu Cheese".
Consisting in a dehydrated cube version of his cheese sandwich, along with presenting it with some fireworks and catherine wheels. The kids however only take photos and do not eat the food, Audrey herself does not remember the product that she was promoting, and Dot asks Richie if he is doing the right thing, which he takes it for granted. Therefore, Richie wants to expand his new invention, so he turns to Juanita for an interview in Austland.
While the Harvey girls and some secondaries watch him on television from the HQ, Richie comments that he has not tried his own product yet since he was busy promoting it. However, when doing it, he realizes his mistake and thinks about the matter, replacing his true love for cheese with a substitute. This is depicted with Richie letting his cheese sandwich go on a bus and preferring to be with the dehydrated cubed cheese.
Juanita for her part, has no problem promoting the cheese, saying that it is fashionable. Richie can't take it anymore and spits out the dehydrated cheese and saying that his invention was wrong in search of success. Juanita does not like the idea, and he responds by withdrawing from the interview. Back on Harvey Street, Richie returns to his roadside stand where he gives Lucretia, one of his grilled sandwiches, and she can finally try the sandwich. She flatters it where she compares it to pure happiness and eating the Harvey girls, precisely Audrey's nose and Dot's eye. Dot evades the subject and Richie, for his part, is back with his cheese sandwich in his imagination. The credits feature the restaurant song from the 50s, when Richie started the business.
Characters
- Audrey
- Dot
- Lotta
- Richie Rich
- Tiny
- Frufru
- Melvin
- Fredo
- Pinkeye
- Todd
- The Bow
- Billy
- Lucretia / Dollcretia
- Penny
- Gerald
- Bobby
- Juanita Tennyson
- Dap-O-Tron
Broadcast
"Grill or Be Grilled" was released to Netflix on January 10, 2020.
Goofs
- If Richie had already made some cheese sandwiches for both the Harvey girls and the Bloogey Boys in the episode "Hero Effect", they should already have a good reputation in the block or at least in both groups. In this episode however it is not the case, as the Harvey Girls act as if they had tried it for the first time.
- Lucretia appears toothless (Minute 17:35)
- Richie's right eyebrow is transparent around 12:45.
Trivia
- Richie refers to his previous inventions, including his Dap-O-Tron robots, the socks with a plug and the virtual reality.
- Lotta and Audrey are disguised respectively, with a gothic and Halloween theme respectively from the episodes "A Matter of Life and BFF" and "Harveyween"
- Richie ends up in the same place as the kids when they were waiting for the buses in "Campfire Weekend".