Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

So the main concept of the au, is that after the pizza tower is destroyed, Peppino and friends put together a town to house all the former inhabitants of the pizza tower, setting up the premise and setting for the episodes of the cartoon. And then hilarity ensues.


However, part of the concept is that there is a certain method to the madness of how the pizza tower functioned. More specifically, how the “towers magic” functions. Which helps to set a template for how to structure episodes and build upon the story.

So essentially, the backstory is that Pillar John is a source for the tower's magic. The magic of the tower is essentially that it manifests the desires of those within the magics proximity.
PizzaFace took over the tower and used its magic to try and manifest his goals. But this power is far from exclusive to him. Anyone with sufficient drive within the proximity of the magic will start to influence the world around them. 

So with Peppino destroying the tower, it gives Pillar John the opportunity to rebuild it. Though out of courtesy, since Peppino did him a real solid in stopping Pizza Face from basically rotting the tower from the inside out, he gives Peppino a chance to use some tower magic as thanks.

After considering using the power for selfish ends for a moment, he instead decides that he just feels too guilty about all the homeless pizza people around, and asks instead to just give them all a nice place to live. Thus creating Pizza Town.

A town with a smaller version of the tower in the center where John and Gerome live. Possibly with the cheese dragon nesting on the top.

This is partially a happy ever after for Peppino, as having a bustling town built right next to his pizza shop really improves his business and pulls him out of debt.

But it’s also the start of a new nightmare, as the whole town is subject to the same sorts of magic as the original tower had, but now it can get split any which way across the town, either by strangers who visit or by the entities who live there, to create bizarre and hilarious cartoon logic scenarios.

As an example, some 10 year old with a massive ego gets lost in Pizza Town, and before you know it, the "bad part of town" has grown 3x the size and is now something straight out of a mafia movie, with the 10 year old kid being a ruthless mafia don. So the conflict of the episode is both finding the lost kid, then dealing with the criminal empire the kid set up.


Although part of the crux of how this setup works is it’s never explicitly told to the audience the exact rules of the tower magic. That the magic is based on thinking beings exerting their will on their surroundings is more something for the writers to know in order to keep the world building consistent. While the audience can just treat it more as abstract and seemingly random cartoon humor.

So like for the mafia don 10 year old, in the audience’s eyes it’s not so much that of course a pushy pre-teen kid would have a lot of willpower they could exert on their surroundings, and more like
“Of course an especially pushy 10 year old could take over the criminal underworld. Pizza Town is full of gullible idiots.”

So yeah, Pizza Town.
Where anything can happen so long as it's pizza related.

Episode Pitches thus far: Season 1

• 2 part opening to the cartoon series, which goes over the events of Pizza Tower, the main cast of characters, and Peppino founding Pizza Town.
• My headcanon is that Peppino is too exhausted and slightly traumatized from the ordeal to deal with the full ramifications of the tower going down until several weeks later because he's burned out on being hopped up on fear and rage for several days straight.
• The first thing he should do is try to get on with his life, but then he sees a little cheese slime caught out in the rain and his heart breaks with an audible glass shattering sound.
• a scene where the pizza denizens try to pack into Peppino's restaurant, and it's like one of those "see how many freshmen you can fit in a phone booth” jokes.
• Before the Tower Bros. are involved, the former denizens of the tower all try to create a town on their own, leading to various hijinks, shenanigans and monkeyshines.
• Peppino takes his first private thought of an infinite spaghetti generator to the grave.
• "Well, Peppino, you can make this new tower anything you want. What's it gonna be?" "...A home." "For who?" "Hey, I said what I said, let's get to work already."
• "So what, do I snap my fingers? Or make a wish? Wave my hands and say a funny word? How do I do this?" Peppino alternated between wringing his hands127 hours and wiping them on his shirt. Gerome's expression remained unchanged, save for a slight twitch in his mustache, "Whatever you want, boss. You just gotta mean it." Peppino looked nervously between the Pillar brothers. Their eyes were piercing through him, seemingly already knowing what Peppino wanted to create. He felt slightly judged, but they didn't seem unkind. John was smiling, albeit wistfully. "Well, go on then," John said lowly. "It's going to be alright."
• Expecting to go back to normal only to instead find he has to accept a new normal.
• One of the pizza granny's gets way too into gardening and grows a whole pizza jungle behind her house.
• Someone nominates Peppino for mayor without his consent, so he has to spend the episode trying to disqualify himself from the position, which accidentally only makes him more popular in the towns eyes.
• The noise plays a big role as a political opponent.
• It's just a funny episode about pepperman’s daily life
• pepperman's daily life is kinda like squidward without the self loathing.
• Peppino gets stuck under some really heavy thing, and the other cast members have to work together to save him. But they're so incompetent/ disorganized/ malicious, that they spend 3 days trying and failing to do anything about it. And near the end of the episode, they're all just bickering, and in the background you see Peppino, still stuck under a boulder or something, painfully dragging himself and the Boulder along with one hand and with a look of pure strain and fury.
• Peppino solves his own problems out of frustration
• self betterment because everyone around you sucks
• An episode that is one big Attack of the Killer Tomatoes reference.
• Joke about pepperman being able to blend in with evil tomatoes, but being so obnoxious and pretentious that the evil veggies kick him out of their group.
• The gang makes a little "Visitor's Guide to Pizza Town" episode. Cute little way to introduce them, and it gives a whole lot of room for background gags.
• The Vigilante needs to raise money to keep his new farmland so he starts up a sausage rodeo. Guess who’s been pressured into competing?
• Mr. Stick would probably end up attempting to sabotage the competition with various Wil E Coyote antics and get repeatedly trampled by sausages
• The noise wins the competition on his trusty Washing Machine steed
• Pepperman starts an art studio or something, but every piece of art at the grand opening has been stolen. Cue mystery Solving Hijinks eventually resulting in Pepperman himself being caught out as the thief, as he really didn’t want anyone buying his art in the first place.
• Pepperman only reveals himself after the rest of the suspects keep trashing on his art. It’s a running gag that he gets more and more upset as they deny even particularly liking Pepperman’s art to begin with.
• Gustavo and Brick do a good cop bad cop segment with Gustavo as the bad cop. He’s not really good at it, but Brick’s walleyed stare and tendency to bite things that annoy him certainly help,
•  Golf Episode. Everyone thinks it’s stupid at first but swiftly becomes Really Really invested and it devolves into beating each other with golf-clubs. Cameo appearance by greaseball.
• Gustavo's restaurant gets infested with fake Peppinos (who's basically growing on everything like mold) so he and Brick go and stay with Peppino for the night. But it turns out fake Peppino had actually been infesting Gustavo's place because he wanted to hang out. So he follows Gustavo to Peppino's place, and the rest of the episode is basically a horror movie parody as it goes from a cheerful sleepover, to suspenseful and spooky as a fake Peppino tries to break into the pizzeria in the middle of the night. Antics ensue, but they eventually learn that fake Peppino just wanted to join in on the sleepover, so they very cautiously let him. Though they're all too scared of fake Peppino to get any sleep that night.
•  Peppino’s pizzeria is burned down or otherwise momentarily shut down and he’s forced to get a job at Noisette’s. This is a bad idea on his part.
• i think the ep where the pizzeria explodes and pep goes to work at noisette's cafe could have a b-plot where the others try to rebuild the pizzeria as an act of gratitude for all he's done for them but they mess it up tremendously
•  One of the episodes is just a Noise TV segment in which he bothers Peppino.
• The Noise attempts to sneak into Peppino’s restaurant and mess with his food, a la the scrapped Noise Stealth game. But with a Camera Crew with him.
• However, many of these plans end up backfiring on him, and even when he seems to successfully ruin a batch, Peppino still ends up getting plenty of publicity for the ruined batch. As Seen on NTV
•  Doug the Pizzard somehow transforms The Noise into a Proper Gentleman and nobody except for Noisette is even remotely upset by this development.
• Apparently, pizza catacombs have been forming under pizza town, and they’re all spooky and stuff and nobody wants to deal with it. So of course they get Peppino to check it out. Thus resulting in an indiana jones style parody.
• An episode that is one long parody of the super Mario bros super show, where Peppino gets cajoled into being a host of a TV show for public access in pizza town.
• This would basically be one long "Peppino has stage fright anxiety" episode. He has no clue what he's doing and all the directions he's given are vague at best. Which makes him all the more stressed.
• Gustavo ends up being a co-host.
• Lot of Italian men being cringe based humor.
• Joke where Peppino tries talking in a Brooklyn accent out of pure stress and panic.
• They show some "cartoons" made by the locals of pizza town. Which can mix up the art style and medium and be very different visually from the main show, and are often quite abstract. Can have a joke that is basically the Krusty the clown from the Simpsons joke "What the hell was that?!?" Reaction after a particularly bizarre animated short.
• One of the pizza town denizens (a pineapple toppin)  basically builds a beach, and it turns into a struggle between people wanting a private beach and other people, like mr stick, trying to monetize the beach. 
• Mr Stick quickly becomes sidetracked when he notices the Big Red X’s on the ground and tries to chase down the surprisingly mobile treasure chests he unearths, finding they’re all full of cheap pizza themed beach kitsch like novelty sunglasses and beach towels, which then get used to stock a beach shack store. 
• Snotty Funeral episode. 
• Peppino has NO idea who Snotty is, and every time he asks people just start sobbing. 
• Better yet, Snotty has NEVER appeared in the series before but everyone seems to have a flashback including him that makes very little sense canonically. In these flashbacks he is incredibly important to their character and literally perfect in every conceivable way. Even more antisocial characters like Mr. Stick or even Pizzahead openly mourn.
• At the end of the episode as they’re lowering him down it’s revealed he wasn’t dead, just taking a nap in a coffin or something but through some contrived coincidence he ends up dead anyway.
• Courtroom Episode
• Lawyer Mr Stick
• Someone threatens to sue, only to realize that  despite having a police force, pizza town has no functioning criminal justice system. So they throw together a temporary courtroom with Gustavo as the judge. 
• Potential joke for the inciting incident, but having a police with no criminal justice has meant that the jail cells are just getting filled up floor to ceiling with pizza town citizens. So the episode gradually devolves into an incredibly fast paced courtroom drama as everyone tries to get through this massive backlog of court cases in a single afternoon. Lots of joke opportunities for both the criminal justice system, and at least once ace attorney joke. At the end they probably find out that they actually did a terrible job as judge/jury/prosecutor/etc. And pizza town has been absolutely trashed from all the criminals they released at once.
• so the courtroom episode would basically follow the theme of Peppino's gathering of momentum. getting faster and faster until he's absolutely manic, with others kinda picking up on that similar manic energy much like how they followed behind Peppino on the way out of the crumbling tower. They’re kinda following his lead.
• Racing Episode
• Peppino in his Moped, The Noise on a washing machine tied to a rocket, Gustavo on a Very Caffeinated Brick, The Vigilante on a Sausage, Pepperman in his Sickass peppermobile, Mr. Stick with his Propellor Hat, Fake Peppino…on Foot, A Forknight and a Pencer on the Cheese Dragon, a few UFOlives in a flying saucer, The Pig Cops in a cop car, etc.
• Spoiler Man (or maybe even Mr Stick) acts as Dick Dastardly
• There's a Snick cameo somewhere
• Peppino could finish the race having had to pick up his moped and run instead of drive.
• Fake Peppino and Real Peppino episode
• Basically just Fake Peppino trying to do what Real Peppino does, only for the episode’s ending being Real Peppino making a compromise with Fake Peppino.
• One of the pizzas he makes has a human hand in it.
• Cooking show parody: Cooking with Peppino!
• Peppino and Noise Making Pizza
• So the noise is a restaurant mascot right? But he's out of the job with the tower destroyed and the town only just starting to be built. So he tries to employ his services as a mascot to the only two restaurants currently in the area. Starting with Peppino's. He slams in the door, rolls out a red carpet through the door and declares Peppino to have the opportunity of the millennium to hire him as a restaurant mascot. So Peppino just grabs him in one big hand, goes over to gustavos place and tosses the noise there. Moments later the noise is back slamming the door open with the same red carpet animation at Peppino's place, but this time he's all beat up. While Peppino watches this unfold the second time with just the most sick of this shit expression. He angrily asks why he couldn't have just worked with Gustavos place, and the noise gets a thought bubble memory, and it's him saying something mean about Brick, and brick just absolutely mauling him in the most over the top fashion. And the noise just responds confidently with some absolute lie about gustavos place not measuring up to his high standards. Peppino is firm that the noise is not going to be working at Peppino's, but the noise does that bratty kid move where they grab onto Peppino's leg and starts crying and screaming. Supposedly noisette is accusing him of being an unemployed deadbeat and he really needs a job by the end of the day or else. With there being a short montage of Peppino going about a few hours of his day dragging along the crying noise on one leg. Before his resolve eventually snaps and he goes "fine! You can be a busboy! Wash these dishes and bring da food to the tables!"
• Peppino damages noise's ego by offhandedly bringing up that ||fake Peppino|| has already learned how to make edible pizzas like a few weeks ago and the competitive instinct rises
• This is what makes him ACTUALLY take time w the pizza and put heart into it (competitive spirit and violent heart)
• It doesn’t look perfect, the cheese is under the tomato sauce, he put a bit too much seasoning on it, but it tastes pretty good and it doesn’t scare off the local wildlife. He can be proud of this one
• He can be proud of it until he remembers the fact he hates pizza
• He throws it like a frisbee
• Noise using his newfound knowledge specifically just so he can throw pizzas from the roof
• "HEY, MR. APPLE! CATCH, WILL YA?!"
• *noise proceeds to throw the pizza at pepperman; it lands right on his face with the cartoon splat sfx*
• Gustavo comes to visit in the morning and there’s just pizzas littered everywhere in the parking lot and the Noise is passed out on the roof
• Obligatory Antonblast crossover (its like Jimmy Timmy power Hour where they take turns traveling to each others universe)
• Who Killed Snotty - A follow-up to the snotty’s funeral episode, an in-universe true crime episode starring the colorful cast of lunatics and assholes…and Pepperman’s the one behind the camera
• The Pizza Tower laser blasts snotty into nonexistence
• smthsmth pizzaface making a distantly heard comment about how aiming with no hands is hard
• it returns to color once they figure out that they have NOT made any progress at all and blame Pepperman
• there's like
• interviews/confessionals with each of the characters too
• some like vigil and pep take it seriously
• and then there's noise
• Brick's interview is just him sniffing the camera and squeaking for a good minute. Brick is just sniffing and there's captions over him that are completely serious. They’re detailed and even poetic pepperman has to actually pause for a moment to let brick talk like he's so shocked
• "squeak squee snff (While I am greatly torn over Snotty's death, I understand that eventually we will all have to confront grief, in one way or another. It is inevitable that we will lose someone we love, and yet the death of snotty has made me realize that perhaps, it is for the better. Without these moments of pain, we would fail to see how valuable the precious memories we share with our loved ones are. We cry for Snotty because he led a beautiful life, and he inspired us all to do the same. I understand why you would do this, Pepperman. But I think it would be better to lay Snotty to rest. It's what he would've wanted.)"
• (Instant hard cut to the Noise's interview. He's using a flamethrower to light his candy cig) "... say, how's this whole Snotty thing have'ta do with my movie deal again?"
• Noise just keeps asking what it's about and it makes it very clear he doesn't know who snotty is/he completely forgot. He derails into a tangent about movie ideas or something. and also claims Peppino did it "just because"
• Noisette loudly sobs and vividly recounts his order at her cafe/what he would do every day and random stories like that. Then she reveals she's crying about a totally different bg character and she's like "OH OH wait you're talkin' about snotty!!! Yeah he- uh. He was there once I think. Didn't even buy anything. Wait, is he the green one?????"
• Gustavo interview he stares at the camera and just goes "who?"
• Gustavo interview he sits there, opens his mouth to speak- the scene instantly changes to a different interview
• Gerome is one of the few who remembers Snotty. 
• i think Gerome would start telling vital information about snotty’s death but then pepperman interrupts by going BOOOORING!!! NEXT!!!
• Pepperman even tries to interview himself at one point, using a statue and some (shoddily done) creative editing
• "Alas... in the end, the miscreants have blamed ME! THE INNOCENT, GREAT PEPPERMAN! HOW COULD THEY?!"
• Peppino and The Noise try to deliver a pizza. At the end of the episode the customer refuses it because of 1 tiny detail. 
• A small spoiled child gets lost in pizza town, but this kid is so bold and so many of the pizza town citizens are so gullible,that the child ends up becoming a mafia boss style leader of a burgeoning pizza town criminal underworld. Peppino and pals have to make their way though the new pizza mafia to get the kid and return them to their parent.
• the health inspector shows up and Peppino is basically PLEADING everybody else to act normal just this once
• Peppino says that brick has to stay home and they're both offended
• THE GAG OF THE EPISODE WOULD BE FAKE PEPPINO CRAWLING THROUGH THE VENT OF THE PIZZERIA AND PEPPINO TRIES TO PLAY IT OFF AS NORMAL TO THE HEALTH INSPECTOR
• also. also the health inspector episode like Peppino is standing in front of a line of barely organized bosses n shit and he's like 
• "Okay guys. I know you freakshow lot couldn't do something I asked if it'd save your life but THIS ONCE. THIS ONE TIME. All I ask of you. Please.
• and it cuts to the health inspector walking in and EVERYTHING. IS FUCKED like the oven is on fire vigilante is hiding behind a table for cover and noise is running through the halls-
•  
• Health Inspector: Is that a rat in the kitchen - Noise, eating food off the floor:
• the moment the health inspector opens his mouth to speak ||fake Peppino|| drops out of the vents and falls directly on top of them
• like EVERYTHING stops for a moment and there's a crowd gathered around the health inspector and only NOW are they like. "We're FUCKED!" and then they all start arguing with each other
• he's just sitting there like. maybe poking the health inspector he's NOT EVEN DEAD. but whoops they didn't know that
• They then strip the corpse and try to dress up fake peppino like the health inspector, to give them a passing grade and send him back to the local agency he came from
• When they're trying to make fakey do a little trolling it's like. Peppino is frantically dressing him up, tears streaming down his face, everyone is still arguing in the background and fakey is just like. "hehoo.... jawn...ey" looking at the name tag
• Eventually, after various murders Fake returns covered in blood and spits up an arm or several…and they hear on the news about a rogue insane health inspector. Putting two and two together, they re-dress the health inspector and leave him in front of the restaurant as the pig cops close in. All is Well and the clueless health inspector just wakes up to find himself in a cop car
• Musical/Play Episode
• The Vigilante goes through a mini-arc of hating the show and then eventually carrying it by being a badass cowboy thespian
• The Pizzahead Conspiracy
• ||all I want is an episode where Peppino is like "OUGH!!! I SAW PIZZAHEAD I SAW HIM!!!" and the rest of the episode is them like. finding vaguely pizza-boy shaped objects and going "You are actually insane he doesn't exist..."||
• ||"come on he's definitely gone after the tower he wouldn't be around here!" And then in the background you can see Pizzahead walk by||
• THERE'S LIKE A CROWD SHOT OF THEM TURNING TO PEPPINO AND HES JUST. THERE WITH THEM CASUALLY
• Peppino goes HE'S RIGHT THERE!!! HOW ARE YOU GUYS NOT SEEING HIM!!! and when everyone turns around to look ||he's been replaced with a pizzaboy cutout||
• PEPPINO IS DRAGGED AWAY BY GUSTAVO LIKE "Come on man. give it a rest you probably haven't slept again"
• Peppino, showing Gustavo the corkboard if photos he's taken that apparently shows him but they're so shitty and blurred that it's impossible to tell and Gus is just "um... Okay...."
• one of them is literally just gustavo in like boxers and Peppino like looks at it and back at gustavo and just does not react The boxers have pizza boys on them
• "that was a private photo, Peppino"
• "I. CONFISCATED FOR EVIDENCE!!! WITHIN REASON!!! IT HAS A PLACE IN THE THEO-"
• Peppino: HE'S PROBABLY TRYING TO REPLACE YOU RIGHT NOW, SEE??
• Gustavo:
• Gustavo, squinting: I don't even own those......
• Peppino: EXACTLY
• The Pizzaboy boxers is what makes Gustavo believe Peppino 😭
• Peppino finds one clear piece of evidence but he loses and/or dismisses it
• need ||pizzahead|| to just be spying on them during this and losing his actual shit