"So this here's the story of a cat-bear-rabbit thing— you know what, let's just say he's a boy, makes things easier..." So begins "The Puckerberry Overlords," a tale sung by an old wisdom tooth and storyboarded by Maxwell Atoms (The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy). The cat-bear-rabbit boy is the eponymous Chowder, and today the pop-up book of Marzipan City will take us to his stygian depths.

Yes, we're going into Chowder's mouth.

This first tale of escape and the power of happiness overcoming doom starts out with Chowder popping a puckerberry. At which point he puckers up to the point of imploding into himself. It's a dark little hero quest that's just Mr. Atoms' style, complete with a soured taste buds, a crazed sweet tooth, and the villainous king Sour Ron.

Yes, we went there too. Ahem. In true hero form, Chowder faces possible doom ("possibilidoom"), gets mad ("ragey"), and confronts the overly grouchy overlords ("and you need to make a poo!"). By the time our young hero recalls the teachings of his elders, his little-kid logic has surprised a guffaw or two out of this grumpy viewer. Also tempering the sweet-as-honey solution are the gags aimed at adults. As the wisdom tooth said: "Now I know what you're thinking... but stop it and pay attention to the story, sickos."

Since this wasn't featured in the commercials, I didn't expect the toe-tapping music and subversive humor. The story works on several levels, and I may have to watch it again to sample them all.

Our second tale of entrapment is about the sourest character in Chowder, Truffles. It was set up with high expectations since it also featured elemelons on strike. Timely, eh? A cross between an elephant and a melon, the elemelons are being milked, or rather juiced by Chowder, Mung Daal, and Shnitzel early in the morning. The racket of the giggling lady 'melons and Mung's cajoling wakes his wife Truffles. She flies down, interrupts the juicing, and enrages the elemelons to the point of labor stoppage. Truffles thinks this is hilarious; after all, they're just fruit. However, Mung needs to finish his recipe and locks her in to negotiate for his juice.

The episode slowly transitions from a kid-friendly explanation of a strike ("I have tried everything— threats, intimidation, violence") into a surreal slumber party. Truffles makes nice, all right. After she starts treating the elemelons like her girlfriends, she pampers them into producing juice just for her. Then, as the old t-shirt goes, they don't get mad... they go shopping.

I can see where this episode was trying to go, but the difference between the set-up and the somewhat meta conclusion was too great for me. Truffles' change of heart, as it was, couldn't carry it over that gap. She was still mean and insincere. She just turned it on different people. Ah well, humor is a funny thing. Maybe one girl's slumber party is another guy's juice.