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"Best Buds" is the twelfth episode of the second season (and sixty-fourth episode overall) of Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. It premiered on October 3, 2014.
Synopsis[]
Worried about losing the “Best Buds” food-tasting competition, Randy uses the Nomicon to cheat and give himself super-senses.
Plot[]
The episode opens on the school grounds as the Norrisville Food Faire is taking place with Heidi talking to her camera explaining the main event of the faire being the 'Best Buds competition', a food tasting contest involving best friend. At that moment Howard and Randy enter the scene by limo to a cheering crowd and are revealed to the defending champions of the event and are momentary treated as celebrities. While Howard is confident about wining the contest and takes things easy, Randy is more serious and tries to get Howard to take it seriously as well, while Howard doesn't listen and tells Randy to calm down.
As they enter the tent in which the competition is being held, they take their places along with other competitors, who are as follows; Theresa and Debbie, Bucky and Julian, Flute Girl and Stevens, Rudd Rhymez and Tiny Timmy Scratch-it and finally McFist and Bash and several others. Heidi then explains the rules that one friend, referred to as the feeder must feed a piece of food to their other friend, referred to as the taster while they are wearing blindfolds and the taster must correctly identify the food for them to earn a point and allowing them to move up the competition to the next round until the top team will win the competition and be awarded with a trophy.
There short break before the start of the competition and the scene shifts to McFist and Bash's booth with McFist planing to cheat to win the competition with the help of Viceroy's invention, as Marci wants McFist to spend time with Bash and that if they don't win they both have to go camping, which McFist is strongly against. Viceroy assures them that they will win using his new invention the nano-particle tongue sock, which is a tasting device attached to Bash's tongue, a mechanical blindfold with a display feeding the wear information on what the user is tasting and a control that chooses the level of taste sensitive.
As the scene shifts back to the boys, Randy keeps pushing Howard into practicing as he constantly keeps putting food into Howard's mouth, and accidentally makes Howard eat hot pepper which burns his tongue. Some time later a nurses bandages Howard's tongue and informs them that it would could be hours before Howard can taste again making it impossible for him to compete. It is also revealed that Randy is a terrible food taster. Howard then suggest that Randy must take his place and buy as much time for Howard to recover, but due to his burnt tongue, he can not speak properly, causing Randy to not understand him, but he does, however, comes up with the same plan as Howard.
As the first round of the competition begins, it is made clear that Randy and Howard cannot win, thus Randy enters the Nomicon to try and find a solution. Once inside he is giving the lesson;
"Sometimes the Only Way to Push Forward is to Pull Back"
However, Randy is not satisfied with the answer and asks for a proper solution and begin childishly demanding for a super taste ability. The Nomicon eventually submits and gives Randy the ability of Super Senses, which gives him heighten senses and allow him to give a comprehensive detail of the food he tastes, and thus giving his team a strong edge on the competition. Right behind him is McFist and Bash, as with each round, McFist keeps increasing the level on the food tasting device and the two team are neck and neck. However, due to constantly pushing himself, Randy's senses begin to slowly overtake him, as he becomes hypersensitive to his surroundings. While he still manages to complete his turn with success, but McFist forcibly set the controller to 'all the way' which results in the device on Bash's tongue to mutate and a sentient octopus-like monster to jump out of Bash's mouth and start violently attacking people, and destroys the controller as well, while still being attached to Bash's tongue.
Randy dons the suit, but is incapable of fighting due to his five senses being extremely heighten, and starts losing the fight. That is until he realizes the Nomicon's lesson and understand that he needs to pull back into order to control his senses. Once he does so, the fight immediately turns to his side as he is able to deal with the monster effortlessly. He then defeats it by shoving hot pepper into the monster's mouth which causes the creature to explode from the taste, thus destroying the creature and saves Bash at the same time, Howard's tongue also manages to recover during this.
Towards the ending, Flute Girl and Stevens are revealed to be the winners of the competition by default as they were the only contenders who stayed at their table while everyone else. As a result of losing, Bash and McFist must now go camping, with Viceroy being forced to join. The episode ends with the boys reaffirming their friendship as they walk into the sunset.
Characters[]
Main Characters[]
Secondary Characters[]
Background Characters[]
- Principal Slimovitz
- The Creep
- Bucky Hensletter
- Cass Simonson
- Debbie Kang
- Doug
- Jed Elinoff
- Mike Moe
- Pradeep
- Rudd Rhymez
- Scott Thomas
- Theresa Fowler
- Tiny Timmy Scratch-It
- Nameless Boy with Blue-Green Shirt
- Nameless Cowbell Player
- Nameless Girl with Big Eyelashes
- Nameless Girl with Dark Red Hair
- Nameless Girl with Green Shirt
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
Trivia[]
- The episode's title is a pun, as buds can be referencing friends or taste buds.
- Randy gains the ability of Super Senses in this episode.
- Howard's tongue photographing is a reference to Miley Cyrus's tongue snapshots.
- When McFist sets the device all the way, the device humorously tries to stop him with warnings, "Med, high, seriously?, Here we go, all the way..."
- At the start of the episode, The Creep can be seen at a taco stand called "Taco no Prisoners" which is a pun on the popular phrase "take no prisoners".
- This episode along with Fudge Factory are created in memory of Elaine Stritch in the credits.
- This episode revealed that before their streak has ended in this episode, Randy and Howard had been the six-year defending champions of the "Best Buds" competition.
- Howard is revealed to have low spice tolerance in this episode.