Tell me more about Plastimart Rising too!
PLASTIMART RISING! can you tell I'm running out of variations for the header thingie?
First off, Eric Trueheart wrote a blurb summary ramble thingie (is that what these episode posts are? Probably) about Plastimart Rising in his script book! Here it is:
For a long time we'd kicked around the idea of ZIM running out of fuel somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and having to find help at a scary 24-hour convenience store run by scary 24-hour rural redneck stereotypes.
Somewhere along the line, I tried to pack in a half-dozen only semi-related ideas, none of them strong enough to really support the story. Is it about ZIM eating junk food? The scary rural desert types? ZIM being confused about Earth's "convenience" store? The struggle of a failing coal town in a changing world? A man turned against himself by a fracture in time that puts him at war with his own infant form, now given deadly power by cybernetic enchancements [sic] given to him from a secret government lab?
Or is it really about the angry hippo that lives behind your eyes and tells you to steal the gun out of that policeman's holster? Go on. That cop is fat from donuts, and will never be able to catch you in time.
The big takeaway: Never listen to the hippo.
He also notes that, since this ep was never finished, it freed up the word Rising for the Dibship Rising ep title.
Anyway! This is the episode with drunk Zim! :D Specifically, he gets drunk on Slushbuckets (the IZ equivalent of Slushees). Which..adds a whole 'nother layer to the 'tallest red is drunk half the time' headcanon huh?
Because that sure looks a lot like a Slushee to me. Zim also sounds pretty drunk in his shmoopy phase (you know, when he's in his 'cheesy cocoon of misery').
So..it seems like both Slushees and cheese (specifically processed nachoey cheese) can make irkens drunk. Now, the question is: what's the common ingredient(s) between Slushees and cheese? (Watch, this is where the commentary starts to go off the rails.) (Also watch as I completely disregard that two different ingredients may have the same effect on irkens.)
According to Wikipedia, Slushees are made of "carbonated flavor syrups", filtered* water, and sugar. I asked around elsewhere (it's more confusing if I ask it on a different platform, then they don't have context) and someone found me a more detailed nutrition facts page for a specific brand of Slushee:
According to Google, the ingredients in processed nacho cheese (you know, that shit at concession stands) are "cheese whey, modified food starch, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, cheddar cheese, jalapeño peppers, sodium phosphate, salt maltodextrin, vinegar, MSG, mono and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, natural flavors, and artificial colors."
So, the shared ingredient is maltodextrin! According to Google, it's in a lot of processed foods, though, including the Irken Licky Sticks/Fun Dip from Hamstergeddon:
So it's definitely in there. Hmm...maybe almost every snack food does get irkens drunk, but with most foods it's just, like, barely noticeable? That'd definitely explain why irkens like snacks so much. And irken Slushees are specifically engineered to have enough maltodextrin to get drunk (looking at you Red)! (Zim got drunk from nacho cheese simply because of the sheer amount he ate.)
*this explains why irkens can drink it without burning their throat
