The Facts of Life - Season 6, Episode 2

"This mass manufactured pizza has no pep, no zip, no pizazz."

"A Slice of Life"
Original airdate: 10/3/1984

Episode summary: Jo launches a pizza making business, but quickly gets in over her head.

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Recap: Natalie tells Tootie she's ready for them to head out to the latest Indiana Jones movie, but Tootie says before they go she wants a piece of Jo's homemade pizza. One of Blair's study friends remarks on how fantastic the pizza smells - just as Mrs. Garrett bustles into the room, sticks her snout in the air, then screeches, "Joooooo must be making her pizzzzzzzzzza!" - but then glumly adds that she's on a diet and probably shouldn't indulge in the tasty pie.

Jo proudly brings out her pizza, and everyone quickly descends on it and grabs a slice. Jo tells Blair and the three study friends she has over - Ronald, Sally, and Hacksaw - that the pizza recipe is her mom's. [Incidentally, Blair is acting suspiciously canoodly with Ronald, which makes me wonder if she decided to throw in the towel on her long distance relationship with Cliff.] Hacksaw (a stereotypically tall, muscular, rocks-for-brains jock) tells Jo her pizza is so awesome she should sell it, and Ronald concurs and says he'd pay up to $10 for a single pie. Jo perks up at that and contemplates the idea of starting a pizza business - just as Hacksaw gives her $30 as a pre-payment for three pizzas for a fraternity party tomorrow night.

"You should start a pizza sweatshop in Edna's kitchen."

"I see no problems resulting from that ill-conceived idea."

Jo and Natalie arrive at the frat house to deliver the three pizzas - and a guy named Victor grabs one of the pies and gorges on it in the most unsightly way possible, then nods his approval and pronounces it great, which...high praise, I'm sure. A few seconds later, the entire frat dives in and grabs slices - and Hacksaw tells Jo that her pizza is so delicious, he'd like to order six more for tomorrow night. As Jo mulls over whether or not she really wants to start a pizza business with no staff, financial resources, or cognitive ability to run a business, Natalie gushes, "You're a hit!", and with her investment of $28 and the $25 that Tootie's been saving (not to mention the fast cash she's already earned from her pizza making), she'll have all the seed money she needs to launch a pizza startup. When Hacksaw abruptly changes his order to eight pizzas, Jo happily chirps, "I'm in business!"

The next day in the Edna's Edibles kitchen, Jo and Natalie are busily preparing tomato sauce and chopping up pizza toppings...and Jo proves to be a bitchy slave-driver of a boss by admonishing Natalie for not chopping the veggies properly or stirring the sauce deeply enough. When Blair and Tootie pop in to announce that they're off to go have carefree fun somewhere, Natalie says that she and Jo would appreciate it if they both stayed home and helped them with pizza making. Blair makes an ew face and says she's not interested, so Natalie gives her a pass - but tells Tootie that as an investor, she's obligated to help out in the kitchen. Tootie stares back at her blankly, then quickly gets a clue that Natalie robbed her secret stash o' cash and demands her $25 back. Natalie snaps, "It's gone!", then orders her to quit pouting and pitch in to help get Jo's pizza biz off the ground.

"As far as I know, my life savings of $25 is still hidden under my mattress."

"I took it upon myself to loot your mattress and make an investment decision for you."

Later, Hacksaw arrives at Edna's Edibles to pick up the pizzas - just as a call comes in to place a new order of fifteen pizzas for tomorrow night. Jo's like, "No problem!", and a horrified looking Tootie asks if they're really set up for all that pizza making. Jo breezily assures her they are, and the three gabble excitedly that they're soon going to become so rich and successful that they'll be invited on The Today Show for an interview. Be still my beating heart. 

The next day, Jo, Natalie and Tootie are run off their feet preparing the fifteen pizzas. When they use up all the sauce, Jo figures 'why not rub a ball of dough inside an empty sauce pan, then roll it out and hope something tasty comes from that?' Somehow the situation degenerates to the point where Natalie gets so flustered she tosses an opened bag of flour in the air...and as flour is raining down on them, Blair saunters into the room to answer the ringing phone. She reports that the frat house just placed an order for twenty-five pizzas for Monday night, and Natalie scrunches her face in horror and says after spending five hours making fifteen pizzas, she sees no feasible way to be a full time pizza maker and still have a life. Tootie concurs, and she and Natalie demand that Jo buy them out of her pizza business.  

"Congratulations! Your pizza business has just gone viral."

"I'd prefer to be more of a hands off type investor."

Blair tells Jo she shouldn't feel bad about failing at her debut in starting a small business - but Jo snappishly denies failing and points out that she's made a lot of money so far. Furthermore, she's accepting the challenge of fulfilling the order for twenty-five pizzas, even if she has to prepare them herself. So there. 

The next day, Jo tells the Facts gals that she was able to finish making twenty-five pizzas via mass production, meaning she used pre-baked pizza crusts, no name sauce, and some sort of synthetic cheese substitute called cheese food. Tootie sanctimoniously points out that she's no longer being honest about the pizzas being homemade and predicts that the frat guys are going to hate them. Natalie shrugs and says that despite no longer giving a shit about what happens to Jo's fledgling pizza business, she's volunteering to help Jo deliver the pies to the fraternity house.

Victor grabs one of Jo's mass produced pizzas and devours it in his disgusting manner, and says he loooooves it...even though he's scarfing it down so rapidly that there's no way it's not completely bypassing his taste buds. 

Natalie tells Tootie she was wrong about the mass produced pizza, and says that Jo's business has tripled as a result. Jo smugly says she'll probably soon be on the cover of Time to honor her remarkable success as a young '80s businesswoman, but Tootie continues to look skeptical.

Mrs. Garrett arrives home from her diet club meeting, sees one of Jo's pizzas sitting on the counter, and sneaks a piece. She chews on it for awhile, makes an ew face, and complains to Jo that it's not nearly as "rich and sinful" as it used to be...and that she can taste the freezer burn on the crust. Jo says it's almost her mom's recipe - but that she had to change a few things for the sake of production. Mrs. Garrett's like, "Seriously? It tastes like this on purpose?" - LOL - and Jo agrees that the defrosted crusts and low grade supermarket sauce are sub par ingredients.

Blair presents Jo with customized Mama Rose's Original Bronx Pizza boxes, but Mrs. Garrett shakes her head disapprovingly and tells Jo it would be an abomination to associate her sainted mother with the terrible tasting mass produced pizzas she's been cobbling together as of late. Jo argues that they don't taste that bad...but then takes a bite and is forced to admit that, yep, it pretty much tastes like a pile of garbage. 

Hacksaw saunters into Edna's Edibles and says he's gonna need twenty pizzas for tomorrow night - but Jo's like, "No can do" and says the most she can handle is three. She then gets a dreamy expression on her face and describes in superfluous detail all of the delicious ingredients she plans to use to make the pies...and Mrs. Garrett salivates and cries, "There goes my diet!" before the episode comes to a weirdly abrupt end. 

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