Cereal Criminals

"Cereal Criminals" is the fifteenth episode of the first season of Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero. It premiered on March 23, 2015.
== Synopsis ==
In a world where everyone is a cereal mascot and cereal is grown on farms, Penn seeks the help of an imprisoned Rippen to catch the Milkman, a villain threatening to flood all the cereal crops with milk, turning them soggy.
==Plot==
The episode starts at Middleburg Central High School's art class, where Penn is sprinkling paint in a canvas on the floor, with Rippen rating his art as F-. Larry appears with evaluation papers, saying whoever teacher wins the evaluation gets to become teacher of the month. Rippen founds that this means that he will no longer have to go to school through the Water Sprinkler Row, having a memory of him getting sprinkled and pushed by the sprinklers with Boone telling that love is in the other shoe.
Back at The Odyssey, the heroes are ready to get zapped as Phyllis asks Penn about the smile on his face. Penn tells her he is smiling because he is about to obliterate Rippen on his teacher evaluation before he and his friends get zapped into the world.
The heroes are zapped in a cereal crop farm as Penn realizes out he zapped as Choco Chuck, the mascot of his favorite cereal, Choco Trunks. Penn then tells Sashi that she is Agent Flamingo, the mascot for Flaming-O's, and he asks Boone who he got zapped as, which he tells him he zapped as Bewell Beaver, the mascot for Kale Flakes. Sashi then tells the mission: they have to stop The Milkman from making all the cereal soggy. The boys are distracted eating the crops, so Sashi tells them to stop crunching before The Milkman passes by them in his milk car. Penn, thinking Rippen is The Milkman, stops him, but he tells them he is not Rippen as he introduces himself. He then sprays milk around him, wetting the cereal crops. Sashi tries to stop him using her cereal ring gun, but the cereal ring projectiles go through him, showing that he himself is made of milk. He then tells a riddle to the heroes, saying he will destroy all the cereal at "6 o'clock minus 3", which Pen guesses to be 3 o'clock. The Milkman compliments him for solving the riddle as he goes away in his milk car. The heroes are then approached by Crispity Cockatoo, who tells them that his "crispity crunch crops" went soggy. Sashi asks him how will The Milkman make Crispy Valley soggy, which he tells him that The Milkman escaped from the Marshmallow Dreams Maximum Security Prison and that his friend knows The Milkman's plans. Penn recognizes the friend to be Wrongway Wally, Choco Chuck's enemy who always wanted to steal his Choco Trunks.
The heroes go to the prison to see Wrongway Wally, who happens to be Rippen, telling Penn he was expecting him, but he gets distracted by Larry, who zapped as Otis The Oppasium, the mascot for Banana Bran. Boone recognizes who Larry is, asking him if he remembered that commercial where Otis tried to buy the Banana Bran factory, but ended up imprisoned. Penn tells Rippen that, at 3 o'clock, The Milkman will turn all cereal crops soggy and asks him how does he plans to do that. Rippen asks him why would he do that, which Penn answers by singing a song along with Boone about catching The Milkman. Rippen still refuses to tell him The Milkman's plans, so Sashi tells Penn they will figure out the plan without Rippen, but Penn tells her he knows how to make him talk. Penn tells him that they will give him the most positive teacher evaluation in the history of public education, shocking Boone and Sashi. Rippen asks him if he is being serious, which Penn tells him he is doing this so they have to catch The Milkman. Rippen then tells him that to catch The Milkman, he has to think like a villain and that to think like a villain, he has to understand what drives villains to villain. He tells Penn that what drove to villain is trying to overcome his sister, Vlurgen, as he talks about how she is better than him. Penn tells him to focus on helping them stop The Milkman, so he is about to tell them The Milkman's plan, but the clock hits 3 o'clock. Rippen laughs at him as he tells them that him talking about his sister was just a distraction, celebrating that the heroes can't stop The Milkman now, thinking he became a full-time villain now. He then tells the heroes that The Milkman is going to Crispy Valley Milk Dam, so he can use the dam to flood Crispy Valley. Penn commands his friends to go to the dam, but Rippen tells them it's already 3 o'clock. However, Penn tells him that it's actually 2 o'clock, revealing him that the "We Can Catch The Milkman" song was just a distraction, so Sashi could turn the clock forward. The heroes then go to the dam as Rippen gets upset that he got bamboozled by them.
The heroes go to the dam riding a boat as Boone spots Lenny the Lion, telling him he loves his Lemon Lime Lion Logs cereal. They spot The Milkman, who opens the closure that keeps the milk from spilling out, letting the milk spill out of the dam. Penn tells Sashi to get the closure and tells Boone to slow down the spill as Penn goes after The Milkman. He approaches The Milkman as he goes to stop him, but he fails due to The Milkman's body being made of milk. The milk dam is about to break as Boone stumbles upon a field of Kale Flakes, so he eats them to get superpowers. allowing him to use a pile of these Kale Flakes to cover the dam. Sashi makes it to the closure, but she falls into the milk as she notices the milk falling down like a waterfall in her way, so she calls for Boone to save her. Boone, using his Kale Flakes powers, swims at great speed towards her to grab the closure she is holding onto. The Milkman is swinging Penn's trunk around, slamming him against the floor, as Boone and Sashi close the dam. The Milkman tosses Penn away as he submerges his hand under the milk, allowing him to grow large. The Milkman tries to stomp Penn with his foot as he flees away before catching him with his hand. However, Penn, using his trunk, sucks his milk body up before shooting him towards a bottle, trapping him inside.
Back at Middleburg Central High School, Rippen, saddened, enters his art classroom before he gets hit with a party blower blown by Larry, congratulating him because he became the teacher of the month. Rippen tells Penn that he is just trying to be generous to him so he can feel small. The heroes shrug as they exit the art classroom while Rippen looks at his evaluation paper as he smiles, ending the episode.
==Cast==
*Thomas Middleditch as Penn Zero
*Tania Gunadi as Sashi Kobayashi
*Adam DeVine as Boone Wiseman
*Alfred Molina as Rippen
*Larry Wilmore as Principal Larry
*Sam Levine as Phyllis, Cow
*Paul Reubens as The Milkman (guest starring role)
*Maurice LaMarche as Crispity Cockatoo
==Trivia==
*The title is a pun of "cereal" ("derived from or relating to grain") and "serial" ("referring to a number of actions or events that happen in a particular time-sequence"); a "serial criminal" is one who commits a number of crimes over a certain period of time.
*This is the first episode in which Rippen isn't the main villain, as the Milkman is instead.
*The brief appearance of Lenny the Lion is likely a reference to , a 1959 cartoon created to advertise various Post cereals such as Alpha-Bits, Crispy Critters, Post Toasties, Rice Crinkles, and Sugar Crisp; Linus himself was voiced by well-known character actor, Sheldon Leonard. In addition, the Alpha-Bits mascot, a friendly, Southern-accented Postman, Lovable Truly, is very similar in depiction to The Milkman in this episode.
*This episode reveals Rippen and Larry's jobs as an art teacher and school principal respectively.
*Rippen's prison outfit's number is 24602, a reference to Jean Valjean from .
===The Odyssey's marquee signs===
*KALE, VITAMIN D, BREAKFAST, WACKY SNAPS, CLOSED
==Songs==
*"We Can Catch the Milkman"
==Gallery==
Penn as a Choco trunk.png
Cereal Criminals - Penn and Boone.jpg
File:PZ-PTH Cereal Criminals Concept Art.jpeg
File:PZ-PTH Cereal Criminals Concept Art 2.jpeg
File:PZ-PTH Cereal Criminals Concept Art 3.jpeg
File:PZ-PTH Cereal Criminals Concept Art 4.jpeg
File:PZ-PTH Cereal Criminals Concept Art 5.jpeg
File:PZ-PTH Cereal Criminals Concept Art 6.jpeg
Category:Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero episodes