That’s Hot Stuff!

**That's Hot Stuff!** is the twenty-ninth Season 1 episode of Leeko: The Beginning trilogy, and the twenty-ninth episode overall.

## Summary

Leonardo orders a monster chef, Spicey, to out-spice Peppermint; Spicey tricks the Puffies into wanting to eat Leeko.

## Characters

### Primary

* Leeko
* Chef Peppermint
* Milly
* King Leonardo
* Spicey (*debut*)

### Secondary

* Beatrice
* Bubbles
* Chief Gordy
* Daisy
* Dr. Medico
* Felix
* Gamba
* Gene
* Helios & Luna
* Lady Chanter
* Madeline
* Manny
* Marvin
* Mayor Bay Brittleton
* Miss Yuubin
* Parker
* Professor Antico
* Sir Chanter
* Sir Pathogen
* Snowdrop
* Tommy
* Whitehead
* Viruses (*no dialogue*)
* Various unnamed Puffy villagers

## Episode summary

The episode begins at Castle Leonardo, where King Leonardo is fed up with the lackluster food prepared by his kitchen staff. As a last resort, he heads down to Peppermint's Table in hopes of finding anything edible, but is once again unsatisfied, leaving the restaurant without paying his bill after insulting the restaurant's owner. Once back at the castle, King Leonardo resolves to open up a restaurant in Puffy Town, and calls Nebula Enterprises to send their best chef to Usapia. Through the Monster delivery system comes Monsieur Spicey, who presents the king with "le tournedos" as a sample. Leonardo enjoys the dish to the point that he licks the whole plate clean. From there, the plans to set up a rival restaurant and dispatch Leeko in the process begins.

Some time later, Chef Peppermint emerges from his restaurant to begin opening shop when he notices the new restaurant just across the street from his, and wonders how it got set up so quickly. At that moment, the restaurant opens for the first time, and a line of Puffies comes in to dine, leaving Peppermint to watch in dismay as Professor Antico and the kids comment on the situation. At that moment, Mayor Bay and Snowdrop walk out of the restaurant and confirm that not only was the food "heavenly", but it only cost "five dollars", prompting the rest of the Puffies to grow even more anxious about trying the restaurant. After being completely deserted, Peppermint then slips quietly into his empty restaurant in despair as everyone in Puffy Town lines up for Monsieur Spicey's instead. Later that night, Leeko, Milly, and Manny convene with Peppermint in his restaurant to discuss the situation. Despite the quality of the food, Milly distrusts Monsieur Spicey's establishment, and encourages Peppermint to start a "restaurant war" in hopes of improving his own dishes and winning back the support of the town.

The next day, the war commences at Peppermint tries everything he can to encourage customers, but with little success. Once again, he loses hope and is about to give up, when Chief Gordy enters Peppermint's Table due to the line at Spicey's place being too long. Defying Peppermint's expectations, Gordy asks for something spicy, since his horizons were expanded by Spicey's cooking. Despite the continued bashing of Peppermint's cooking, he agrees to make Gordy a spicy dish and asks for Leeko's help with the preparation. While cooking, Peppermint asks Leeko to grab a hot pepper for the dish, but due to his small stature, Leeko has trouble with this, and accidentally pulls down the whole bunch into the chowder when he jumps for one. Not noticing this, Peppermint presents the severely overclocked chowder to Gordy who promptly tries some, and then proceeds to spout a cone of fire from his mouth and run out of the restaurant in agony. At first, Peppermint is saddened at this outcome, but the rest of the Puffies show up desiring the same level of spiciness.

Before long, Chef Peppermint has reclaimed the attention of the Puffies with his new ultra-spicy dishes. Despite the experience of Manny and the Puffies, the spiciness seems to have little effect on Leeko, who happily slurps it up. Seeing the shift in taste, King Leonardo and Spicey endeavor to make their own spicy dishes. Soon a new restaurant war engages as both establishments continuously ramp up the spiciness of their foods. After King Leonardo and Tommy sample some, they are presented by Spicey with a special sorbet dyed pink, which they serve to their customers to cool off after the spicy entree. It is later revealed that a "special ingredient" was placed in the sorbet to make those who ate it desire to consume other "pink round things". Seeing the sorbet, Milly meets up with Peppermint to discuss a counter-dish, but catches him preparing his ultimate spicy dish. Milly tries to explain that the Puffies are getting tired of spicy food, but she fails to dissuade him as he tries his new curry out on himself. Back at Monsieur Spicey's, everyone is acting manic after eating the sorbet and are demanding for more. After some disturbing comments from the Puffies, more sorbet is brought out, this time explicitly designed to resemble Leeko. After the Puffies eat this offering, they become hypnotized and desire to eat Leeko next. At this opportunity, Monsieur Spicey transforms into a towering monster and battles Leeko with the intent on freezing him to death and making him into sorbet.

Seeing this, the Puffy kids run out of the restaurant, getting Chef Peppermint's attention. Peppermint runs in and tosses Leeko his frying pan, giving him the Chef Copy Ability to fight back. However, Chef Leeko is soon overpowered by Spicey and loses his ability. He then gets tossed into a bowl of dry ice and begins to freeze. While the others look on, Chef Peppermint thinks fast and runs to get his new curry. He tosses it into the bowl for Leeko to eat, allowing him to thaw out due to the sheet spiciness, having finally been affected by Peppermint's cooking. As he starts exhaling gouts of fire, Manny initially mistakes him as Fire Leeko, but Moonlight Man corrects him, saying it is just heartburn from the curry. Regardless, Leeko uses his fiery breath to set the restaurant and Monsieur Spicey alight, prompting the rest to escape as the place burns down. Later that night, as punishment for trying to turn Leeko into sorbet, the people of Puffy Town force King Leonardo and Tommy to eat Peppermint's toxic atomic-curry. The two gawk at this - believing themselves able to handle any level of spiciness - but soon catch on fire as a result, and are reduced to piles of ashes in a cartoonish fashion. The episode ends as the people of Puffy Town chuckle over the two's misplaced cockiness.

## Trivia

* Second episode in *The Beginning* series to feature the Chef Copy Ability.
* During the makings of this episode, Spicey was originally going to be a human character, but that idea was scrapped.
* First episode where Chef Peppermint cries.
* This episode shows that Leeko isn’t easily affected by spicy foods. However, Peppermint’s toxic atomic-curry was too spicy for him to handle.
* As the first line in front of Monsieur Spicey’s restaurant forms, Professor Antico appears to be part of it, though in the very next scene, he is standing with the kids in front of Peppermint’s Table instead.