"How You Play the Game" is an episode of Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures.
Summary[]
Everyone in Berry Bitty City becomes obsessed with a brand new game; but with everyone wanting to play it and wanting access to the community space it soon becomes a disorganized mess. Orange attempts to come up with a plan.
Episode Review[]
One summer day the Berrykin are working when they get distracted by a flying dandelion. It leads them to Orange Mart and she hears them, quickly opening the door to avoid injury. They continue to play through her shop and get back outside, and Orange becomes enticed by how much fun it looks. She follows after them to join them, but the game ends soon after when the dandelion puff vanishes. To remedy this, Orange asks Raspberry to make them a ball stuffed with feathers and dandelion puffs. While she doesn't entirely understand, she decides to play with them after she finishes.
Meanwhile, Strawberry is at Lemon's Salon when they hear noise outside. They find their friends and the Berrykin playing, and they quickly join in, along with Plum and Blueberry a bit later. This leads them to come together and decide that they should develop the game further, and they try to think of possible goals, in order to score points. They settle on using the gazebo and a drooping daisy. They request some butterfly act as referee and a real game is held.
Seeing as they have no distance in comparison to the berrykin, Orange brings in her Pogo-stick and starts to come up with rules for the game, such as allowing one team to use pogo sticks, while the other team can use birds. They get springs for the Berrykin to make it fair, and the game continues. Before everyone knows it the day is almost over and they have to quit playing. Everybody had so much fun playing, and Orange becomes inspired hearing them, suggesting that they call their new game "Dandyball".
The next day, Blueberry is reading to some berrykin while the other girls play the game. The berrykin become distracted and want to play too, so Blueberry heads to Strawberry's Cafe in hopes of getting their minds off of it. It doesn't work, and the same thing is shown occurring to their other friends- with the exception of Raspberry, who is currently needle-pointing with Princess Berrykin and Jadeybug. They decide to head inside to give them more space.
One day, Plum comes by to ask for Strawberry's help clearing out part of the meadow for an upcoming recital. She can't use the gazebo now, because of Dandyball. She figured it'd be better to pick a new location to hold it. Strawberry is concerned, so she decides to hold an emergency meeting to try and determine how they can make more room for other events. The girls are at a loss, having trouble finding a way to make things fair for everyone, until they come to the decision that they need someone to be put in charge of a schedule. Plum and Raspberry are too busy, and they vote for Lemon, but Strawberry asks Orange if this is okay, seeing as she felt she'd want to do it. Orange thinks Lemon would be fine so they begin to make their plans.
By now Blueberry has finished reading a story but there's still a few minutes until they can play. Strawberry notes how weird this is and pays the other girls a visit to try to find a way to make a "tighter" schedule; but to her surprise she is greeted by a huge stack of papers at Lemon Salon. Strawberry explains to Lemon that an hour is too much for some activities, and not enough for other ones. Lemon admits that she's used to scheduling appointments by the hour, so she didn't think of that. She's beginning to get stressed out trying to balance both her job and this schedule management job that she was elected or.
Plum suggests they ask Blueberry to do it since Lemon is overwhelmed, unaware that Orange is trying to volunteer for the job. Nobody notices her so Blueberry agrees. They hand over the paperwork while Strawberry asks Orange if she is okay with this. She claims she is.
After reviewing some books related to this subject, Blueberry holds a detailed lecture about her findings. Unfortunately, everybody is finding this new schedule style very confusing. Blueberry admits it's way more complicated then she thought it'd be, and the next day proves just how much more confusing it really is after everyone starts to get frustrated and fails to keep the pace. In hopes of fixing it Blueberry asks everyone to play Dandyball in the meantime and she tries to make a better schedule.
Eventually, Blueberry asks someone else to take over and Lemon nominates Raspberry, who then picks Strawberry, who mentions Orange should be the one to go first. The others are unsure if Orange can do it though, considering her brash nature. Orange convinces them to give her a chance though, and they head to her store, deciding to make her an organizer to try to make things easier. Initially, Orange was going to refuse as Strawberry suspiciously begins to ask questions, pointing out that the very things Orange does at her store is what they need.
Later, Orange holds a meeting and begins to explain how she made that same connection. She's broken things up into smaller charts to form six teams, she's also prepared an entire season for Dandyball, concluding with a championship. With that in mind they realize their game is missing various things, like a rule book, uniforms, etc.
The next day Orange is chatting with Jadeybug while on a walk. She asks her to help her organize the post office, and she gets approached by Princess Berrykin, who would like to make the Berry Works work flow smoother. Then Blueberry asks for help as well.
Soon everyone begins to play Dandyball again, enjoying their time together in a more controlled, but fun way that includes them all. The episode comes to an end just as Orange makes a game winning shot.
Quotes[]
Orange: Hi, Berrykins! What's this?
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Orange: Well, since I was the one who sort of got the ball rolling...
Lessons[]
Orange and the others learn that there needs to be a balance between work and play after their work begins to get neglected from focusing on this brand new, fun game. They also learn that they need to be more considerate of others and the importance of sharing and respecting the space of others.
Meanwhile, the other girls learn a lesson in trusting our friends with important tasks. They may not seem like the type but when push comes to shove, friends can be dependable and may just surprise you.
Trivia[]
- This is one of the few episodes where Strawberry was not shown to be cooking, baking, or working at any point.
- This is one of the few episodes showing butterflies in clothing.
External links[]
- How You Play the Game at the Internet Movie Database