Tuca & Bertie: The Deli Guy

May 23, 2019 9:33 PM - Season 1, Episode 3

Tuca scores a date with the Deli Guy she’s been crushing on, while Bertie worries that her and Speckle’s sex and romantic life has collapsed into dull routine.

Things that happened

• Sweet opening jam!
• Hooters on a bike!
• A poster for the Indigo Gulls
• Tuca crushing on the man from Meat Slicers (“He’s reckless and has no spatial awareness”)
• Speckle’s six-step plan for the evening
• “Now the electricity is safely inside the electricity tubes”
• Hate to have my skeleton fall out of my body
• Searchin’ for hot mating on Grrgle
• Speckle actually has quite a good butt! Take a look.
• “Ugh, I loves me some bird watchin’”
• “Warm potato! Warm potato! Warm potato!”
• Bertie and Speckle’s sex drawer: edible long johns, normal sized condoms, the complete common-sutra, sensible glide, reasonable dildo (with a smiley face!) and the business card for one Pastry Pete
• A book store! So many things:
  • Self Destruction, Molting Day Traditions, Bird Watching, and Sex Books sections
  • Is Art Good?
  • Who Dis?
  • A number o’ sex books: The Same Story: A Fifth Time by Biffy Egg-Bottom Goosebangs by Zinsfin R. Dimple, Slutting Around for Dummies : How To Be A Slutty Dum-Dum by Peggy Bootee, How To Fuck Your Computer: You Know You Want To by Jesse Buttons, Your Phone Number: Write It Down In This Book by Rod ManHandle, Hot Sex For Agreeable People by Linda Lovewise, Oral History of Oral Orioles and Areolas, Stupid Names For Your Lady Bits, Third Edition, and Sex Good by Tuca Toucan


• Almost all mirrors are mean mirrors


• Bertie will die at Two PM.


• All snakes in the world go “Hisssss!” and that is correct. (Does Hanawalt do the hiss? Because that would be a satisfying cameo.)


• I’m sorry she’s blue!”


• Glow Room Jam! Tuca, you are wrong. Worms do know best.


• Watching A Sensible Migration immediately after The Nests of Netherfield seems like it should take at least six hours.


• Sad night jam! Book-ended by a saxophone.


• “Why am I so much cooler when I’m by myself?”


• “I’ve never not been drunk on a date before”
  –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
  DL 8838787
  EXP 5/5/20    CLASS D
  LN GUY
  FN DELI
  DOB 11/22/1989
  SEX M    HAIR BRN    EYES YLW
  HGT 5'-3" WGT 175 lb
  –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––


• Bertie will not take off her shirt


• Speckle is the perfect man.


• Bertie also has a nice butt. Two nice-butted bird people.


• Yo, this city is bananas


• When the mean mirror cannot shame you, you have won.

posted by Going To Maine (7 comments total)

OMG, his name really is actually Deli Guy. I missed that even on rewatch!

I have used the gif of Bertie's schedule more times than I can count and it's not even been out a month. SWEET SWEET DEATH.
posted by fiercecupcake at 7:42 AM on May 24, 2019 [3 favorites]

Deli Guy has a BMI of 31. He is either very ripped or a little chonk. This is entirely hidden in the animation style, which is itself an interesting choice.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:39 AM on May 24, 2019

Or, since the license is entirely in Tuca's head, perhaps she has no sense of how weight works. In Hot Dog Taste Test Tuca is also described as 5' 3" (5' 6" in heels) , so perhaps the world is at a different scale as a whole.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:45 AM on May 24, 2019

Loved the amusement park at night animation style - the simple neon lines on black really captured that place for me, and also reminded me of those scratch off art pages where you reveal the neon colors.

Also, missing the good snake train and getting stuck on the gross slug - oh man, have I been there.

Bertie's schedule pad going from "sweet sweet death" to the same schedule in the after life was bleak, but also perfect.

My boyfriend doesn't really get the appeal of this show, but he watched the last few minutes of this episode, with Speckle's "dying of dysentery and the only thing that can save me is doing it" bit and now he likes Speckle. (I am sure I worded than incorrectly - I am incapable of accurately quoting dialogue - but you get the idea)
posted by the primroses were over at 6:02 PM on May 24, 2019

Since this is a bird-majority world, maybe it's a bird-based BMI. A mammal would be very heavy to someone with hollow bones.

The unexpected laugh-out-loud moment for me was the BBC announcer talking over the credits. "Well, that certainly was a Very Sensible Migration." Note-perfect.
posted by Gordafarin at 2:11 AM on May 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

Since this is a bird-majority world, maybe it's a bird-based BMI. A mammal would be very heavy to someone with hollow bones.

Alas, my BMI calc is the mammal-based one, done by hand from height and weight. Maybe Tuca just assumes all mammals are heavier than they are, because of her aforementioned light-bone bias.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:48 PM on May 27, 2019 [4 favorites]

The little bit at the end where Tuca takes her shirt off and Bertie goes to and then changes her mind and does a little "heheh" instead.

Super relatable!
posted by JDHarper at 5:50 PM on May 30, 2019 [1 favorite]