JIVE FIVE: PIZZA IN DENTON

As part of our "Back to School Week," we thought it pertinent to take some time and talk about the fuel of many college students: the circle-shaped combination of delicious dough, mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce otherwise known as "the pizza." In traditional Jive Five form, we've weeded through what the pizza scene in Denton has to offer and come up with five "do's" and five "do not's" that ought to help out Dentonites hungry for some high-caloric intake. Read through to find out the best and worst of pizza that Denton has to offer. 

The classic cheese pizza at Last Drop Tavern. 

Pepperoyay:

• When you order a “slice” of pizza at J&J’s, you actually get two! Also, there's a fun basement there that often has free shows and the roof hasn't caved in yet even though it's squeaky. 
   
• The new Pie Five at Hickory and Fry is basically the Quizno's of pizza. You get to determine your toppings and watch your little pie roll through a hot oven very quickly. A measley $6.00 will net you a good sized pie (about 4 slices). For the vegetarians, The Mediterranean is delicious. 
   
• Mellow Mushroom will deliver pizza to you at the Oak St. Drafthouse. 
   
• Roman’s Pizza is tucked away on Windsor in North Denton by North Lakes park. While they’re actually the “oldest independent” pizza option in town, they don’t get much attention. That said, they’ve been serving up delicious, cheap pizza for the entire time they’ve been open. For the price, it’s hard to find better pizza in that neck of the woods. We’re partial to the canadian bacon and pineapple there.
   
• UPDATE: Si'z has since closed down since last year when we originally wrote this piece. So, instead we'll change this fifth rec to be "go to Luigi's." The “Red Dwarf” pizza at Si’z on Teasley in S. Denton is arguably better than the TV show from which it gains its namesake (and the skutter inside of us loves that show). While we love the pizza at Mellow Mushroom, this might be the single best “alternative toppings” pizza in you can get in town. It’s definitely worth a stop when you’re on your way back from a walk at Eureka Park.

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Pepperonay

• If you're a wimp, then sometimes two slices of J&J’s pizza can just be a little too much cheese for one stomach to handle.
   
• Crooked Crust has some really delicious options. We happen to be obsessed with their Mean Green, which consists of chicken, artichokes, pesto and mozzarella! It's light on the wallet, too, with $6 getting you two slices and a beverage. However, if you order your pizza at the wrong time of the day, you may find yourself with a pretty stale slice of crunch bread and cheese. If you're the type who gets hungry for pizza at three in the afternoon, you're going to suffer this fate. However, if you're out late at night on Fry and get hungry for a slice, you're more than likely to get a fresh piece of one of the best pizzas in town.  

The white pizza at Luigi's. 

• As a general rule, don’t order pizza from anywhere on University Dr. Yes, you can very easily order a vegan, no-cheese pizza online from Pizza Hut and Papa John's and Luigi's next to Albertson's has a surprisingly delicious white pizza, but there are just so many better options in town all worth exploring. 

• Getting a “take and bake” pizza from Papa Murphy’s  on University and rearranging the pepperoni to spell out curse words or crude drawings may sound like a good idea when you're stuck at the light, but the pizza, itself, isn’t good enough to warrant the misadventures. If you're hungry and craving Italian flavors at that stoplight, just eat at Bagheri's. 

• If you are going to Mellow Mushroom, bring a big wallet and have plenty of time. There's wonderful pie to be had, but it is neither cheap, nor fast. Call ahead and maybe get it to go

Bonus IMAVOLCANO pizza-related video from Fishboy. 

IMAVOLCANO

Eric Edward Michener AKA Fishboy and co. have been putting out lots of amazing videos lately. The video for IMAVOLCANO (embedded above) caught our eye last week and we haven't been able to stop watching it since. We threw some questions Michener's way and he was kind enough to answer 'em. Read on to find out how this pizza and dancing-filled video was created, whether or not they used Beyonce's same choreographer (they didn't) and how many slices of 'za it took to get make it through principal production. 

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Eric, what's the deal with this video? 

This is [a] project I've had in mind for a few years after noticing the large amount of pizza places on University within such a short distance from each other. I thought putting them all back to back like this would be a great visual gag. Our goal was to shoot them all very quickly before we were asked to stop, so we shot all thirteen locations in 90 minutes during sunset from 7:30-9:00pm on June 13, 2013. I wanted to have a third act surprise so we built the pizza volcano.

Who all was involved in creating it? 

I did the primary shooting, editing, and graphics animation. David Koen shot second camera. Taylor Van Allen was our production designer and driver. Mathew "Switchblade" Bauman was our actor who choreographed all his own dance moves. John Morley who is the Geographic Information Systems Coordinator for the City of Frisco collaborated with me on making the excellent pizza map.

What pizza places were involved? 

Bagehri's, Papa Murphy's, Pizza Patron, Double Dave's, Pizza Hut, Schlotzsky's (they had a sign advertising pizza out front), Pizza Inn, Papa Johns, Little Caesars, Dominos, Luigi's, and Top That were the places we places we shot at. We had an in car debate on weather or not to hit the SAMS snack bar and/or get a mexican pizza from Taco Bell but ultimately, we didn't have enough daylight. Movie Tavern and II Charlie's also serve pizza...and if you include frozen pizzas, you've got a dozen more locations you can add between gas stations, drug stores, and grocery stores. Maybe TWU serves pizza too, my gut tells me they do.

How many actual pizzas were consumed?

We only used four "prop pizzas" during shooting because we knew the editing would be so fast. There were talks about actually sampling every single possible slice and discussing their merits on camera, but for economical and time reasons we decided against it. We went out for tacos afterwards. We are going to have a follow up video with Switchblade talking about his pizza experiences soon. Stay tuned!

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Make sure to catch the EP release show on August 3rd at Rubber Gloves; featuring Two Knights, Savage and the Big Beat, and live letterpress printing by Triple Threat Press.