Pillar John

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"

"Why did i get stuck with this job...""
— Pillar John. (Via Toppinbot)

Pillar John is an enemy in Pizza Tower, and a major element in gameplay. Attacking or running into him will trigger Pizza Time.

Description

Pillar John is a large purple pillar bearing a tired expression. He has yellow ringed pupils in his black eyes, a distinguished wrinkly forehead, a large nose and eyebrows, and an underbite, which hides his teeth. He is also slightly bandaged and cracked.

He has a different appearance in The Crumbling Tower of Pizza. His body is far more damaged, having deep cracks and being covered in pizza toppings, as well as having missing teeth and eyes devoid of pupils. He also has his small orange hat on his head. This doesn't have a defeat sprite, instead using the same sprite when killed.

It is unknown what exactly Pillar John is or how he was created, but he is heavily tied with the entrance gate to each level. As said by Pizza Tower Guy in a Discord discussion, "The lore explanation is that the gates are like portals to pocket dimensions, and what keeps the portal connected is the pillar you destroy in each level." Though, do note that this could be outdated. He seems mostly displeased with this role, as shown in his mostly grumpy expressions and his Toppinbot quote.

Behaviour

Pillar John stays in place at the end of most levels, doing nothing. Killing him starts Pizza Time. Pillar John also increases combos, but can't be used to start a P-rank.

Appears in

Pillar John appears in every level, excluding WAR, Tricky Treat, Secrets of The World, and bosses.

Backstory

According to McPig, John and Gerome are brothers. The duo took care of the tower until one day, Pizzaface placed a curse upon John, turning him into a multitude of giant, hive-minded pillars. He was forced to hold the portal gates open forevermore, with Gerome stuck as the tower’s only janitor. The hat-wearing Pillar John from The Crumbling Tower of Pizza is the original John, worn and torn over years of neglect.

After Peppino and company escape and destroy the tower, he returns to the remains of the tower, where a dead John's crumbled remains are seen. Alongside the defeated Pizzahead, Gerome silently mourns the loss of his brother, cap in hand and hand to heart.

However, if the player has collected all of the Tower’s Secret Treasures, they will fly out of Peppino and into the dead John. The treasures bring John back to life and to his original form, in which he gains limbs and pants. Pizzahead gets back up completely unscathed, but John uppercuts him, sending him off into the horizon. The brothers, now reunited, happily celebrate as Peppino gives a confused and anxious smirk.

After collecting all the treasures and resurrecting John, the save file on the file select will show a stamp of John giving a thumbs up, labeled "John Approved".

Variants

Trivia

This section is dedicated to trivia and miscellaneous information about Pillar John.
Remember to read the wiki's trivia guidelines before adding trivia or making changes.
  • While not possible through normal unmodded runs, Peppibots have the capability to kill Pillar John and start Pizza Time.
  • In Tumblr posts before Early Test Build, Halloween Demo and Demo 2, Pillar John must be fed all five Toppins to proceed. If John was satisfied, he would allow access to the Tower Secret Treasure, collecting which triggered Pizza Time. Therefore, it was impossible to initiate Pizza Time without all 5 Toppins.
  • In the Beachandforest build, in any room that Pillar John is in, Meatophobia would start playing. This has since been changed in PT_Eggplantv15, where it will only start playing if Pillar John is on screen, and the transition is smoother.
    • Meatophobia used to only play in the bottom level of Bloodsauce Dungeon, serving as that level's second track.
  • Pillar John's name may be a play on Papa John's, a well known pizza restaurant chain.
  • Pillar John's statue giving a thumbs up on its way down in the background of The Crumbling Tower of Pizza is likely a parody of T-800 giving the same dying gesture in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
  • In Pizza Tower's files, Pillar John is often referred to as "Hungry Pillar". This is a remnant of the earlier demos where instead of destroying Pillar John, players fed him the Toppins they collected.
  • Like Fake Peppino, In the lab background of WAR, Pillar John can be seen in a lab tube. This would explain why there are multiple Pillar Johns across the 20 levels in the game.
  • In an early version of the game's story, Pillar John was the main antagonist. He would trick the player into feeding him Toppins to make him stronger, and insult Peppino if the player got a low rank in a stage. At the end of the game, he would reveal his true form, that being the Pizza Tower itself, and his boss battle would be similar to the boss fight with Rudy the Clown in Wario Land 3.
    • The giant Pillar John statue in the background of Staff Only's hub may be a reference to this early concept, though this could be just a coincidence.
  • In an April 14th 2018 video, when a level is collapsing, it is given a time limit and Peppino must go to a place where Pillar John is found and feed him five Pizza Boxes instead of Toppins, After feeding him, The time will stop and the level will go back to it's normal state.
  • McPig has stated that, despite his appearance, Pillar John is actually made of wood.
  • The original Pillar John seen at the start of The Crumbling Tower of Pizza is referred to as "protojohn" in the files.
  • The giant Pillar John statue on Floor 5 has a singular pepperoni on his arm that was mistakingly left uncolored.

Gallery

Animations

Old & Scrapped animations

Miscellaneous