Shake and Meatwad get busted for drunk driving while Carl’s attempt to sell bootleg New York Giants jerseys gets him a visit from the very preachy ghost of offensive lineman Bart Oates.
"Bart Oates" contains examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: Carl takes the spotlight again.
- Affably Evil: Oates is an extremely nice and honest guy, to the point that he’s outright obnoxious about it. He starts out with Brutal Honesty when he tells Carl to stop drinking so much, stop banging hookers, and start exercising. It eventually turns into absurdly selfless behavior (or rather expecting such out of Carl) like making him bail Shake and Meatwad out of jail even though they aren’t his responsibility and they stole his car and got it impounded, or making him pay the band Chicago his earnings in bootleg merch. Then Oates demands Carl murder Linda Hamilton because he thinks he’s a robot sent from the future to ensure humanity’s extinction by ensuring she can’t give birth John Conner. He also convinces Master Shake to shoot Carl in the head with a BB gun, either kicking off the events as a Dream Episode or as retribution for not following his orders.
- As Himself: Bart Oates as Bart Oates. It’s in the title. Unlike most examples of this in the series who are exaggerated caricatures, this version of Oates is entirely fictionalized beyond “former Giants football player” - here he seems to have suffered a career-ending knee injury with the 49ers and then died shortly after, and his number is 6.5. Also he’s a robot made out of trash and may be some kind of sentient hallucination.
- All Just a Dream: Carl and Oates arguing about murdering Linda Hamilton suddenly cuts to Frylock finding a BB pellet lodged in Carl’s frontal lobe, suggesting the episode (or at least Oates) may be a brain injury induced hallucination. Then a flashback shows Oates goading Master Shake into shooting Carl.
- The Atoner: Oates’ self-improvement regimen escalates into having Carl make up for past misdeeds, such as paying Chicago money he earned through selling bootleg merch and apologizing to the grave of a man he killed with his car.
- Dude, Not Funny!: When Frylock catches Carl and Oates chatting and it becomes clear he can’t see the latter:Frylock: Hey, Carl, ‘sup?Carl: Oh crap, hide!Frylock: Hide? From what?Carl: From uhhhhhh-Bart Oates: Just play it off as a joke.Carl: -uhhhh you know, black people been running around here.Bart Oates:..........that's not really a joke, Carl."
- Gainax Ending: Carl and Bart end up at Linda Hamilton’s house and Bart reveals he’s a robot sent from the future to murder her so she can’t birth to John Conner, who will lead humanity in the fight against the machines. Carl protests that The Terminator is just a movie, but Bart says that when he got his knee surgery they replaced his entire body with computer chips and then rips off his skin, revealing a trash can underneath. Bart bemoans that the computers lied to him and it cuts to Frylock removing a BB lodged in Carl’s brain, and it cuts again to Bart Oates convincing Master Shake to shoot Carl with his BB gun.
- Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: Nobody can see Oates but Carl and, later, Shake (and not at the same time).
- Never My Fault: Carl ran over an old man with his car sometime in the past and insists on blaming him for it.I am very glad that forensics could not match the paint on your face to the paint on my fender, but I am sorry that you had to pay the ultimate price for not looking both ways. I did not wave you on, I was flipping you off!
- Noodle Incident: Apparently this isn’t Master Shake’s first DUI.
- Purple Prose: Oates has a bizarre version of this where he can only speak in flowery, overwrought football metaphors.C’mon Carl. You gotta do it brother, you gotta go all the way. Do it for Tuba, do it for LT! C’mon man, this is our house, this is Linda’s house! We’re gonna run a trap, and you gotta lay a big hurt on Linda!
- They Killed Kenny Again: Shake shoots Carl in the head with a BB gun at Oates’ insistence.
