Bob accompanies Tina to a convention for The Equestranauts and is shocked at the fandom's Periphery Demographic consisting of middle-aged men, one of which swindles Tina out of her favorite pony toy.
The Trope-questranauts:
- Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Lampshaded by Bob, Bronconius keeps pronouncing "tattoo" as "tuh-TOO."
- Affectionate Parody: The Equestranauts is an obvious take off on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, with the equesticles standing in for
bronies (and, to a lesser extent, furries), and while there is some gentle ribbing at the absurdity of dedicated adult fans of children's entertainment, the episode otherwise depicts them as decent people with an innocent hobby, and who genuinely follow the show's message of friendship and tolerance. It also makes it clear that those who give these fandoms a bad name are usually very specific individuals like Bronconious, who use their obsessions as an excuse to mistreat others. - All for Nothing: Defied. After everything Bob goes through to get Tina's doll back, she decides that she's become too old for The Equestranauts and is in the process of packing up her pony. Bob, quite understandably, is not having any of it.Bob: Tina...
Tina: What?
Bob: Play with the doll.
Tina: But I'm too old to-
Bob: TINA, PLAY WITH THE DOLL!
Linda: Play with the doll, Tina. Come on, do what your father says.
Bob: PLAY WITH IT!
Tina: Uh, okay... Uh, neigh!
Bob: MAKE IT JUMP!
Tina: Oh, well, uh, she doesn’t-
Bob: I know it doesn't jump! You know how I know that?
Tina: 'Cause...
Bob: 'CAUSE I READ TWELVE HUNDRED PAGES OF EQUESTRANAUT CRAP! - Ambiguously Gay: Sunpuddle calls Horseplay a cute mess, and later tells Bob that he better follow through on calling him.
- Becoming the Mask: Despite his primary goal being retrieving Tina's doll, Bob seems to have a genuinely fun time with the Equesticles. It still doesn't stop him from prioritizing Chariot, though.Louise: He's so deep undercover, he's forgotten who he is.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Well, bitch in horse's clothing. Bronconius is not only a scammer who manipulates a girl into giving him her prized doll, but he's also completely batshit insane.
- Boomerang Bigot: Teddy believes men ruin everything. As he rants, Bob begins to agree with him.
- Brutal Honesty: As Bob is about to be tattooed, Bronconius laments that Bob was his best friend, only for Bob to tell Bronconius to his face that he always considered Bronconius's three cronies better friends than him. Considering Bob knows about how he scammed Tina, this is honestly the least of what he could say.
- Louise doesn't mince words when telling Bob that his new tattoo does not look flattering. Bob for one seems to actually appreciate the honesty.
- Covert Pervert: Tina, as usual.Tina: And I'm not talking about the sexually charged, confusing atmosphere here. I'm a fan of sexually charged, confusing things too. For example–
Bob: Tina. - Daydream Believer: Fans of the fictional equivalent of My Little Pony are mostly middle-aged men who are generally into it for a love of the show and the sense of community—except Bronconius, who believes that kissing rare collectable spin-off items will grant him eternal youth.
- Defied Trope: Bob, in a somewhat-Tranquil Fury, defies his tortuous trip through the convention becoming All for Nothing by ordering Tina to keep playing with the doll he retrieved after she tells him that she doesn't cares about it anymore.
- Didn't Think This Through: Bronconius's plan to keep Chariot in the safe clearly didn't account for Bob just getting the hotel staff to open up their safe. Not only that, but Bronconius had opened the safe right in front of Bob a while back, meaning Bob likely saw the combination anyways.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Bronconius manipulating Tina's trust and telling her to follow him without her family's supervision gives off way creepier vibes than just a man who just wants her priceless doll.
- The Dog Bites Back: After Tina reminds the other equesticles about the true meaning of "The Equestranauts", they finally stand up against Bronconius, who has been tainting the show with his arrogance and disrespectful attitude towards the others, and they hold him down while they let Bob take back Tina's doll, who he swindled out from her.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: When Bronconius discovers that Bob isn't a real Equesticle, he plans on humiliating him by having a large, embarrassing tattoo on his back. The tattoo is a picture of a horse with Bob's face on its butt. Tina is able to stop them in time but he still gets a tattoo which is just a nose with a mustache. And in an aversion of Negative Continuity, later episodes that show Bob's back reveal he still hasn't gotten the tattoo removed.
- Everyone Has Standards: Sunpuddle raises a protest when Bronconius orders Bob to be tattooed, only standing down when Bronconius intimidates him. Later, when the Belchers show up to save Bob, all of Bronconius's followers turn on him, being unwilling to punish a man who was just helping out his daughter.
- Exact Eavesdropping:
- After tricking Tina into trading away her old doll, Bronconius brags out loud about his actions while passing by Louise, who overhears what he said and then tells her family about this.
- The Belchers tries to find Bob before he blows his cover, luckily, a someone yells if anyone needs a ride to Broncoinus' party, giving the Belchers the location they need.
- False Friend: Bronconius pretends to befriend Tina because she has a rare Chariot doll, and once he's able to swindle her out of her doll, he's immediately done with her.
- Fan Community Nicknames: In-universe. Teddy mentions that the Periphery Demographic calls themselves "Equesticles".
- Fan Convention: The Equesticle convention, complete with a rave and at least one off-site party.
- Follow the Bouncing Ball: The main cast sings "The Equestranauts" theme song while Minnie acts as the bouncing ball for the lyrics.
- Foreshadowing: Bronconius's followers generally act meek and submissive in his presence, indicating that they're not really that comfortable around him in spite of Bronconius acting like they're friends.
- Bronconius offhandedly points out how the safe Chariot is in is actually the hotel's safe, hinting that they know how to get the safe open even if nobody else knows the combination. Bob later exploits this to retrieve Chariot after Bronconius is defeated.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: As seen when Bronconius first shows Bob his collection, the combination to the safe Chariot resides in is 5193. However, it's anyone's guess as to how 5193 is an obscure Equestranauts reference as Bronconius claims the combination is.
- Good-Times Montage: After gaining Bronconius's respect, Bob hangs out with him along with his friends throughout the convention.
- Grail in the Garbage: Tina's childhood Equestranauts toy (which Bob got for her on a whim for her fifth birthday) turns out to have a rare factory defect and is valuable enough for Bronconius to want to scam it off of her.
- Imaginary Friend: In addition to Ken, Gene has another one named Antonio, who has "covered" some of Gene's shifts at the restaurant. Antonio also apparently believes Bob killed his father.
- Immortality Seeker: Bronconius has amassed his doll collection not because they're valuable figurines, but because he thinks they'll give him eternal youth. Bob aptly calls him insane.
- Impairment Shot: After drinking some of an equesticle cocktail, "Horse Medicine", Bob gets drunk and doesn't know what going on around him and he nearly blows his cover.
- Innocuously Important Episode: This would be just another standard episode of Bob's Burgers... if not for the fact that the Embarrassing Tattoo Bob gets remains on his back for the rest of the series.
- I Reject Your Reality: Bronconius is a self-deluding moron who thinks he can keep himself young with Equestranauts merchandise.
- I Told You So: When Tina gets scammed out of her doll, Gene claims he told the family not to leave the food court.
- Literal-Minded: Bob tells Tina to clear some space on her bookshelf because he's bringing her doll back tonight. Tina takes it literally and Bob has to explain it's a saying, but Tina still doesn't get it.
- Mask of Sanity: Bronconius is clearly a piece of work from the start, but it's not until later in the episode that he's revealed to be completely insane.
- Meaningful Echo: "A bond of friendship greater than any force in the universe." is a quote that Bob learns when studying "The Equestranauts" and Tina uses this on the other equesticles to remind them of the meaning of the show.
- Mundane Solution: The safe containing Tina's toy is locked with a code that "only the most diehard fan" of The Equestranauts would know, and Bronconius claims Bob would never figure it out. Bob immediately calls the hotel staff to open the safe for him.
- My Little Phony: The Equestranauts is this to the cartoons.
- Negative Continuity: Unfortunately for poor, poor Bob, this is averted hard. The mustache tattoo he gets here can be seen on his back for the rest of the series.
- Nice Guy: Bronconius's followers are pushovers, but they're actually decent people who turn on Bronconius after seeing the ramifications of his actions and how they've twisted the moral of The Equestranauts in his name.
- Odd Friendship: Bob genuinely befriends all of Bronconius's followers, particularly Sunpuddle, whom he asks to call him.
- Oh, Crap!: When Tina looks though her Equestranauts comics and novels she lent Bob to understand the show, she's found a notebook where she wrote her fanfic, realizing Bob's cover will be blown."How did this get here? It's non-canonical!"
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Bronconius and his followers never have their real names revealed. Of course, knowing Bronconius it's entirely possible he's crazy enough to have changed his legal name to his cosplay name.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Bob gets really pissed off when he learns Tina tried to put her Chariot toy away after all he went through getting it back, to the point Linda honestly sounds scared when she implores Tina to play with the thing like Bob wants.
- Papa Wolf: Bob, who previously didn't give a single damn about the convention, immediately steps up when he learns Tina got scammed.
- Periphery Demographic: In-universe. The Equestranauts has a considerable adult male fanbase. Teddy is also confirmed to have seen the show, although he doesn't consider himself an Equesticle and doesn't seem too invested in the show anyway.
- Photographic Memory: Bob doesn't usually have this, but he manages to not only learn nearly everything there is to know about The Equestranauts, he also manages to retain enough of it to recall it at a moment's notice, fooling even the most die-hard fans until he accidentally talks about something non-canonical. In short, Bob learned so much that he was only done in by learning too much.
- Punny Name: One of the Equesticles in Bronconius' clique is named "Pony Danza".
- The Reveal: Bronconius isn't after Chariot because she's valuable, but because he's insane and thinks she'll give him eternal youth.
- Shaming the Mob: Tina shames the equesticles for betraying the meaning of "The Equestranaut" and listening to Bronconius, who taints the meaning of the show. Thanks to Tina, the others finally stand up against Bronconius and save Bob from getting an embarrassing tattoo.
- Spotting the Thread: Bronconius sees through Bob's claim to be a hardcore Equestranauts fan after he starts referring to Tina's non-canonical zombie horse OC.
- Take That!: At gatekeepers (arrogant and exclusionary members of fandoms) and how they ruin an otherwise fun and friendly culture by taking it way too seriously.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In-universe; Teddy mentions having watched Equestranauts, although he thinks the reboot isn't as good as the original series.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Discussed; while doing his Equestranauts research, Bob is skeptical about Minnie, one of the horses whose only power is to shrink in size. Tina retorts that her power comes in handy on many occasions.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Bob's reaction when he has to take Tina to the convention. He ends up not going at all—until he has to steal back Chariot, to which he reacts accordingly.
- Token Good Teammate: Tina is the only Belcher who actually tries to stop Bob from being tattooed. Louise immediately cheers it on, while Linda and Gene try to decide what tattoo Bob should get.
- We Have the Keys: Tina tries to ram through the door to stop the equesticles from giving Bob an embarrassing tattoo, only to discover that the door was unlocked because they didn't want to get up every time someone else arrives.
- We Used to Be Friends: Bronconius laments this when learning Bob was after Chariot the entire time, even though Bob points out they never really were.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Bob thinks it's weird that one of the horses is named "Chariot" and she pulls a chariot before realizing he's analyzing a children show about magic, talking horses.
- You Killed My Father: Discussed; Gene claims to have a friend named Antonio who thinks Bob killed his father.
- Younger Than They Look: Bronconius believes he plays the trope straight, claiming he's a 49 year-old who looks 20. In reality it's averted; he's 49 and looks 49.
- You're Insane!: Bob reacts this way when learning that Bronconius uses his collection in an attempt to obtain eternal youth. He's arguably being generous.
