Recap / Bob's Burgers S9E4 "Nightmare On Ocean Avenue Street"

"He has to be here somewhere..."'

"I'm not explaining to the kids that their dad died in a chainsaw spider accident."

—Linda

On Halloween night, the Belcher kids and friends hunt down a thief nabbing candy from kids all around town. Teddy gets Bob and Linda mixed up in a decoration battle against another handyman.

Trope On Ocean Avenue Street:

• Afraid of Blood: Darryl claims he has "a thing about" blood right before the group goes in the Ballroom of Blood. He fares alright once they're inside, though.
• Ambiguously Bi: Bob and Teddy spend a fair bit of time talking about how good-looking Glen is and that he has a nice body.
• Big Damn Heroes: Tina and Gene tackle the candy thief just before he was about to get the other kids. Turns out they had been tackling random strangers before then.
• Big Red Devil: When he stole the Pesto twins' candy, Dr. Yap was dressed as one.
• Blatant Lies:
  • After his mechanical chainsaw spider ruins Glen's display, Teddy claims a kid throwing eggs caused all the destruction. He also claims his display got it worse.
  • Tina says that she flosses... in full presence of her dentist.
    Yap: No. No, you don't.
• Call-Back:
  • Andrew, the bus driver from "Eat, Spray, Linda", drives the bus the kids commandeer to chase the candy thief.
  • Dr. Yap wants fewer cavities to fill so he'll have more time to go skiing in the winter.
• The Cameo: Logan Bush can be seen outside the Mutilation Mansion.
• The Cavalry: It's looking like the candy thief might get away, until Gene and Tina come bursting into the haunted house and tackle him.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Dr. Yap is briefly mentioned at the start of the episode so that The Reveal of him being the candy thief isn't out of nowhere. This brief mention also sets up his motivation.
• Comically Missing the Point: Tina dresses up as a nun with a briefcase and claims she's going as "Nun of Your Business." Linda is too dense to understand the pun and thinks Tina is being testy, even after Bob outright tells her she's not getting it.
  Bob: What is it then?
  Linda: She’s a nun, she’s a cranky nun!
• Didn't Think This Through: Dr. Yap's "Cash for Candy" plan was doomed to fail. The Belcher kids explicitly state they would just spend that money on candy, and the amount of money they'd likely get (a dollar per pound) wouldn't justify the trade since buying the same amount would be far too expensive.
  Tina: Money is just candy that hasn't been born yet.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Gene's shock over having his Halloween candy stolen is treated like he's having a heart attack, complete with panicked suggestions from the other kids to place a piece of chocolate under his tongue.
• Dramatic Unmask: The thief is unmasked and revealed to be Dr. Yap, which shocks the Belcher kids and confuses their friends who don't know who he is.
• Dwindling Party: Played with. The candy thief steals each of the kids' candy bags one after another.
  Louise: They're picking us off one by one.
• Escalating War: Between Teddy and Glen for who can make the best Halloween decorations. Teddy puts up a giant spider and cobwebs that is larger than the bat Glen installed, but the bat turns out to be a mechanical prop that flies in front of the store, so Teddy adds a motor to the spider to make it wiggle. Then it turns out Glen also had a ghost projected onto a mist screen, so Teddy tapes real chainsaws and nail guns onto the spider's legs. The spider goes haywire and destroys all of Glen's decorations.
• Faint in Shock: Gene swoons when his Halloween candy gets stolen.
  Gene: I think I'm dying!
• Fair-Play Whodunnit: The kids of Ocean Avenue work together to figure out who's going around stealing everyone's candy.
• Follow That Car: As the kids board a bus to try to catch the thief in the gorilla costume, the bus driver is all too willing to follow him. He eventually comes to his senses about it.
  Louise: Bus driver, follow that gorilla.
  Bus Driver: You got it! Hold on tight, kids!
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Some of the punny shop names on Ocean Avenue include "Shoe-y Lewis and the Shoes", "Mailed It", and "For Pete's Cake".
  • The Mutilation Mansion has a sign reading "Dis-members Only".
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Louise slaps Tina after she asks what's the point of trick-or-treating anymore after she got her candy stolen.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Teddy is envious of Glen, who is getting more handyman jobs than him, and convinces Bob to decorate the restaurant to one-up Glen, who is doing the Store Next Door. In the end, it turns out Glen was jealous of Teddy, considering him a better handyman.
• Halloween Episode: It's shaping up to be the Belcher kids' best year for trick-or-treating yet, until a mysterious costumed thief starts stealing all the Halloween candy.
• Halloween Trickery:
  • Believing they're too old for the treats, Jimmy and Zeke decide to take part in the "trick" part of Halloween - this seems to only consist of them throwing Pop-Its at people and going to a haunted house.
  • At first, the kids think it's teenagers stealing their candy as a form of Halloween mischief.
• Incredibly Lame Fun: Bob's idea of fun Halloween candy is Dr. Peters' Bitter Drops, which he tries to sell the kids on saying they aren't too sweet and were a favorite of his grandfather's. Linda apologizes to children when she has to give them out, and offers to straight up give them sugar or fries to make up for it.
  Linda: My husband's not allowed to buy the candy anymore.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Tina points out that the candy thief is really good on his electric skateboard…and then he immediately wipes out.
  Rudy: Ugh. That was tough to watch.
• Lazy Bum: Dr. Yap would rather lose potential clients and pay money out of his own pocket so he could ski during the winter.
• Master of Disguise: Dr. Yap uses multiple costumes during his thefts to make it seem like there are multiple thieves. In order: a Big Red Devil (to steal the Pesto twins' candy), an astronaut (to steal Rudy's candy), Jason Voorhees (to steal Darryl's candy), and a gorilla (to steal the Belcher kids' candy).
• The Men in Black: The Cranwinkles dress as them for Halloween.
• Near-Villain Victory: Even after being caught, Yap nearly gets away with his theft; the kids make it to the incinerator just as the candy is about to be tossed in.
• Never My Fault: Teddy blames Bob for the spider with chainsaws idea, and then takes it a step further by calling Bob an idiot who doesn't know any better. Bob is understandably insulted.
• Noodle Incident: The worker who’s supposed to incinerate the stolen candy didn’t know it was Halloween because he was in a coma for six months.
• Opening Shout-Out: Not only is the Store Next Door ("Those Who Can, Dle Candles") still there in the episode, it actually plays a role in the B-plot (where it's being decorated by a rival handyman) and is even name-dropped.
• Pet the Dog: In the opening scene, Jimmy Pesto makes fun of Trev’s mummy decoration. Trev sadly replies that he spent all weekend making it, and Jimmy tells him to leave it up, rather lamely telling Trev it’s actually scary. Trev seems to appreciate it.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Darryl is not familiar with the Friday the 13th movies and describes Jason Voorhees as just a hockey goalie with a knife. When discussing the string of thefts, Rudy also refers to Jason as a goalie (though he at least uses Jason's name), suggesting he hasn't seen them either (which, given it's Rudy, makes a lot of sense).
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode title references A Nightmare on Elm Street.
• Pun:
  • The kids' costumes: Andre 3000 the Giant, the dragon with the girl tattoo, and Nun of Your Business.
    • When Linda comments on Louise flipping the script, Louise reacts with confusion, implying that Louise's pun was accidental.
  • The Store Next Door is "Those Who Can, Dle Candles". It's even lamer when Glen says it out loud.
• The Reveal: The candy thief turns out to be Dr. Yap, who was tired of kids ignoring his request for exchanging Halloween candy for money so he wouldn't have to do more work fixing their new cavities resulting from all the candy. He was changing costumes so it would look like it was different people stealing candy.
• Saying Too Much: Even after getting caught, Dr. Yap probably would've gotten away with stealing the kids' candy if he hadn't said their Halloween had been incinerated, indicating where he sent the candy.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Exterminator Van is "The Bug-a-Dook Pest Control".
  • The Burger of the Day is the "My Bloody Kale-entine Burger".
  • Rudy's costume is Paul Rudd (specifically from his role in I Love You, Man), while Darryl's is Pee-Wee Herman.
  • In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, one can see the Cranwinkles dressed as The Blues Brothers.
  • When he stole Darryl's candy, Dr. Yap was dressed as Jason Voorhees.
  • Gene's line "There's a gorilla in our midst!" is a pun on Gorillas in the Mist.
  • Bob puts on jeans and a red bandana to go as Bruce Springsteen. Linda doesn't get it; Teddy thinks he's Rambo.
• Stalker Shot: Someone is shown to be watching the kids and we see from his P.O.V. Cam as he looks at them through his mask and breathes heavily.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Gene suggests that he and his siblings should drop their current candy stash off at home before continuing so that they at least have some candy saved. Louise rejects this because it'd waste valuable time. Not that it would have helped anyways, because Gene gets robbed seconds later.
• The Stinger: Tina and Louise (with Gene as the DJ) do a Song Parody of Salt-N-Pepa's "None of Your Business" as the credits play.
• Stock "Yuck!": Bob purchased a bag of "Bitter Drops" to give out on Halloween. He thinks the fact that his grandfather loved them and they aren't too sweet are selling points.
• Team Power Walk: Tina, Gene, Louise, Andy, Ollie, Rudy, and Darryl do this after saving the candy and returning it back to the kids it was stolen from.
• Tempting Fate: Louise makes a comment about her and Tina still having candy. Seconds later, Tina's bag is stolen.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Tina shares her candy with Jimmy Jr. and Zeke (who wound up empty-handed) despite them making fun of her for trick-or-treating earlier in the episode.
• Too Old to Trick-or-Treat: Tina admits that she's a little old for trick-or-treating, but she goes anyway. Her peers Jimmy Jr. and Zeke want to go to a haunted house instead, but they find it too scary.
  Zeke: I guess we're stuck between tricks and treats. We're Hallo-tweeners.
• Waxing Lyrical: Bob tries, anyway, though his audience doesn't understand it.
  Bob: [Glen]'s bad news, Lin, and he's going down. He thought it was Glory Days, but it's about to be Thunder Road.
  Teddy: I don't get it. Is that a line from Rambo?