Robbie heads home from a disastrous first meeting at the YMCA (Young Male Carnivores Association) where he threw up meat. A friend of Robbie's tells him that maybe he's a herbivore, which Robbie initially doubts since the rest of his family are carnivores, but his friend says that it's not hereditary and admits to sometimes enjoying vegetables. At home, Earl is unhappy about Robbie's experience, and when Robbie asks if they could eat vegetables, Earl sends him to his room. Robbie sneaks out to go to an herbivore bar, where Earl finds him and drags him home. Earl takes Robbie to the swamp to hunt mammals, but Robbie gets eaten by a large swamp monster. When Earl tells Fran, she suggests they come back to the swamp (since it'll take a monster of that size a week to digest Robbie). Earl gets swallowed by the same swamp monster and he continues arguing with Robbie, until Earl admits that he's had similar arguments with his father. Earl becomes convinced that Robbie is right. The swamp monster then tells them to keep down the mushy stuff, as that makes him sick, which gives Earl and Robbie the idea to act mushy so they would be spit out.
Includes examples of
- An Aesop: It's okay for fathers and sons to disagree. While the younger generation's ideas may seem strange to their parents, this is how the world keeps evolving and they should trust their children - and never abandon them.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: A small mammal is offended that Robbie doesn't want to eat him.
- Bookends: The episode begins and ends with Baby mistaking his tail for a creature to eat.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Being an herbivore is played as a metaphor not just for vegetarian, but also of being gay, a communist, taking drugs, or being part of a new religion or counter-culture group. It serves as a stand-in for anything an older generation might consider radical or "unnatural", but the younger generation views differently as progress marches on.
- Fran says that while the swamp monster eating Robbie is part of the food chain's laws of nature, another law of nature is protecting their young no matter what. Keeping the metaphor of herbivores being gay in mind, it reads like an allusion to not abandoning or rejecting your child for what you believe is "unnatural" behavior.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: When Earl finds Robbie at the herbivore hang-out, he refers to him by his full name.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The swamp monster that ate Earl and Robbie (And a few other animals) complaining about how the father and son making up is making him sick inspires his victims to really turn up the schmaltz.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Earl denies that he ever argued and disagreed with his father... before admitting that he did it all the time, and at first thinks it's different from how he disagrees with Robbie because, in his mind, Earl's father was always wrong, stating that what his father wanted was good enough for him but Earl wanted better. Robbie says that that's the case with him.
- Offing the Offspring: The small mammal tells Earl that his son also wanted to be a Vegetarian. In response he ate his son.
- Prop Recycling: The swamp monster's puppet is repurposed from "Monster Maker", an episode of The Jim Henson Hour.
- Real Men Eat Meat: At least, Earl certainly seems to think so.
- Shout-Out: Robbie gives an "I've got a dream..." speech similar to Dr. Martin Luther King's famous speech, only it's about not being judged by what's in one's lunchbox.
- A hippie folk singer asks "has anybody here seen my old friend Bambi's mom?
- Swallowed Whole: Earl, Robbie, and a couple of mammals have a scene inside of the giant swamp creature.
