During yet another Xmas, Professor Farnsworth gets the idea of going through time to try to stop Robot Santa for good. The result leaves Zoidberg and Bender on their own, leading to them deciding to kidnap Robot Santa from last Xmas and ruin everyone's holidays. However, complications arise when they apparently kill Robot Santa.
Tropes in this episode:
- Accidental Hero: Bender and Zoidberg seemingly go back in time to last Xmas to kidnap Robot Santa and ruin everyone's Xmas. However, Zoidberg ends up setting it to next Xmas (as in, the one about to occur), meaning they drunkenly kidnap the future Santa, not the one from the past. Farnsworth actually turned him evil rather than turning him good, meaning that Bender and Zoidberg saved everyone from being killed by Robot Santa.
- Agony of the Feet: Professor Farnsworth's time machine first emerges from time right on top of Zoidberg's foot, causing it to visibly crack.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Bender and Zoidberg's antics are a result of Zoidberg's "dumpster nog", which is so potent they get wasted off the fumes alone before even drinking any.Zoidberg: Is kidnapping Santa a good idea, or does it just seem like a good idea because we're intoximated?Bender: It's a good [burps flame] idea!
- All for Nothing: Farnsworth's efforts to go back in time and make Santa good fails because it turns out that Santa was already operating normally and that Farnsworth's meddling in the past was what made him evil.
- Asshole Victim: Bender and Zoidberg kidnap Robot Santa, lock him in an old meat locker, get him electrocuted to unconsciousness, and end up dismantling his body after several failed attempts to get rid of it. It turns out they gave him what he deserves since he's still a Bad Santa due to Farnsworth's meddling in the past.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: According to Farnsworth's travels using the time machine, the Planet Express Building is due to be damaged by a giant Bender punching through it in the future.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- For most of the episode, it seems Bender's being threatened for the fact he accidentally killed Robot Santa. In reality, Robot Santa himself was blackmailing Bender for befriending Zoidberg.
- Whenever Zoidberg tries to confess to the "murder" of Robot Santa, Bender grabs his mouthparts to keep him quiet. When everyone witnesses the two kidnapping Santa and Zoidberg is about to come clean, Bender clamps him shut again so that he makes the confession instead.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: A yeti serves as an ally of Professor Farnsworth during the snowball fight with Fry and Cubert.
- Blackmail: Robot Santa had been sending Bender the threatening notes about the upcoming Xmas, that he knows Bender making friends with Zoidberg, so he's blackmailing him even when dismantled to a head. Bender offers Amy's phone, which Santa accepts and eats.
- Call-Back:
- Professor Farnsworth's time machine from "The Late Philip J. Fry" makes a reappearance, and he's now tinkered with it to now have a reverse gear, now being able to travel backwards in time. Farnsworth going back in time into the previous universe also references how he, Fry, and Bender travelled through time into the universes coming after their own.
- Farnsworth states his intention to go back alone to prevent anyone else from becoming their own grandfather whilst glaring angrily at Fry, referencing how Fry did just that in "Roswell That Ends Well".Fry: These things happen.
Leela: No, they don't. - Some of the events that pass by while Farnsworth travels back in time reference previous episodes, including Fry hosting his dumb school and Fry's head on top of Amy's body.
- While Bender is lamenting that he has no family, Zoidberg bitterly points out that if he had a family he would be dead, since his species dies after procreating, which we learned in "Why Must I Be a Crustacean In Love?"
- When Leela asks Fry if he remembered her parents, he refers to her grandmother as "the Rose of the sewers". This is a reference to "The Mutants Are Revolting" as her story of a mutated Mr. Astor and his life-saving actions fascinated Mrs. Astor due to her husband's humanity, which led to the Sewer Mutants granting free access to the surface; Grandma is the sewer mutant counterpart for Rose Dawson from Titanic.
- Robot Santa still has a weakness to electricity, which is established in his debut episode.
- Cartoon Meat: The meat locker has a label that features a drawing of a manga meat.
- Christmas Episode: The 4th in total for the series, this episode revolves around Farnsworth's attempts to make Robot Santa good and Bender and Zoidberg fearing that they killed Robot Santa.
- Close-Call Haircut: Cubert gets one of these off screen when he’s tied up on the table with the Xmas dinners.
- Continuity Nod: Several of the stockings above the fireplace are labelled for "Nibbler's Worms", from two episodes prior.
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Kif covers the eyes of his children when the special they were watching on how Robot Santa was born goes to the point of him shooting down the children waiting for Xmas presents, with Amy covering Kif's eyes as well.
- Crossover Cameo: Bean, Luci and Elfo can be seen during the Professor's trip through time.
- Death Seeker: The sewers of New New York have naturally occurring Turducken, who are incredibly easy to catch for cooking because they "crave death", flying right into an open pot.
- Disposing of a Body: Bender and Zoidberg try to dispose of Robot Santa's body when they think they've killed him. Their attempts, including acid bath, dumping him in the water, and dumping him in the toilet, don't really work.
- Eating Machine: Despite being a robot, Robot Santa has a big appetite for cookies. And other vaguely cookie-shaped objects, like the plate and table the cookies are on, or his own naughty/nice dial, or Amy's phone. He is based off of Santa Claus.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Farnsworth is baffled that Robot Santa is still evil since he himself went back in time and reversed Santa's Naughty-Nice sensor. It soon dawns on him that the Naughty-Nice sensor was already set correctly before he reversed it.
- Failed a Spot Check: After Bender and Zoidberg dismantle Robot Santa's body, nobody else notices the head being used as a punch bowl (even when the Professor finds the Naughty-Nice sensor on it) and the torso as a cooler. Cubert does question why Bender has a third leg (one of Robot Santa's), but Bender promptly keeps him quiet.
- Foreshadowing: The fact that the Robot Santa that Bender and Zoidberg kidnapped is still evil indicates that Farnsworth's plan did not work, as he wouldn't be evil in the past either. Also, when they kidnap Robot Santa, the stockings for Nibbler's worms are in the background, which would be a pretty good indication they went to the upcoming Xmas instead of the previous one. One would expect flipping the morality of Robot Santa would cause major changes, yet the Butterfly of Doom trope is suspiciously averted.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- Like in "The Late Philip J. Fry", many of the events from the previous series' get shown again (as well as a cameo from Disenchantment), just with all the events being played backwards instead of forwards.
- When Bender and Zoidberg hijack the time machine, Zoidberg's moved the control stick to the future side.
- The Friends Who Never Hang: Downplayed, as Zoidberg and Bender have interacted with each other throughout the series run, but this is the first episode that focuses exclusively on their dynamic.
- Gargle Blaster: Zoidberg's "dumpster nog" is powerful enough to get Bender, a robot powered by alcohol, drunk.Bender: What's in it?
Zoidberg: What isn't in it? - Hollywood Acid: Zoidberg gets the idea to use the Professor's acid to dispose of Santa's body. When he goes upstairs to get the acid, he stupidly tries transporting it in a plastic trash bag, which it eats through and creates a hole in the floor, as well as the next floor below.
- I Didn't Mean to Kill Him: This is Zoidberg and Bender's reaction when they seemingly murder Robot Santa.
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Zoidberg gets one of these in after Bender blames him for everything.Zoidberg: Damn it, Bender, I’m a doctor, not a… time machine guy!
- Laser-Guided Karma: Robot Santa suffers what may be his most humiliating defeat yet. He gets kidnapped by a time-travelling Bender and Zoidberg who tie him up with Xmas tree lights, and they lock him up in an old meat locker upon returning to the present. Then when he breaks out and attempts to kill the two, he slips on a puddle of Zoidberg's "dumpster nog" and gets electrocuted by Xmas tree lights, short-circuiting him out. Finally he gets dismantled by Bender and Zoidberg as they try to dispose of his body, leaving him nothing but a head as he reactivates. Subverted at the end, however, when it's revealed that the whole thing was a massive ploy to blackmail Bender, though it still came with the cost of Santa being dismantled.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Turns out that by setting the Naughty-Nice sensor incorrectly, Farnsworth was the one to have turned Robot Santa evil in the first place.Farnsworth: Oh, I've made a complete Fry of myself!
- No Ending: The episode ends with Robot Santa reduced to a head and succeeding in blackmailing Bender, without any indication of what's going to happen to him afterwards.
- Noodle Incident: Mandy apparently had a pet hamster that died because she forgot to feed it, which got her on Robot Santa's Naughty List.
- Not Quite Dead: Santa turns out to still be alive at the end, albeit reduced to just a head.
- Obfuscated Interface: The naughty and nice switch on the back of Robot Santa's head just has the letter N for both settings, so Farnsworth had no way of knowing that it was already on the nice setting.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Bender was able to successfully dismantle Robot Santa, even getting rid of the nitroglycerin in his belly.
- Parody Names: Of I Know What You Did Last Summer.
- Pass the Popcorn: Farnsworth eats a ham sandwich as he goes back in time to 2801. Then he grabs a can of malt liquor when he has to travel back to the previous universe by mistake.
- Person as Verb: When Farnsworth realises that he is responsible for Santa becoming evil in the first place, he says that he's "made a complete Fry" of himself.
- Pet the Dog:
- Amy's parents, last seen rejecting their adoptive grandchildren upon sight, are seen making an effort to bond with them as they visit for Christmas.
- The whole Planet Express crew and their families congregate back at the office when they realise that Zoidberg and Bender were otherwise alone for the holiday.
- Purely Aesthetic Era: The 2800s has the same aesthetic of 19th century, but with futuristic technology.
- Retroactive Idiot Ball: In "The Late Philip J. Fry", Farnsworth has no idea how to make his time machine go backward in time—only forward—which is a big enough issue that it causes the entire plot. In this episode, he finally adds a manual transmission and a reverse gear (something that was on the first automobile), because that's apparently all it took.
- Series Continuity Error:
- "The Late Philip J. Fry" revealed the universe is cyclical and restarts after the Big Bang. This episode follows that idea; however, the former episode stated that the new universe is an identical but otherwise different universe than the last, while here it's treated as the same universe repeating, meaning that Farnsworth was able to get to the present by going back through the previous universe's future. This means Farnsworth is now in Universe 2, the world where he killed Hitler, and the Farnsworth who "returns" to Universe 3 is now the Farnsworth from Universe 2 who went back from Universe 4.
- In Santa's first appearance, it was stated that the reason that Santa goes on his killing spree is because his standards were accidentally set too high and thus he judges everyone to be naughty. Here, the given explanation is that his Naughty-Nice sensor was accidentally switched to the opposite setting — this might be possible to reconcile with his first appearance, if not for the fact that he gave Zoidberg a pogo stick in that episode, something which would only make sense if Zoidberg was the naughtiest person ever to have existed (which, even considering the number of malpractice incidents that he gets up to, seems like a stretch).
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Professor Farnsworth travels back in time to Xmas 2801 to prevent Robot Santa from ever beginning his reign of terror in the first place. Unfortunately, it turns out the Naughty-Nice sensor was set correctly in the first place, meaning that Farnsworth was the one who made Robot Santa evil.
- Ship Sinking: It's implied Zoidberg and Marianne from "Stench and Stenchability" are no longer a couple, as Zoidberg bemoans being Alone Among the Couples while in his dumpster and never once mentions her. It could be possible that Marianne was too busy for Zoidberg, but this is unclear.
- Shout-Out:
- The gingerbread man-shaped remote control lets out Pillsbury Doughboy's laugh when Leela presses a button on its chest.
- When Robot Santa eats cookies or looks for them, he repeatedly yells "Cookie!" the same way Cookie Monster does.
- When Farnsworth is going back in time into the previous universe, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene (at around 6:27) features Bean, Elfo and Luci lounging in the crystal ball room, characters from Groening's other currently-running show; Disenchantment. This itself is a Call-Back to a similar cameo in the penultimate episode of season one where Fry, Bender and the Professor in the time machine show up as a Freeze-Frame Bonus when Luci rewinds time for King Zøg with a crystal ball.
- When the Planet Express building was a meat-processing plant, there's a deli display case with Alien shanks, a loin of Predator, and blue Navi'wurst sausages.
- Zoidberg refers to their current Xmas as "the nightmare before Xmas".
- Zoidberg also yells "Bah, humbug!" to the Planet Express crew and their families as he slams the door on them (in order to cover up the "murder" of Robot Santa).
- Bender and Zoidberg get the idea to try getting rid of a corpse using acid and a bathtub, as Jesse Pinkman did in an early episode of Breaking Bad. And much like Jesse's efforts, the end result is them managing to melt a hole in the floor with Hollywood Acid (albeit because Zoidberg tried to transport the acid in a garbage bag, as opposed to dissolving the bathtub itself, as happened in Breaking Bad).
- Shown Their Work: The Sewer Turducken seems to be capable of flight. Wild turkeys actually can fly, unlike their domesticated cousins which people are more familiar with (hence the common misconception that all turkeys are flightless).
- Stable Time Loop: Two in this episode:
- Farnsworth goes back in time to correct the error that made Robot Santa the evil, murderous robot he is today. However, he ended up causing Robot Santa to be evil, as he was the one that messed with his Nice/Naughty settings.
- Bender and Zoidberg go to last Xmas to kidnap Robot Santa and end up seemingly killing him. The present Robot Santa is still alive, to their surprise, and end up being kidnapped by Bender and Zoidberg, showing that they went forward instead of backwards in time.
- Start of Darkness: The episode shows Robot Santa's, as Professor Farnsworth unwittingly dials his normally functioning Naughty-Nice Sensor the wrong direction in the past.
- Stealth Pun: Zoidberg is a doctor, not a time machine guy. Not like a time-traveling doctor.
- Time Travelling Jerkass: Bender and Zoidberg initially use the time machine to kidnap Robot Santa and ruin everyone's Xmas.
- Token Heroic Orc: Farnsworth is allied with a yeti during the snowball fight with Fry and Cubert, despite yetis being shown as vicious and dangerous creatures in previous appearances. It's possible that Earthling yetis are less aggressive than their Neptunian and Tritonian counterparts.
- The Twelve Spoofs of Christmas:
- Bender and Zoidberg sing a brief spoof whilst drunk on nog fumes, involving "four something something, three something else, two no one cares, and a partridge drowned in our nog!".
- Kwanzaabot later sings a whole song about the 12 Days of Xmas, including "12 Slurms a-slurping", "2 turtle-duckens" and "a voice-over credit for me".
- Under the Mistletoe: Hermes and LaBarbara kiss whilst doing the limbo under the mistletoe.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Everyone gives this to Farnsworth when he explains that he accidentally turned Robot Santa evil by turning his Naughty-Nice Sensor the wrong way.
- Whatever Happened to the Mouse? Bender and Zoidberg are both alone for the holidays, and there is no mention of Bender's son from "The Bots and the Bees", or Zoidberg's girlfriend from "Stench and Stenchability". Granted, in the case of the former, it may be justified as Bender's son has all of his memories of his father erased.
- Worth It: Robot Santa doesn't seem to care that he got reduced to just a head since he succeeded in blackmailing Bender.
- Would Hurt a Child: The Xmas TV special shows Robot Santa gunning down several children after his malfunction. Later, he attempts to blast the Planet Express crew and their families including their youthful members, with Mandy being deemed as "especially naughty".
- You Already Changed the Past: Farnsworth's attempt to repair the Robot Santa in the past to prevent him from becoming evil of course is what causes Robot Santa's malfunction in the first place.
- You Monster!: Zoidberg says this to Farnsworth upon finding out that the latter was responsible for making Robot Santa evil.
