"You've seen one post-apocalyptic city, you've seen 'em all."
In the future, a trio of robots explores a post-apocalyptic city.
Gary Anthony Williams voices XBOT 4000 while Josh Brener voices K-VRC. Based on the short story "Three Robots Experience Objects Left Behind from the Era of Humans for the First Time" by John Scalzi.
The episode got a sequel titled "Three Robots: Exit Strategies", also by Scalzi, in the third season.
Tropes:
- Absurdly Long Wait: Parodied with 11-45-G serving a dish to a skeleton at the diner with the line "sorry for the wait".
- Adaptation Title Change: The original story is titled "Three Robots Experience Objects Left Behind from the Era of Humans for the First Time".
- Bait-and-Switch
- The robot stepping on a skull as per The Terminator turns out to be three innocuous robot tourists exploring an After the End city.
- The three robots appear to be sitting on the couch starting at a television in imitation of the ancient human custom. Turns out they're staring at a cat.
- A pissed-off X-Bot 4000 advances on K-VRC...and just dumps the cat on the robot's head.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Implied by the X-Bot 3 game console. What appears to be a power button is actually an electronic eye, suggesting the console was (when operational) probably always powered on and always watching its owners.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: 11-45-G is the Big, X-Bot 4000 is the Thin, and K-VRC is the Short.
- Bland-Name Product: X-Bot 4000 is implied to be descended from a games console called the X-Bot (Xbox).
- Bolivian Army Ending: Played for laughs; the short ends with the three robots completely surrounded by cats that want scratches.
- Brain Bleach: X-Bot 4000 immediately regrets looking up teabagging.
- Breather Episode: If one has the viewing order that sandwiches this between the dark and violent "Sonnie's Edge" and the psychedelic mindbending "The Witness", this episode is more lighthearted and comedic.
- Cats Are Mean: Cats are implied to have wiped out humanity after being given thumbs and no longer needing them to open their food cans.X-BOT 4000: Why did humans even consort with these murder-machines?
- Cute Machines: K-VRC is a short, brightly-colored, round-limbed robot with a cheerful personality and a screen displaying a smiley face for a head. He also uses the least curse words out of his peers and the one time he did, it was just an expression on his screen-face that said "WTF". Justified — his model was used for babysitting, which he admits they were terrible at.
- Deadpan Snarker: Given that 11-45-G's VA is a text-to-speech program, this is to be expected.11-45-G: Stop being a whiny pussy and fucking bounce it. Please.
- Driven to Suicide: At the high school gym, there's a long-dead corpse of someone who hung themselves from the rafters.
- Eviler than Thou: While Humans Are Bastards, cats are apparently worse.
- Fantastic Aesop: Immediately after the Green Aesop, the short presents an alternative Spoof Aesop to be derived from humanity's extinction: Don't give cats thumbs.
- Flipping the Bird: XBOT when 11-45-G takes a photo of him.
- Freud Was Right: 11-45-G points out the rocket's phallic shape.
- Future Imperfect: Most of the humor comes from the misunderstandings toward humanity the robots have, as well as them being Right for the Wrong Reasons, from thinking cats are exploding superweapons (from the game Exploding Kittens), to figuring out exactly what the kind of people who play X-Bots are like.
- Green Aesop: When reflecting upon what exactly it was that drove humanity to extinction, the robots come to the conclusion it was environmental disaster. Indeed, 11-45-G appears to look at the audience while this is being said.11-45-G: Indeed, it was their own hubris that ended their reign, their belief that they were the pinnacle of creation that caused them to poison the water, kill the land and choke the sky. In the end, no nuclear winter was needed, just the long heedless autumn of their own self-regard.
- However it then concludes that it was just a case of Humans Are Morons.
- #HashtagForLaughs: Someone wrote on a wall "#wersofucked".
- Here We Go Again!: Cats wiped out humans once they could open their own tuna cans, but apparently they miss being petted, so take the three robots captive to provide this function.
- Hubris: According to 11-45-G, the cause of humanity's downfall was their belief in their superiority leading to the destruction of their environment.
- Humanity's Wake: A trio of robots explore a dead city after humanity's extinction, trying to make sense of human things.
- Humans Are Bastards: This exchange:XBOT: Why do these humans even consort with these hairy murder machines?K-VRC: Kindred spirits?11-45-G: Also checks out.
- The Internet Is for Cats: 11-45-G claims humans "had an entire network that was devoted to the dissemination of pictures of [cats]".
- Licked by the Dog: XBOT getting "occupied" by the cat.
- Mechanical Evolution: Implied; the sentient robots appeared to have evolved out of existing mechanical devices following Humanity's Wake. K-VRC, for example, is hinted to be descended from baby monitors.
- Parrot Pet Position: When the cat jumps on XBOT's shoulder.
- Plug 'n' Play Technology: XBOT picks a part of the Xbox and uses it as a replacement for his missing eye.
- Reclaimed by Nature: The city is starting to have hints of this, with moss and mold growing over the interior of a diner, and vegetation in general being overgrown.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: The titular three robots play around with the trope. While they often have trouble grasping certain human concepts like "eating" and "sports", their general behaviour is more akin to that of a group of friends bumbling around than complex machines. 11-45-G, the most inhuman looking and sounding of the three, spends much of her time goofing off and playing around with whatever she finds, contrasting her appearance.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: K-VRC refers to a basketball as an "entertainment sphere".11-45-G: It's called a ball.
K-VRC: I know it's called a ball, but I'm trying to get into the whole "we're experiencing these human things for the first time" vibe. - Shoulder Cannon: XBOT has one.
- Shout-Out: The opening shot of XBOT 4000 stepping on a skull is taken from the prologue of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
- Sorry, I Left the BGM On: 11-45-G delivering a Green Aesop.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: X-BOT 4000 and K-VRC are advanced, sentient robots despite the fact that were developed from a gaming console and a baby monitor, respectively.
- Synthetic Voice Actor: 11-45-G's voice is produced with a text-to-speech program, which is why her name isn't present the original credits. She's voiced by human actors in foreign dubs, which reveals her name in their versions of the credits.
- Unspecified Apocalypse: There are conflicting reports as to why humanity went extinct. 11-45-G's research suggests it was an environmental catastrophe. The cats claim they did it because humanity had ceased to be of any use to them once they were given thumbs.
- Uplifted Animal: Cats have been given thumbs and the ability to speak like humans.
