http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/SamAndMaxFreelancePoliceEpisode201IceStationSanta
When Sam and Max investigate why Santa sent a killer robot after them, they find the jolly old elf holed up in his office, taking pot-shots at anyone who gets too close. The Freelance Police must get to the bottom of Santa's strange behavior and save Christmas from Shambling Corporate Prescence by recruiting the Christmas spirits and righting wrongs to make penance for their antics.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Distillation: The episode was made into a twenty-minute machinima short titled "Sam and Max Nearly Save Christmas" by cutting out most of the subplots and stopping the action just short of Santa getting possessed by the demon Jell-O, which gives the adventure more of a standalone feel.
- Bad Santa: Played with to an astonishing degree. When Sam discovers that the Maimtron 9000 sent to kill them came from Santa's workshop, he assumes that Santa has it out for them. When they arrive at the North Pole, Sam notices signs that Santa has potentially been possessed by a demon. However, it turns out that the demon was actually possessing one of the elves and Santa was trying to summon the demon so he could destroy it. Once the demon is turned into Jell-O, Santa thanks the duo for their help. However, he then notices the pile of Jell-O and eats it, causing him to actually get possessed.
- Bait-and-Switch: Sam and Max assume that Santa's been demonically possessed. Turns out he's not and he was trying to stop one of the elves who was.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: One of the elves remarks that he has no idea why Santa went crazy because he "just came off the assembly line yesterday." Sam initially interprets this to mean that elves are made in factories. The elf then clarifies that he was working in a factory.
Sam: Oh, that makes a lot more sense. What did the factory make?
Elf:
Elves. - Call-Forward: The trial given to Sam and Max by the Ghost of Christmas yet to come is to save their future selves from a fiery pit. This event would later be revisited from the perspective of the future Sam and Max in What's New, Beelzebub?, at the end of the season.
- Christmas Episode: Has all the trappings of one, with Sam and Max going to save Santa, meeting the Spirits of Past, Present, and Future and even helping deliver presents. Then it turns out at the very end it's only November.
- Continuity Nod: The demon turns out to be the Shambling Corporate Presence, a nod to the appearance of a similar creature in Sam and Max Save the World: Reality 2.0.
- Driven to Suicide: Jimmy Two-Teeth is about to off himself after losing a boxing match to the Freelance Police. You need the help of his long-lost estranged wife Mary Two-Teeth to solve the puzzle.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Sam and Max are surprised to learn their sleazy, criminal, rodent room-mate Jimmy Two-Teeth has a family, his wife Mary and his son "Tiny" Timmy.
- Everybody Has Standards: While the Spirit of Christmas Present sees the Bug’s family as awful and his job for Sam and Max is to get rid of them, he makes it clear he doesn’t want them to kill or hurt them to do it.
- Foreshadowing: That scene with Sam and Max in a fiery landscape and then are saved when Santa's sleigh appears? Just wait four episodes.
- Hardboiled Detective: Flint Paper, true to his characterization in the comics.
- Hero of Another Story: Flint Paper apparently had his own adventure similar to what Sam and Max went through in Season 1.
- Hollywood Tourette's: Jimmy Two-Teeth's son Timmy has "terminal Tourette's Syndrome", and his dialogue consists largely of Cluster Bleep Bombs.
- Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Sam and Max have to find action figures based on War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death for a magic ritual.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: If you talk to the bug in Stinky's Diner a second time, he will casually mention that it's his birthday. This causes a Mariachi with a trumpet to appear out of nowhere ("Did somebody say BIRTHDAY?") and start playing a celebratory song.
- Innocent Innuendo: Bosco's package (which he believes is a bomb sent to him by his mother).
Bosco: Hey guys, does my package sound like
it's ticking to you?Max: Not your best pick-up line, Bosco.
Bosco: I think my package is
the bomb!Max: Now THAT's a pick-up line!
- Logic Bomb:
- Sam and Max can try to distract Maimtron with a version of the omnipotence paradox. It brushes off the question, and counters with "Is there a joke with a setup so obvious even you wouldn't make the punchline?", Max gets confused and says "Does not compute."
- Sam ultimately defeats the Maimtron by reciting questions from song lyrics that don't have a clear answer (i.e. "Why do fools fall in love?"), which distracts the robot long enough for Sam to sneak behind it and yank out its wind-up key.
- Later, Sam and Max try to make an elf cry (so they can use his tears as a plant-growing potion) by telling him Santa isn't real. This leads into a discussion as to whether elves are real, and the elf has a brief existential crisis and bursts into tears.
- Monster of the Week: The "Shambling Corporate Presence" that has possessed one of Santa's elves, and later Santa himself.
- Saving Christmas: Spoofed at the end; turns out that it's only November, so they didn't really need to rush saving Santa.
- Slow "NO!": Sam and Max say this in slow motion when Santa sees and eats the demon that’s been turned to jello.
Sam: Santa, Nooo!
Max: Don’t eat the jello!
- Stable Time Loop: In order to save Christmas for Past Jimmy Two-Teeth, Sam and Max need to get him back his lucky boxing glove. Which you get by convincing Present Jimmy not to commit suicide.
Try not to think about it too hard. - The Three Trials: First Sam and Max have to assemble the Horsemen of the Apocalypse action figures and learn four facts about the demon in order to exorcise it. Then in order to subdue the Shambling Corporate Presence, they need to earn the help of the Christmas Spirits of Past, Present, and Yet-To-Come.
- Trauma Button: Bosco, who believes he is being spied on by T-H-E-M, will scream every time someone (usually Sam) mentions the word "them."
- Waxing Lyrical: Maimtron 9000 has a habit of speaking in lyrics from old pop songs. The only way to keep him from rampaging is to ask him things like "Why do fools fall in love?" to distract him so you can turn him off.
Sam: You were trying to destroy us!
Max: And worse, you butchered every song I wish I'd forgotten!
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: Downplayed. In order to defeat the demon, Sam and Max must recruit the three spirits of Christmas: Past, Present, and Future by righting the wrongs of their past, present and future. Aside from that (and the fact that Future is mute), the plot of "A Christmas Carol" doesn't factor too heavily into the situation.
