"Did you know if you eat a human brain, you'll get a disease similar to mad cow?"
Halloween has come to town, and Skid and Pump burst out of their houses to snag as much candy as possible before the spookiest month of the year is over. Unfortunately for them and the rest of the town, Bob Velseb is still on the loose after escaping from prison at the beginning of the year, and he's hunting for more than just candy...
"Tender Treats" contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: The way Roy yells "What a party pooper!" when Ross lectures him gives in mind to Funtime Freddy, another character voiced by Kellen Goff where he yells the exact same thing when you survive a night against him.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Played for Laughs. When the police go overkill on Bob by running him over, then riddling him with bullets, and then running over the guy two more times, a bunch of spectating kids in costumes clap and praise the police each time they presume Bob is dead. Except the one guy in a similar devil costume to Bob's, who decides to run away.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: When John reminds the mayor that the cultists burned his house down, the mayor retorts that John's house was a fire hazard, seemingly referring to his smoking habit. He then complains that John always leaves the coffee maker on after using it.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Prior to this episode, the most amount of blood and gore that had been seen was Kevin's stab wound on his leg after he had been attacked by the Happy Fella doll in "Deadly Smiles". Here, a large pool of blood is seen leaking from Streber's (mostly unseen) mutilated body after Bob attacked him. We also get to see Bob's Rasputinian Death up close, and he is bleeding heavily after John and Jack fill him up with lead.
- The Cameo: The cops that Mayor Evermore assigned to replace John and Jack if they fail to capture Bob are The Captain and Shotgun Man, other Sr. Pelo's reccuring characters across multiple shorts, especially in Mokey's Show.
- The Can Kicked Him: Bob kills a certain afro-haired man in a public restroom because he was using the only stall with toilet paper.Pelo: Woah, woah! At least knock, man! [stabbing noises as Pelo screams in pain]
- Captain Obvious: When Kevin asks why Bob has been following him and Pump, Skid responds with "I don't know. he's been following us."
- Cerebus Retcon: In "It's spooky month", Lila seems to forget the danger she's in when she offers some candy to a knife-wielding killer in a devil costume. Come "Tender Treats", it's shown to have been a desperate, spur-of-the-moment distraction she made so she could call the cops on him... and it doesn't work when the same killer breaks into her home again. She's also shown to be genuinely traumatized by the encounter, to the point she instantly rips up an old family photo once Skid points out an out-of-costume Bob in the background of it.
- Crystal-Ball Scheduling: Right before Lila calls Jaune about Bob being outside her house, Jaune channel surfs to a horror movie where a serial killer has invaded a woman's home.
- Dissonant Serenity: During Lila's flashback to the events of the first episode, after successfully distracting Bob with the Spooky Dance, Lila retains the same jolly tone and expression as she calls the police on the man who just tried to kill her, before engaging in the Spooky Dance once Bob is hauled off.
- Everyone Went to School Together: At the end of "Tender Treats", Lila shows Skid a picture of her and Jaune when they were his age. While Lila rips the picture up before it's shown in full to the audience, the complete picture
reveals that she and Jaune knew Pump's dad, John, and Frank when they were all children. - Gory Discretion Shot: All we see of whatever Bob did to Streber is a large pool of blood covering the porch, a close-up of his terrified eye flitting around, and a bone Bob drops to the ground after gnawing on it.
- Grin of Rage:
- When Ignacio opens his door and finds Skid and Pump obliviously asking for candy, he kneels down and begins speaking to them with a large, clearly strained smile, before dropping all pretense and angrily telling them he isn't going to give them candy because they broke a hole through his door.
- After Carmen rudely rebuffs him, Kevin clasps his hands together and puts on a fake smile so wide it exposes his gums, barely hiding his agitation as Carmen obliviously continues to order him around.
- Halloween Episode: While the whole series is technically Halloween-themed, all the previous episodes were either set on other days of the Spooky Month (October) but not quite on Halloween, or other different months of the year. This episode takes place entirely on the night of Halloween itself, and focuses on the holiday's festivities like trick-or-treating.
- Halloween Trickery: When Skid and Lila are returned home by the cops, Lila's jack-o-lanterns are smashed, her bushes are covered in toilet paper, and her house is egged.
- "Just Joking" Justification: After John understandably gets mad at Jack for propping Bob's body up to scare him, Jack tries to justify it by saying it was just a joke, and the two get into an argument over it, to Patty's annoyance.
- Letting the Air out of the Band: Bob's theme continues playing in the background as he shrugs off John and Jack's attempts to kill him. When he finally dies, it's marked by his theme distorting and slowing to a stop.
- Look Both Ways: Skid, Pump, Lila, and Jaune look both ways when crossing the street, even while running from a manic serial killer. When Bob crosses the street, he neglects to look both ways, and gets hit by a police car. It doesn't kill him, so they just run him over a couple more times to make sure after filling him with bullet holes.
- Medium Blending: Bob turns into a 3D model when he first gets run over by the cops, and then becomes a clay model as the still 2D Jack and John check on his body.
- Noodle Incident: When Kevin is justifying trying to ban Skid and Pump from the Candy Club, while most of the incidents he mentions are things that have happened in previous episodes, he mentions an incident where they got blood all over the floor that he had to clean up all day, with Pump retorting that it was fake blood. Such an incident hasn't been witnessed in the series.
- Remember the New Guy?: Even though they're not introduced until 2019's "The Stars", the flashback to 2018's "It's spooky month" has Sheriff John and Deputy Jack showing up to arrest Bob, before the series' continuity established them as being the town's main local cops.
- Retraux Flashback: In "Tender Treats", when Lila recalls Bob first attempting to kill her, the art style briefly switches back to the more simplistic drawings and animations from the first episode, complete with Sr. Pelo's original take on Lila's voice being used again and doing the sound of Lila tapping on her phone with his own voice.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
- After walking back into the Candy Club and seeing Bob menacingly approaching Kevin, Skid and Pump, Rick says that he's quitting and walks right back out of the store, much to Kevin's protest.
- The unnamed young man with a devil mask, who had already been twice assaulted due to being mistaken for Bob, watches John and Jack trying to shoot the real Bob to death, so he runs for his life in fear of getting shot by the cops in confusion.
- The Stinger: On YouTube, Ooga Booga scares us and opens a bag with candy (or an apple). On Newgrounds, John and Jack visit Patty in the morgue, who had found a cult necklace in Bob Velseb's chest, which causes John to realize the cult and Bob were working together, and that they had been the ones to free him in the first place; after which Jack props up Bob's corpse to pull a prank, which angers John and exasperates Patty.
- Strange Minds Think Alike:
- When Skid calls Pump, he happily answers with "Hello-ween?". Later after the two leave to go trick-or-treating and Lila notices Bob outside, she calls Jaune, who answers with "Hello-ween?".
- When Lila runs outside looking for Skid, the kid in the devil costume asks about her not wearing a costume. When Lila soon after calls Jaune asking for help to find Skid and Pump, she asks Lila if she's wearing a costume. Finally, when they later find the duo, Skid asks Lila why she isn't wearing a costume.
- Sweetie Graffiti: There's some small text that reads "Kevin x Streber" on the bathroom wall when Bob rushes to the toilets; while unclear if it was put in as a joke, it implies that Kevin and Streber, if not an actual romantic couple, at least know each other.
- Truth in Television: Mayor Evermore's remark about nobody being able to tell the difference between an actual death and a Halloween act, and Skid and Pump later mistaking Streber's mangled body for particularly good special effects, initially come off as just a Weirdness Censor and childhood obliviousness — however, there have actually been multiple cases in real life where dying or deceased people have been mistaken for Halloween decorations, with the living none the wiser until days after the "decorations" should have been cleaned up.
- Weirdness Censor: According to Mayor Evermore, most of the creepy villains roaming around in their town are seen by the citizens as All Part of the Show. Sure enough, a quartet of girls in Touhou Project costumes believe John and Jack killing Bob to be a performance piece.Evermore: Every Halloween, he kills more people. It's hard to know what is real... and what is not. No one knows if someone got killed, or it's just a show.
- Wham Line: After Skid and Lila go home following the death of Bob Velseb, Lila shows Skid some photos from her childhood. Skid then takes interest in something, or rather someone, in the background of one of them...Skid: Oh, you played hide-and-seek with him, too?
Lila: ...Who?
Skid: With this guy! (points at a burger chef who looks a lot like Bob)
