Recap / Bob's Burgers S4E8 "Christmas In The Car"

"Silent Night
Holy... CRAP!"

Bob: That was intimidation!
Louise: By an adorable candy cane truck!

While hunting for a last-minute Christmas tree, the Belchers find themselves hunted by an angry driver in a candy-cane shaped truck. Meanwhile, Teddy falls into the kids' Santa trap.

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Tropes in the Car:

• Animation Bump: Teddy getting his hand caught in the wreath-shaped trap inside the refrigerator and struggling to get it out is animated much more fluidly, done in-house by Bernard Derriman.
• Artistic License – Physics: After staying in front of the open fridge for too long, Teddy starts freezing, when he should actually start feeling hot, as fridges are only cold when they're shut.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: When Linda tries to pass the time singing Christmas carols, she sees the candy-cane truck has come back to look for them.
  Linda: Siiiiiilent niiight, hooooooly... (sees the truck) crap!
• Brick Joke: When Linda tries to justify not listening to Bob, she claims it was like when he said he flushed when he didn't, but Bob claims he really did. Later, Tina confesses that she was the one who didn't flush.
• Call-Back: Linda's road rage was last seen in "Food Truckin'", and here it bites the family hard when the candy cane driver takes offense to her obnoxious honking and yelling.
• Cassandra Truth: Bob tells Linda that getting a Christmas tree so early means it'll die that much sooner, necessitating getting a replacement which he doesn't want to have to do. Sure enough, in spite of Linda's assertion and surprise otherwise, it dies and they go through the hassle of trying to get a new tree the day before Christmas which is only exacerbated his family's oblivious behavior.
  • The family mocks Bob as a paranoid mess who's invoking Never My Fault and blaming the truck driver for his bad driving. They're all proven horribly wrong, when the truck tries to drive them off a bridge.
  Louise: We don't listen to you!
• Christmas Creep: Linda doing this is what kicks off the plot. She buys a tree the day after Halloween and it dies and dries up by Thanksgiving, so she buys another one the day after Thanksgiving and it dies on Christmas Eve. When Bob points both of these out, she snaps at him.
• Didn't Think This Through: Gene's plan to escape the truck driver is for everyone run away and hope he only picks off the slowest runner. As Louise lampshades the instant the kids start running, Gene himself is the slowest runner.
• The Dinnermobile: The candy cane-shaped truck chasing the Belchers.
• The Ditz: Teddy doesn't recognize the kids' obvious Santa trap and falls for it hook, line, and sinker. He also completely fails to understand Bob's very clear instructions to turn off the oven and makes it out as if Bob was being overly complicated when he finally turns it off.
• Easily Forgiven: The Belchers decide to forgive the truck driver when they find out he's having an absolutely abysmal Christmas. Yes, this is even after he made multiple attempts to kill them and physically assaulted Bob.
• Expecting Someone Taller: When the driver (Gary) hops out for a rumble, he turns out to be quite short.
• In the Style of: The Dr. Demento-esque "Jingle In The Jungle." It's even a sound-alike of "Pico and Sepulveda," which Dr. Demento uses as his theme song.
• The Millstone: Bob's family completely ignores his input, drags out their trip with stops despite his objections and often times do the exact opposite of what he says right after he says it on their already difficult trip of trying to get a Christmas tree the day before Christmas. When he tells everyone to lay low and hide in the car Gene immediately blurts out his idea for them all to run out screaming, which predictably doesn't work.
• Never My Fault:
  • Bob warns Linda that buying Christmas trees before the end of November is a bad idea. When they predictably dry out and Bob calls Linda out on not listening to him, Linda blames Bob's negative attitude for the trees' deaths rather than admitting she made a mistake.
  • Linda and the kids repeatedly brush off everything they do to make things worse as no big deal or Bob being uptight. They even initially accuse Bob of invoking this trope, thinking he's blaming the truck for his poor driving.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Linda and the kids manage to piss off an irate truck driver who begins stalking the family after they leave the tree lot.
• No Sympathy: Bob gets no sympathy from anyone, even his own family, whatsoever the entire episode. They ignore his claims that the truck is out to get them until it's so obvious they'd have to be trying to ignore it, at which point Louise outright says none of them listen to him.
• Oh, Crap!: Linda realizes that Bob wasn't lying about the truck trying to kill them when it came barreling down a one-lane bridge at them.
  Linda: Siiiilent niiiiight, Hoooly—CRAP!
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Despite lacking in height, Gary packs quite a wallop.
• Police Are Useless: In a diner, Bob tries to report being harassed by a truck driver to a police officer. The officer is already impatient because he's off-duty but Bob's case isn't helped both by his lack of evidence, dubious urgency and accidentally hitting a waitress when he gets worked up.
• Saving Christmas: Due to Linda getting a tree far too early (twice) the family is left without a Christmas tree the day before Christmas. Bob doesn't see it as a big deal, but his family think that without a tree Christmas will be ruined.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The whole reason the Belchers even left home—to get a new Christmas tree—is rendered completely pointless when Linda insists that they give away the tree they just bought (and the Dutch baby).
• Shout-Out: Also while hiding from the truck, Linda says she feels just like the Von Trapp family.
• Skewed Priorities: Teddy is more concerned with Bob opening his Christmas card than getting the fridge off of him.
  • Even while being hunted by the candy cane truck, Gene insists on trying to call the radio station to play his favorite song, or discuss whether or not Bob forgot to flush.
• Special Edition Title: The opening sequence features snow.
• Still Believes in Santa: Tina is a minor example. When they're alone, Bob starts to thank her for playing along with the Santa trap for Gene and Louise, but as they talk it becomes clear that Tina still believes in the big guy too.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Linda sets up a freshly cut Christmas Tree the day after Halloween. Since it's not fake it dies before even reaching Thanksgiving, while the replacement tree (obtained right after Thanksgiving) dies on Christmas Eve.
  • It's literally the night before Christmas, of course, there's not going to be a great selection of Christmas trees left. The Belchers are left to pick between three small, bare-bones trees that Tina notes are so frail they probably can't hold any ornaments.
  • When the truck driver barrels from the other side of the bridge, Bob has to gun the car backwards. He yells at everyone to hang on and tries to do a 180 spin. This only results in the car turning about halfway, and he sheepishly admits that he was trying to do "the movie thing".
• The Talk: While the Belchers are hiding from the candy-cane truck, Louise picks a really bad time to ask where babies come from.
  Linda: (whispering) You all come from my vagina.
  Gene: (whispering) I knew it! You owe me $10, Tina.
• That Came Out Wrong: Gary threatens to "bang [Bob's] ass" which is his way of saying he's going to beat him up. Bob points out how inappropriate it sounds.
• Too Dumb to Live: Every single one of the Belchers except poor Bob. None of them stop to think for a second that tickling the man driving the car they're in at night on an icy road is a bad idea, even as Bob is swerving all over the road. They then have the gall to blame Bob for nearly dying.
  • There's also Louise criticizing Bob for thinking they could've bothered to look out and warn him about the candy cane truck showing up when he asked them if the path was clear. The kids could have been killed first for being in the truck's path before their parents could've been gravely injured.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Linda was so obsessed with getting a Christmas tree up as soon as possible she managed to burn through two and forced the family to get a replacement on Christmas Eve, leading up to her and the kids antagonizing that truck driver who then stalked them and ran them off the road.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The episode is a tamer, Christmas-y version of the movie Duel, in which the protagonist is followed by a hidden, dangerous trucker.

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