Poster by Tara Billinger
Max Premiere Date: 06/22/2023
Written by: Erica Rivinoja, Dannah Phirman & Danielle Schneider
Mr. Butlertron’s tragic origins are laid bare after his latest falling out with Principal Scudworth in this Award-Worthy Episode.
Tropes in this episode:
- Artificial Family Member: The box Butlertron comes has blurbs on it stating the product to be for pretending you have an extra child in the household to do more chores.
- Art Shift: Compared to the show’s usual art style, Butlertron’s childhood flashback takes on a black and white cartoon with simpler, rounded shapes, while his time as a male prostitute looks like one of Ralph Bakshi’s movies, and his time in Hollywood looks like a Saturday morning cartoon from the 80's (which includes a portrait of him with pink hair and star makeup.)
- Adoption Angst: Mr. Butlertron is upset that he was not his families' real son but a robot they bought. Though, it was obvious that he was not their son from the beginning since he looks nothing like his twin brother, is made of metal, and can't cry.
- Alliterative Name: Butlertron’s full name is revealed to be Besley Butlertron.
- Cerebus Retcon: The reason why Mr. B calls everyone Wesley? It was the name of his adoptive human brother who drowned attempting to baptize him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Parodied to hell and back as this episode goes through
every popular tragic backstory cliche in the book like finding out they're adopted and being melodramatically upset about it, the death of someone they hold dear, and a marriage ending in the hero's spouse being in an affair with someone else. - Do Androids Dream?: The driving conflict of Butlertron's backstory is being a robot disqualifies him from baptism since he doesn't have a soul. Spoofed in the end when Scudworth reassures him that none of the humans he's close to have souls either, since he's a Mad Scientist and they're all clones, and they're all a family regardless.
- Eskimos Aren't Real: Scudworth makes the claim that rainbows aren't real.
- Family Theme Naming: Butlertron's family all have names ending in -esley, his brother Wesley in particular.
- Feeling the Baby Kick: Parodied. Purity can feel Mr. B.'s baby kick (despite the fact she only just missed the period and isn't even showing yet), and when Mr. B. puts his head to her belly, he can hear robotic whirring and sees her stomach light up.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: At the episode’s climax, Mr. B must choose between saving Scudworth or the test tube with the clone of his dead brother. He chooses Scudworth.
- Grows on Trees: In Butlertron’s first flashback to his childhood, he and his brother steal hams that grow on stalks like corn.
- Interrupted Suicide: Throughout the episode, a battery gauge on Butlertron’s chest is shown being low and getting recharged. At his emotional nadir, he decides to let it run down forever while staring at the sunset. This gets interrupted by Scudworth recharging him with his car battery and revealing that he's finally fulfilled his promise.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: The father of Purity's child turns out to be a Betamax VCR, not Mr. Butlertron.Robot Child: Be kind, rewind!
- Oblivious Adoption: Butlertron and Wesley never once realized they weren’t actually twins until their parents told them.
- Oscar Bait: Parodied in this episode, which takes on prestige television shows in melodramatic fashion - even being called “For Your Consideration”.
- Suicide as Comedy: Butlertron goes to Jumper's Point, which was named for the inventor of the jumper. There he finds a line of people waiting to take their turn to jump off the cliff.
- Tears from a Stone: There is a Running Gag of it seeming like Butlertron is crying only for it to turn out to be literally some liquid dripping into his eye. At the end, after realizing he has the family he always wanted, he cries for real with no apparent outside source. Scudworth dismisses it as a malfunction of some kind.
- This Is Going to Be Huge: Purity cheats on Mr. B. with a Betamax VCR, bragging about how unlike Mr. B., he's never going to go out of style.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The driving conflict for the episode is Mr. Butlertron being told that, as a robot, he doesn’t have a soul. This leads to both him running away from his human family after being denied baptism.
