Presented in DOUBLEVISION (where drunk)
On a delivery to the planet Trisol, Fry drinks from a random bottle, only to learn that Trisollians are a liquid race, and he just drank the emperor! But rather than having Fry arrested for regicide, the Trisollians name him their new leader.
Tropes
- An Aesop: Think before you act.
- Animation Bump: As it features a large cast of characters who are literally fluid, the animation for the episode is, itself, more fluid and bouncier. Notice the anticipation on Fry when he hears Leela's voice after thinking she's dead.
- Beyond the Impossible: Fry claims Bender's salted slug is the saltiest thing he's ever tasted, and he once ate a bowl of nothing but salt.
- Bioluminescence Is Cool: Trisollians glow in their nocturnal phase.
- Can't You Read the Sign?: The package was a sign that said, "Please Don't Drink the Emperor". Fry hangs it up next to dozens of other signs written in various alien languages.Fry: This got here just in time.
- Character Catchphrase: "Good News, everyone" starts here. Bender immediately lampshades it.The Professor: Good news, everyone.
Bender: Uh-oh, I don't like the sound of that. - Characterization Marches On: A major plot point is that Fry is too "macho" to cry, which conflicts with later episodes where he has no problem crying over minor things.
- Description Cut: Fry is in trouble and needs Leela's help, but they had just gotten into a nasty fight beforehand. Amy says they should go to her since she's not the type that holds a grudge, before cutting to Leela beating on a punching bag with Fry's picture taped to it.
- Didn't Think This Through: Fry's main flaw for the episode. He doesn't think before he acts and utterly refuses to try to do so, doing everything in the episode without any forethought and almost getting himself killed multiple times. His lesson that he can't just stumble about and act like everything will turn out fine is the point of the episode.
- Disney Death: Parodied. Bender tells Fry that Leela was killed by the Trisollians, but he's clearly lying in order to make him cry out Bont - Amy even nearly blows it by almost describing what's really happening when Bender makes up Leela being killed by the Juicinator. When Fry does start crying, Leela shows up alive and well, causing Bender to get irritated.Bender: I was telling Fry you were dead so that he would cry out the emperor, but you had to spoil it by surviving!
- Dumbass Has a Point: Bender tries to make Fry cry out Emperor Bont by saying he'll never amount to anything. Fry calls him out on it by pointing out he was the Emperor of Trisol. Bender concedes on that.
- Eaten Alive: The trouble really starts up when it's revealed that the emperor before Fry is still alive in his stomach.
- Embarrassing Cover-Up: Bender tries to flimsily lie that he was watching porn and not a cooking show.
- Evil Chancellor: Gorgak is implied to have been one for Bont. Bender definitely is one by dint of being Bender.
- Forbidden Zone: Parodied with the planet Trisol, in the Forbidden Zone of the Galaxy of Terror, which actually turns out to be perfectly nice (provided that you're not the emperor). It really is just a name.
- Frying Pan of Doom: Elzar recommends cast-iron cookware just in case Neptunian slugs suddenly start growing and need a bit of incentive to get back in the pan.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The Planet Trisol is in the Forbidden Zone, but don't worry, that's just a name, like the Death Zone or Zone of No Return. All the zones have names like that in the Galaxy of Terror!
- Klingon Promotion: How Fry becomes the emperor. In fact, this is so prevalent that the average reign of a Trisollian emperor is a week, and the Hall of Emperors already has picture frames hanging for Fry's Assassin and Fry's Assassin's Assassin.Fry: Well, at least my assassin gets what's coming to him.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After an entire episode of being more smugly Too Dumb to Live than he's ever been, Fry ends up with his friends brutally beating the hell out of him to make him cry out Emperor Bont while he sobbingly thanks them for it. Then at the end Bont continues beating him with a chair even after he's out, just because.
- Lethal Chef: Bender wanting to be a great chef like Elzar starts here, as does his being completely terrible at it, serving everyone salt, which (he defensively claimed) was slightly less than a lethal dose for humans.
- The Magnificent: The emperors of Trisol all have titles which seem to correspond to how they were killed (like Throng the Chunky, who was turned into a soup.)
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The crew resort to one of these in order to get Bont out of Fry. Then Bont continues even after he's out.
- No-Sell: A Trisollian attempts to assassinate Fry by drinking him with a straw. An annoyed Fry just tells them to knock it off.
- Oh, Crap!: Zoidberg, after having a second course of Bender's salt and slug (which is 90% of the lethal dose for just one).
- The Oner: The coronation speech, which must be recited flawlessly from memory, or the applicant will be killed (and presumably eaten) on the spot. Subverted in that the speech itself is actually pretty short (I, X, promise to rule with dignity and integrity), just that beforehand the would-be emperor must recite every one of his predecessors.
- Organ Theft: Spoofed with the sleazy street vendor trying to sell Fry some stolen organs. He almost gets Fry's lungs to replace with gills (which come next week) before Leela stops him.
- Royal Harem: The Trisolian Emperor has one of these. Fry is brought in and told he can choose any of the women to be his concubine. Unfortunately for Fry they're all held in identical bottles, so he ends up pointing at a random bottle, and changing his mind based on Murg's reaction.
- The Secret of Long Pork Pies: Implied when Fry goes to a Neptunian market.Fry: Wow, they've got every kind of meat here except human.
Neptunian Butcher: What, you want human? - Shout-Out: The title is an allusion to long-running series My Three Sons.
- Spit Take: When Bender cooks for the Planet Express crew, he adds an almost-lethal (literally: according to him, it was 10% below a lethal dose) amount of salt to the food. After taking their first bite, the Planet Express crew desperately reach for their glasses of water - only to immediately spit the water out again when they realise that it's salt water (or, as Bender puts it, salt with water in it).
- Spoof Aesop: Fry responds to Leela's concerns by telling a rambling, nonsensical version of The Grasshopper and the Ants, in which a grasshopper buries acorns all year while an octopus mooches off his girlfriend. Then winter comes, the grasshopper inexplicably dies, and the octopus steals his acorns. And gets a race car.
- Toilet Humour: Fry suggests vomiting or urinating Bont out of him. Bont refuses but likes those slightly better than sweating.
- Too Dumb to Live: Fry almost gets killed in a back alley because he refused to believe that the shady guy selling organs wasn't on the level even after he told him he'd get his gills next week.
- Subverted with the ritual coronation speech, an entire tome which Fry must recite flawlessly from memory or be immediately executed, which he dismissively says he's thinking of flicking through later. He actually gets through the whole thing almost perfectly (apart from briefly mixing up "integrity" with "insanity"), albeit by writing cheat notes down the inside of his arm.
- Vengeful Vending Machine: A machine crack ("Refreshing!") gets stuck, and the customer whines "Come on, man! Don't hold out on me like this!"
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Fry, after being made emperor.
- What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Bender starts off the episode not having a job at Planet Express at all. Hermes notices, which results in Bender deciding to become a chef.
- Working Out Their Emotions: Leela punches a bag with Fry's picture on it after having a fight with him.
