Recap / Futurama S 3 E 3 A Tale Of Two Santas

This episode performed entirely by sock puppets

It's Xmas time again, and the people of Earth prepare to defend themselves from Robot Santa's yuletide rampage. While on a mission to deliver letters to his fortress on Neptune, the Planet Express crew cause Santa to be trapped in the ice, leaving Bender to deliver toys and bring back Xmas as the 20th century knew it. However, while on the job Bender is caught by a Santa-hunting task force!

Tropes

• All Crimes Are Equal: Robot Santa considers everyone equally as naughty, as seen in this line of dialogue:
  Robot Santa: Mobsters beating up a shopkeeper for protection money! Very naughty. Shopkeepers not paying their protection money — exactly as naughty!
• Alleged Lookalikes: Bender and Robot Santa don't look similar in any way besides them both being red-wearing robots with Santa hats, but no one cares to tell them apart, and Bender is almost put to death after being mistaken for Robot Santa.
• Ambiguously Gay: Some of Neptunians constantly hold hands with their same-sex partners. After Robot Santa's been deposed, and some global warming, they start wearing "breezy short-shorts", which they claim are because of the increasing temperature. The only reason they do not all count is because it is hard to tell the sex of the older ones.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • After being consistently attacked by the people he’s trying to help, Bender laments there must be an easier way to deliver presents. Cut to a charity bin... and Bender dumps everything down the sewer next to it.
  • Robot Santa tries to recruit a humbled Bender on his Xmas rampage. Fry shouts out that the robot is too evil to be trusted, but Santa is the one that responds back, suggesting he was warning Santa, not Bender.
• Black Comedy:
  • The children's Xmas letters to Robot Santa, along with Robot Santa targeting a little girl he victimized the year before during his rampage.
  • Fry concluding that Robot Santa's rampage throughout New New York is the kind of thing that brings people together during the holidays, rather than blowing them apart. The Professor goes to object, until an explosion makes him whimper, "Hold me."
• Call-Back:
  • Bender and magnets, once again, do not mix.
  • Walter Cronkite's Xmas warning has clips from the last Xmas episode depicting Robot Santa's rampage.
• The Chew Toy: Bender takes a lot of comedic abuse from the citizens: he gets set on fire, repeatedly shot by the Professor, has his legs disfigured and is almost magnetized to death.
• Christmas Episode: The second of the series, and the final one of the original Fox run.
• Crapsack World: Neptune sucks. Robot Santa's presence has destroyed the economy, the Neptunians are underfed and poor, and liable to be killed at a moment's notice, and while they live in gingerbread houses, they can't eat them (it's food or shelter, not both).
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Bender is sentenced to be pulled apart by two giant magnets, which is said to be humanely. He points out it isn't, only for Mayor Poopenmeyer to state it's humane for the audience, because it's not boring.
• Downer Ending: Despite the crew's attempts to make Xmas cheerful and magical again, it remains as bad as ever.
• Drowning My Sorrows: The Neptunians, after building adequate toys for Xmas, go home to drown themselves in rye (a type of whiskey distilled from the grain plant of the same name).
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When it becomes apparent that someone has to fill in for Robot Santa, Bender points out that to deliver toys to everyone on Earth they need some sort of robot. "Oh, crap! I'm some sort of robot!"
• Explosive Stupidity: Subverted. While escaping from Santa, the crew is trapped in the elevator with one of his bombs. After reaching the bottom floor, they run out...with Leela carrying the bomb, before realizing what she's doing and throwing it back.
• The Ghost: The Chanukah Zombie, who is mentioned in a one-off remark by Kwanzaa-bot. However, he does later appear for real in Bender's Big Score.
• Gingerbread House: The Neptunian midgets live in these, and are hungry because "It's food or shelter, not both".
• Global Warming: The smoke from Neptune's toy factory warmed the atmosphere enough to melt the ice imprisoning Santa.
• Got Volunteered: One of the Neptunians decides to help the Planet Express crew sneak into Santa's ice fortress, and his partner has to tag along.
• I Am Spartacus: When Bender as Santa is about to be executed, the rest of the Planet Express company storms the execution dressed as Santa...except for Zoidberg, who goes as Jesus.
  Mayor: You're not Santa! You're not even robots! How dare you lie in front of Jesus!
• Improbable Weapon User: Robot Santa has a bicycle gun which he likes to use on little children.
• In the Back: During the trial, Bender takes another gunshot blast from the Professor this way.
• Insane Troll Logic: The Hyper-Chicken has a girl that has been attacked by Santa testify by merely pointing at Bender, feeling that is proof enough.
• Kill It with Fire: Petunia tries to kill Bender with a flamethrower. It doesn't take, but it definitely hurts.
• Literal Metaphor: One inmate tells "Santa" to tell the Devil that he (the inmate) is coming. Turns out that the Robot Devil is locked up in the next cell over.
  Bender: Hey, that guy says...
  Robot Devil: I heard him.
• Logic Bomb: Leela tries to destroy Robot Santa by pointing out that he himself is naughty, and thus must destroy himself. Unfortunately, Robot Santa was built with paradox-absorbing crumple zones.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Fry decides he doesn't like Christmas being a time of fear and will destroy Robot Santa to fix that, and Leela, normally the voice of reason, agrees without complaint. Later when they decide presents still need to be delivered, Bender gets the job.
• Mouse Trap: Petunia offers Bender, dressed as Santa, a cookie from the cookie jar. Bender accepts the offer, only to get his hand caught in a mouse trap.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: While trying to play the part of a good Santa, Bender is chased, humiliated, and attacked (even by the Professor) by everyone and was even arrested and nearly executed because everyone mistook him for Robot Santa.
• No Sympathy: A large part of the Neptunians' work song involves Fry, Leela, and especially Bender not caring about them being overworked and in pain.
  Bender: Then shut your yaps and back to work!
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Played for Laughs. Mayor Poopenmeyer doesn't buy any of the humans dressed as Santa, but won't even blink when he sees the lobster-like Jesus.
• Saving Christmas: Attempted: Fry, Leela and Bender decide to stop Robot Santa's reign of terror and restore the true meaning of Christmas. It goes horribly wrong.
• Sexy Santa Dress: Amy wears a midriff-baring Santa suit and skirt during the aforementioned I Am Spartacus scene.
• Shout-Out: The highest speed setting for the equipment in the toy factory is labelled "Lucy".
• Strolling on Jupiter: The real-life Neptune is mostly a slushy mixture of ammonia, methane, and water, nothing resembling the solid ice and Earthlike atmosphere shown here.
• Take That!:
  • One aimed at Barbie, when Bender dumps the toys he was supposed to deliver into the sewer, Violet pops out and yells at him.
    Violet: This toy creates an unrealistic standard of beauty!
  • Santa scolds the Neptunians for entering his viewing room without knocking first, saying any manner of naughty things could've been on the screen.
    Santa: I get New Orleans on this thing, ya know!
• Too Dumb to Live: Despite Leela having just told him that Bender was playing Robot Santa, the moment the Professor saw Bender, he whipped out a shotgun and fired at him. He even shot at him during the trial.
  Leela: Don't you remember what I told you?!
  Professor: NO! (fires another shot at Bender)
• Villainous Rescue: Just as Bender is about to be magnetized to death, Robot Santa bursts into the room and rescues him.
• Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?: As no human could possibly deliver billions of gifts around the world in one night, Bender says they'd need a robot to accomplish such a task. He then glances around and sees everyone staring at him, quickly realizing why that's a bad thing.
• Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: Professor Farnsworth fortifies the Planet Express building, exclaiming that Santa can't kill them unless they were stupid enough to leave. And then he mentions that the crew needs to make a delivery... to Santa.
• Would Harm a Senior: A boy writes a letter to Robot Santa to request a coffin for his grandfather who was choked to death by Santa with a chestnut last year, complaining that his grandpa's corpse is starting to smell.