"Hold onto your dookie. It's about to get spooky!"
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Bender commits suicide after Fry saves a human instead of a robot during a Parade Day parade, but is stuck in limbo — unless he can scare Fry to death.
Tropes present:
- Ambiguous Situation: Bender's "murdered" by a suicide booth that turns out to be an ex-girlfriend of his named Lynn (who's clearly still bitter about their breakup) seconds after asking her to kill him. Whether he would have weaseled out of getting killed otherwise is unknown, because according to the rest of the Planet Express-crew, Bender has cried wolf on this subject many times before.note
- Automatic Door Malfunction: Part of Bender's ability to manipulate electric objects as a ghost in includes being able to open and close automatic doors. Naturally, he uses it in an attempt to scare Fry to death, who is left having to time his jump through one of the doors of the Planet Express Building.
- Back from the Dead:
- Bender possessing the Robot Devil and getting him crushed by a geodesic sphere barely inconveniences Beelzebot, who turns out to have a closet full of spare bodies.
- After getting admitted to Robot Heaven Bender decides instead to return to the mortal world, causing the appliances the crew made from his body parts to fly back together and reconstruct his body.
- Barn Raising: Fry participates in one while on the Amish Homeworld, after he flees there to get away from technology that was haunting him.
- Borrowed Catch Phrase:Hermes: (indicating a graph) As you can see, since Bender's death, requests to bite one's shiny metal ass are down 98%. (Scruffy uses Bender's remains to vacuum) Do you mind doing that later?Scruffy: Bite my shiny metal ass. (chart rises)
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Lampshaded by Dr. Cahill with her cleavage-baring labcoat.Dr. Cahill: I'm afraid your heart has suffered a lot of damage, Mr. Fry. And my cleavage isn't helping.
Professor Farnsworth: [smiling] Not helping him. - Call-Back: The rationale behind robot ghosts appeared all the way back in "The Honking."
- Continuity Nod: The Robot Devil mentions the "hand-swapping incident" with Fry, and the first part of the Robot Hell song can be heard before Bender begs the band to shut up.
- Deal with the Devil: Again. The devil agreed to let Bender have his body back if he could scare Fry to death, due to the fact that the devil is still mad about that whole hand switching incident.
- Devil, but No God: For the first time, Robot Heaven is seen, though the being at the gateway denies being Robot God.
- Diving Save: How Bender, possessing the body of the Robot Devil, saves Fry's life.
- Driven to Suicide: Bender attempts suicide after Fry admits he prioritizes human life over robot life. Apparently, this isn't the first time he's threatened to kill himself, just the first time he's actually gone through with it.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Robot Devil has nothing against mugging an old lady for her clothes, but he pointedly mentions he hasn't harmed her otherwise.Robot Devil: She's naked but unharmed!
- Forgotten Phlebotinum: Back in The Cryonic Woman, Terry mentioned that they have a cure for heart attacks in the future.
- The Graph Shows the Trend: In a meeting, Hermes shows a graph indicating how requests to "bite my shiny metal ass" have dropped 98% since Bender's death. When Scruffy says it, the line in the graph goes up a tic.
- Hamster-Wheel Power: The wooden spaceships that travel to and from the Amish Homeworld are powered by oxen on a treadmill, with the driver using carrots-on-a-stick to motivate them.
- Hats Off to the Dead: Professor Farnsworth tells everyone to put on their "taking off hats" when Bender is found dead. Fry is confused, to which the Professor responds, "It's a sign of respect, you savage!"
- Haunted Technology: Bender as a ghost can possess anything electronic, hence why Fry moves to the Amish homeworld where such technology is forbidden. He even manages to possess the Robot Devil, and the greeter to Robot Heaven.
- Heel Realization: Two in quick succession.
- Fry, who had admitted to seeing human life as more important than robot life, breaks down crying as he realizes how precious his robot friend Bender was to him.
- Bender remembers how much he loves Fry when Fry has the above epiphany.
- Hypocritical Humor: Zapp when he's relying on his arm being held up by a mechanical arm by Kif.Zapp Branigan: Kif, you're slacking off on my waving arm!
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: When Amy sees Bender has killed himself.Amy: Poor, nasty, mean, old Bender.
- Mugged for Disguise: The Robot Devil does this to some Amish woman, as nothing mechanical is allowed on the Amish homeworld.Bender: What'd you do with Granny Hester?!
Robot Devil: She's naked but unharmed! - Refusing Paradise: When Bender is offered the opportunity to go to heaven, he replies with "screw this" and returns to life back on Earth.
- Space Amish: The Amish Homeworld, where Fry goes to escape technology. Currently provides the page image.
- Take That!:
- When Bender learns Fry survived his heart attack, his Skyward Scream is, "Damn you, Obama Care!" With the initial failure of the healthcare.gov website, this line is now either
funnier or crueler in retrospect. - Fry's attempt to dial a company strongly implied to be the Ghostbusters is met with the operator saying "The number you have dialed has been lame since 1989", the year that Ghostbusters II was released.
- When Bender learns Fry survived his heart attack, his Skyward Scream is, "Damn you, Obama Care!" With the initial failure of the healthcare.gov website, this line is now either
- Virtual Ghost: Bender's "ghost" is more technically his disembodied software roaming the wireless network shared by all machinery.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: One of the main themes of the episode. Bender is outraged that Fry regards human life as more valuable than that of a robot, and his suicide attempt is partially to make everyone feel bad about the loss of a robot life. The Robot Devil, likewise, is furious to hear this, and offers Bender a deal to get his own life back by taking Fry's; eventually Bender refuses to go through with it, and he realizes in his own way that he values a human's life (Fry's) more than a robot's (his own).
- Who You Gonna Call?:Fry: All I know is I've got a ghost that needs busting. [dials a phone]
Hermes: Who you gonna call?
Fry: Gho-
Phone: (UNAVAILABLE BEEPS) The number you have dialed has been lame since 1989.
