If this show's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'
Bender becomes a paparazzo and tries to get a picture of an actor whose face has to be hidden for the good of mankind.
This episode provides examples of:
- Angry Guard Dog: Langdon Cobb's ego takes the form of dog-shaped fungus. He uses it to keep out anyone who dares to break into his mansion.
- Artistic License – Law: Paparazzi are not allowed to rearrange the scenes of their subjects as Bender did with Nixon and Zapp. There has to be a reasonable expectation of privacy.
- Artistic License – Paleontology:
- Jurassic Tank has a Tyrannosaurus floundering in it. Many theropod dinosaurs would have been decent swimmers in real life, though it still wouldn't be a good idea keeping one in an aquarium.
- The plesiosaur in the same tank has a neck much too flexible. And there is also a bizarre creature resembling a cross between an ichthyosaur and a fish.
- The ichthyosaur (possibly Cymbospondylus) that eats Bender has its nostrils on the tip of its snout, rather than near the eyes.
- Attention Whore: The Quantum Lichens have this as their niche, as they feed off the attention and admiration of others. Usually, simply gazing upon their face would be enough to sustain them, but Langdon became an actor so he would always have a steady supply of attention to nourish himself.
- Bond Creatures: Langdon Cobb and his "dog" Pookie are actually each one half of a quantum lichen, which like Earth lichens, consist of an algae and a fungus, except that they are linked psychically. Pookie, the fungal half, houses Cobb's ego, and grows in size whenever Cobb is filled with pride.
- Book Ends: Bender takes a photo of the group at the aquarium and takes another after they're all rescued from Langdon Cobb.
- Brown Bag Mask: To prevent anyone from losing their lifeforce by looking at his face, Langdon always wears a paper bag on his head at all times.
- Brown Note: If any living creature glances at Langdon's face when he's unmasked, they'll be drained of their life force and reduced to empty husks.
- Extinct Animal Park: There's a "Jurassic Tank" at the Monsteray Bay Aquarium, hosted by a John Hammond lookalike and inhabited by prehistoric sea-life... and also a T. rex floundering in the tank.
- Fatal Method Acting: In order to beat Langdon Cobb at an acting competition, Calculon decides to ingest a vial of food coloring, which is actually poisonous to robots, so he can actually die while performing Romeo's death scene from Romeo and Juliet.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Bender's continued coldness to Zoidberg is on display here as he casually wishes Zoidberg was drained of life force. Farnsworth also is relatively ungrateful of Zoidberg's solution to the problem.
- Fungus Humongous: Pookie, Langdon's ego half, is a dog-like mushroom creature that gets larger the more attention Langdon absorbs. Zoidberg even drops the trope's name by saying "There's a humongous fungus among us!"
- Gross-Up Close-Up: When trying out the zoom lens for his camera, Bender gets a close-up shot of Farnsworth's filthy and shriveled-up face.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Invoked In-Universe as a result of Landon's ego, which sucks out the life force of anyone who looks at his face without his bag. Bender makes it his goal to expose Cobb's face for the tabloids, with it getting played straight to the audience once he shows Cobb the picture in question.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: As Cobb looks at the picture Bender has taken of him bagless, his own Ego grows to the point of exploding, though Bender gets disappointed by this turn of events at first.
- Hypocritical Humor: Leela criticizes Bender for pronouncing the play title as "Rome O and Julie T", calling it an insult to will.i.am Shakespeare.
- Insistent Terminology: Professor Farnsworth is adamant that Langdon drains people's life forces, not their souls.
- Ludd Was Right: Bender believes that digital camera will never replace the quality of pictures taken on film. Farnsworth points out Bender's hypocrisy, as his eyes are technically digital cameras. Bender's adherence towards film proves to be to his advantage later on, as he's able to use the original negatives to replicate the photo and save the day.
- Miracle-Gro Monster: Langdon's ego Pookie grows every time he absorbs someone's life force.
- Person as Verb: According to Bender, "Calculon really Shatnered the hell out of" a scene.
- Phlebotinum Overload: When Bender shows Langdon a picture of himself, his narcissism ends up inflating his ego so much that it explodes and restores everyone else's lifeforce.
- Required Secondary Powers: Cobb has no issues looking at his own face in a picture. He lampshades it when Bender tries to use the picture to kill him.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Calculon poisons himself on-stage so he can finally prove that he's a better actor than Langdon. Despite giving a performance that literally killed him, the judges still declare Cobb to be the winner.
- Shout-Out:
- The Planet Express are welcomed to "Jurassic Tank" by a John Hammond look-alike at the Monsterey Bay Aquarium.
- One of Bender's camera lenses is a They Live! lens, which depicts Fry and Amy as the aliens from that film.
- The posters for Langdon Cobb's acting wins are nods to great acting performance such as Lawrence of Arabia and Patton.
- Swallowed Whole: Bender gets eaten by an ichthyosaur while trying to photograph Calculon from inside Jurassic Tank. That doesn't stop him from taking a photo of himself inside its stomach (since he can't get digested anyway).
- Take That!: The Professor describes Langdon's ego as going "totally Kanye" after it starts growing from Langdon feeding upon the audience's applause.
- Tempting Fate: Leela utters this moments before Langdon's ego barges into the theater:Leela: Oh god, he's basking in their admiration! That ego must be at least four feet tall by now!(Langdon's ego bursts through the wall of the theater, now about fifty-feet tall)
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: When Bender shows his picture of Cobb to Fry, green lights erupt from Fry’s eyes and mouth and his entire body deflates. Bender is, at best, mildly perplexed and chalks it up to coincidence. He then does the same thing to Amy, and after she also deflates, he only casually remarks that the evidence is starting to point at the picture.
- Weaksauce Weakness: This episode reveals that food coloring is fatally poisonous to robots of the 31st Century.
