Recap / HFIL A Freeza Day In Hell

Original Airdate: December 8, 2022

Narration: 'Twas the day of Lord Freeza

And all throughout hell

Most of the MCMs

Found it quite swell.

But as they celebrated

And sang cheerful songs,

One little humbug thought...

Perfect Cell: What the here's going on?!

It's the most explodiest time of the year. But Cell's unfamiliar with the local holiday! Follow him as he learns the true meaning... of Freeza Day.

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Tropes in this Episode:

• Art Shift: While still clearly produced by computer animation, the style is shifted to resemble a classic stop-motion Rankin/Bass production.
• Batman Gambit: Cell correctly figures that the best way to flatter Freeza into not blowing up his house is to present him with a (fake) set of Dragon Balls provided by Guru. It works.
• Butt-Monkey: As usual, Raditz, since his house was blown up the last three Freeza Days, to the point that he just preemptively moves his stuff out.
• Call-Back: Freeza once again runs into trouble with his name being written when the banner made by the Ginyu Force says "Frieza Day"^* the spelling Funimation went with when localizing the show in the West. When he clarifies that there’s no I – despite saying the proper pronunciation a moment ago – Recoome apologizes while saying "Lord Freza."^* Pronounced "FREH-zah"
• Continuity Nod:
  • Raditz pronounces Earth as Ee-arth.
  • Recoome misspells Freeza's name as "Frieza", just like Trunks did back in Episode 33.
  • Freeza receives a Spacey's gift card from Burter as a Freeza Day gift.
• Dreaming of a White Christmas: Subverted for Black Comedy. The "snow" is actually residue from the soul scrubbers and is still partially aware.
  Snow Captain Ginyu: Eeend meee!
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Freeza worries if his father is having a stroke when he breaks the fourth wall, and screams when he falls over.
• Holy Burns Evil: The reason why everyone continues to celebrate Freeza Day in HFIL rather than Christmas is because Jesus is something of a touchy subject for the ogres (what with them being demons and all).
• Kick the Dog: When Freeza blows up a house every Freeza Day, the Ginyus rebuild it some time after. Just the same year as Cell finally arrives, Freeza announces that the Ginyus won't be rebuilding any houses this time around, clearly aiming to leave Cell homeless. However, he redirects this at Goz and Mez when Cell brings him a set of (fake) Dragon Balls, the ogres not having known they were candidates.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The story is revealed to have been read from a book by King Cold in front of the assembled MCMs, which leads to this dialogue:
  Perfect Cell: Did you— I'm sorry, but was that all fan fiction about our deaths?
  King Cold: I mean... (glances at camera) ...isn't all of this?
• Original Position Fallacy: Goz and Mez are fine with Freeza Day being celebrated for the sake of a social gathering, and are even tolerant about the yearly tradition of one of the houses being blown up. And then Cell's trickery prompts Freeza into choosing to blow up their house.
  Goz: Um…
  Mez: I don't think that was one of the options.
  Narrator: It was.
  Goz: Scheiße.
• Shout-Out: Several references are made to classic Christmas stories:
  • The first line of King Cold's narration is a poem that opens with "'Twas the day of Lord Freeza."
  • When Cell asks Guildo what's going on, he starts with "You there, boy." Guildo also closes out the story with "Beerus bless us, every one!"
  • King Cold's description of Cell's plan is "That's when he got an idea. An awful idea. Cell had a wonderful, awful idea."

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