Hear fastidiously. It’s not jingle bells ringing close by. No, it’s the roar of a truck getting too rattling shut! Bob’s Burgers all the time mixes the absurd with the household assist the Belchers give one another, even within the wackiest of occasions. Season 4’s “Christmas within the Automobile” isn’t any exception, mixing the weirdness the present can pull off right into a horror-themed premise and serving it up as one in every of its creepiest vacation episodes. And simply as essential because the absurd gags or plot factors are, popular culture references are too.

“Christmas within the Automobile” pays a giant homage to director Steven Spielberg, who made beloved motion pictures out of a candy, homesick alien and a fedora-wearing archaeologist. Bob’s Burgers loves these classics too, however for Season 4, it determined to look to Spielberg’s much less talked about venture from the Seventies to base an episode round. 5 years earlier than he submerged a man-eating shark, the director hit the highway for a TV film a couple of touring salesman who realizes a tanker truck is out for blood. It can make you worry passing a kind of gas-guzzling monstrosities subsequent time on the freeway. Bob’s Burgers makes positive you don’t overlook it, by making a wacky homage that has the Yuletide spirit come almost crashing into the Belcher household automotive.

What Is “Christmas within the Automobile” About?

Linda’s (John Roberts) want for a Christmas tree the day after Halloween, causes it to be “dehydrated and lined in tinseled” midway via November. Her youngest little one, Louise (Kristen Schaal), provides, “appears like a homosexual delight parade,” and if anybody has skilled NYC delight through the balmy June heatwave, they may know she is on to one thing. Tossed into the trash, Linda decides one other tree is required proper after Thanksgiving. Sadly, this implies it dies by the point Christmas Eve rolls in. Horrified on the absence of a pine-decorated centerpiece, Linda is frantic to fill within the empty area and forces Bob (H. Jon Benjamin) to drive out and get a wholesome one which gained’t be a fireplace hazard. The highway journey is not going to go as deliberate, that’s for positive.

The children tag alongside, anticipating the outcomes of their scheme to set a lure for Santa of their condo’s kitchen after they return. With every Belcher member preoccupied with their issues, this leaves Bob as the one one to comprehend the driving force of a big sweet cane-themed truck has a grudge towards the household. Quickly although, everybody finds out they’re being chased by a peppermint-striped nightmare. Though the hijinks the Belcher clan get themselves into throughout vacation episodes are largely healthful, there are occasions it slips into miserable storylines and even outright Christmas horror.

A Gloomy Vacation Isn’t Uncommon for ‘Bob’s Burgers’

The collection has lightened up on the sting it had in earlier seasons. However the unique idea for the collection was fully totally different from the healthful household that followers know. The Belchers have been cannibals, with a few of the story left within the pilot episode, simply with a a lot totally different tone. Some darkness has lingered, as seen with the creepiest Halloween they supplied in Season 6 or, in no specific order, the opposite Christmas episodes of the present. The Bleaken is a legendary beast the Belcher children study in Season 8, impressed by the not-so-jolly Krampus.

One other entry has a painfully relatable dilemma the place Bob will get right into a heated battle along with his disapproving father throughout a vacation social gathering, a battle that has been years within the making. Season 7’s “The Final Gingerbread Home on the Left” is called after the notorious Wes Craven horror movie, the place there may be neighborhood gossip a couple of mysterious home that’s house to a murderous proprietor, and Bob will get caught in a gun shootout over a gingerbread contest. None of those can beat the unusual melancholy discovered within the present’s first Christmas episode again in Season 3.

A considerably unhinged man (voiced by Zach Galifianakis) is in love with a model, however the Belchers overlook that odd element because of the stunning window shows he creates for them. That’s till Bob says the unsuitable factor, inflicting the person to create a morbid show the place ketchup bottles are alleged to be squirting out “blood.” What ought to give off the spirit of Miracle on thirty fourth Road, creeps a bit nearer to the gore of Silent Evening, Lethal Evening. Nonetheless, what these entries don’t have is the maintained sense of hazard from “Christmas within the Automobile” that leans it nearer into horror film territory than Yuletide episodes which have been launched earlier than or after. There’s a lack of assist, because of the setting.

The tree stand Linda begs to journey to is an hour away. The Belchers drive there on a snowy, darkish, and remoted highway the place there’s a diner as the one relaxation cease. Sometimes, nobody listening to Bob and making him get flustered is finished for laughs; right here, the state of affairs builds dread when he’s the one one who is aware of the approaching sweet cane truck within the rearview mirror is as much as no good. Like in horror motion pictures, a cop doesn’t assist when Bob seeks them out and the household doesn’t have a working cellphone, because of center little one Gene’s (Eugene Mirman) dedication to staying on the road to request a vacation music on the radio. However wait a minute — what does any of this should do with the connection that this episode has to an early Steven Spielberg thriller? If nobody has seen the nail-biting Duel (1971), they won’t understand simply how a lot of a direct homage this episode is.

Spielberg Hits the Fuel on a Pace Demon in ‘Duel’

Spielberg, being the well-known director he’s, has been referenced elsewhere in Bob’s Burgers — Season 3’s “The Deepening” has a mechanical shark prop from a ‘80s B-movie go haywire and destroy the road exterior the Belcher restaurant. Earlier than Jaws made everybody worry going into the water, Spielberg turned a tanker truck right into a seemingly unstoppable killing machine. Within the TV film Duel, David Mann (Dennis Weaver) encounters a tanker truck going too sluggish for his liking. Billowing, black smoke coming from the exhaust pipes isn’t serving to. He passes it, just for the truck to hurry up and go him. When the trucker waves him on, David sees it as a much-needed gesture of goodwill. He goes to go, almost crashing into an oncoming automobile. David does handle to hurry forward. The issue is, he can’t lose it. The truck finds him. Brody (Roy Scheider) has Bruce the Shark, and with out the driving force being seen, the tanker truck turns into David’s monster.

David is a husband with a strained relationship with an off-screen spouse. When David will get into the cat-and-mouse recreation with the tanker truck, he survives being run off the highway and retreats to a diner (a location the Belchers additionally retreat to). David grows paranoid when he thinks the trucker may very well be one of many prospects in the identical diner. Bob Belcher can’t be so caught in his head although, his household stops him from that. They ignore his fears over the sweet cane truck. After getting run off the highway, they retreat to a diner, the place Linda wishes to get the marketed Dutch Child pastry, and the youngsters joke about their dad’s issues.

David didn’t discover any assist at his diner, and neither did Bob. There’s a grumpy cop who’s unbothered and fairly frankly aggravated upon listening to about Bob’s assertion of surviving highway rage. At one other level in Duel, David will get caught serving to a faculty bus. The youths inside are bratty, with an excessive amount of power. The digicam goes in with close-ups to rack up the stress. The children make faces in David’s means as he tries to assist the bus, all of the whereas he sees the tanker truck lurking within the distance. In Bob’s, no bus with out-of-control children is required, not when the Belcher children instigate every thing within the first place.

‘Bob’s Burgers’ Offers a Christmas-Themed Homage to Steven Spielberg

When Bob wants assist backing the automotive out of the tree lot, the youngsters say he’s clear to take action — with out listening to what he may hit. The sweet cane truck hits on the brakes and presses on the horn. Linda chooses retaliation by hitting the household’s automotive horn again, angrily beeping out a rendition of “Jingle Bells.” There are many gags to ease the stress. The standard absurdity and humor hold the episode from turning into too menacing. Try the present’s opening credit. The storefront subsequent to the Belcher’s restaurant always will get a brand new pun and this time it is an eggnog store: “Nog Nog Who’s There?” On the tree stands, Linda can solely choose from slim choices: three sticks with pine needles. Hey, if it labored for Charlie Brown, it might work for the Belchers. Away from the A-story, a B-story includes a luckless handyman and household good friend, Teddy (Larry Murphy), getting caught within the children’ Santa lure.

The episode’s most recognizable piece of Christmas imagery is taken out, with the a number of Christmas bushes tossed into the rubbish. The sweet cane truck replaces it as the primary vacation picture for the episode. It is not the primary time that sweet canes have change into lethal. Within the motion pictures, the 2006 Black Christmas remake and 2022’s Violent Evening used the red-and-white striped piece of sweet as a jagged weapon. Depart it to Bob’s Burgers to magnify it additional with the primary depiction of the sweet as a gargantuan automobile hellbent on chasing after a household. It is a hilarious visible that matches the Yuletide setting with out dropping the hostility of what hunted down David in Duel. Whereas the truck from Duel appears extra like a rusted automobile leaving Krampus’ netherworld, the sweet cane truck seems to be misplaced on the best way to Whoville.

Regardless that a lot of the highway suspense is taken from Duel, it’s not exhausting to additionally see comparisons to an iconic Christmas film. The driving force quickens when Bob hits the fuel and crosses the freeway lane to go the truck. Bob tries to go quicker, which the truck does too, and he nearly will get right into a wreckage when Bob narrowly avoids an oncoming plow. Bob lastly will get to go, ending a scene much like Duel, which additionally resembles the opening of Christmas Trip with a darker twist. In that vacation traditional, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) makes an attempt to go a truck of rednecks, who velocity as much as antagonize him. The back-and-forth aggression ends with Clark ultimately getting his automobile, occupied along with his household, caught beneath an 18-wheeler.

It’s the humorous moments that assist thaw the icy rigidity. However whereas Duel hides its driver, the ultimate minutes of “Christmas within the Automobile” reveal the truck driver and why he’s such a hothead with a brief fuse. Linda is on the prepared. “Come on, punk!” she shouts. This isn’t Duel although. The driving force is ticked off by highway rage after spending a lonely Christmas Eve on the freeway. Bob de-escalates the state of affairs. He simply has to take a punch to the intestine to take action. When everybody will get house, the youngsters are excited that their lure has labored, but it surely solely caught the unsuitable cookie eater. Teddy will get himself caught within the Santa lure the youngsters put collectively within the fridge and causes the fridge to topple over in his battle to be free. Clearly, we all know our favourite burger-loving household cannot be in too a lot peril, however holding off to disclose this till the tip makes for an successfully creepy vacation episode that pays homage to an underrated Spielberg thriller.

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