The Honking

Plot

As part of his late uncle Vladimir's last will, Bender must spend the night in his family's sinister old castle near Thermostadt, the capital of the Robo-Hungarian Empire, in order to inherit it. However, the castle's holographic "robot ghosts" cause him to flee out into the night, where he is run over by a mysterious non-hover car.

After returning to New New York, Bender begins to experience nightmares and blackouts, and believes that the car has followed him home. In the city, mysterious tire tracks are discovered at places where Bender has been. Worried, he seeks "professional help" from a coin-operated Gypsy Bot machine. It informs him that he was run over by a "werecar", the robotic equivalent of a werewolf, and has thus become one himself. He is cursed to keep running people over and eventually kill his best friend. The only thing that can lift the curse is the destruction of the original werecar. That night, Bender indeed turns into a sedan and goes after Leela. This angers Fry, who takes it as a sign that Bender does not consider him to be his best friend.

After narrowly surviving Bender's nocturnal rampage, the crew returns to the village near Vladimir's castle. From there, they follow a trail of various bizarre werecars, until they ultimately find the original werecar: Project Satan, a demonic car built a thousand years earlier from parts of the most evil cars in history.

Bender once again transforms, and this time goes after Fry, which overjoys him as he sees it as proof that he is Bender's best friend after all. Project Satan accidentally drives into a large furnace, destroying himself and lifting the curse. The episode ends with Bender strangling Fry for taking his last beer.

Production

Calculon's claim that he was all of "history's greatest acting robots" is a subtle reference to the immortal Mr. Flint from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Requiem for Methuselah".

Reception

In Doug Pratt's DVD Pratt noted that this episode had an "extremely witty plot turn".