Rabbot (episode)

"Rabbot" is the first episode of the animated series Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It was first broadcast on December 30, 2000, unannounced, at 5:00 AM, almost six months before Adult Swim officially premiered. The show was listed on the official schedule as "Special Programming" and was aired with two episodes of Sealab 2021 and an unfinished Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law pilot.

Plot

Dr. Weird unveils his newest invention, Rabbot, a titanic robotic rabbit, to solve the “vegetable problem”. Dr Weird then sprays Rabbot in the face with French perfume “because that’s how it happened to me”, causing Rabbot to go berserk, break out of Dr. Weird’s laboratory, and flatten Carl’s car. The next morning, Carl notices his flattened car. Master Shake comes out to solve the mystery of Carl’s car, and after examining the crime scene for a brief moment, he concludes, “Meteors did it”, and charges Carl $20. Frylock then comes out to teleport Carl to work. Carl reasserts that he works out of home, so the teleportation beam simply flings Carl onto the roof of his house. The two Aqua Teens then proceed to “solve the rest of this mystery from Carl’s pool”, against Carl‘s demands. There, Shake says that the culprit “is someone who is jealous of Carl’s ability to drive”, and goes to wake Meatwad. Meatwad, upon being awaked, beg

ins to dance to his jam box, prompting Shake to stomp it, saying, “Dancing is forbidden”. The Aqua Teens loiter once again in Carl’s pool, where Shake loses all his enthusiasm he had for this mission and wishes to close it, but Frylock reminds him of the danger the culprit poses. Meatwad is then hitched to the Aqua Teens’ mode of transportation, the Danger Cart. After a mishap with the garage door which Frylock resolves by blowing it up, and the Aqua Teens head for the mall (Shake says that “a woman did it” despite his earlier conclusion). However, Rabbot has already rampaged the mall, spraying whatever it does not smash with a strange hair growing formula. The Aqua Teens make it to the mall, where Frylock discovers a mountain of evidence from Rabbot’s rampage. There, Frylock continues to investigate. As the Aqua Teens return home, they head through downtown and notice Rabbot rampaging through the city and spray buildings with his hair growing formula. Shake is sprayed with the spray, causing him to grow long hair and abandon the mission for a perm. Frylock blasts him with his lasers, but they reflect of his body and burns Shake’s hair off. It is Meatwad that stops Rabbot by playing his jam box, causing Rabbot to dance along to the music. The Aqua Teens then regroup at Carl’s pool, where Shake says that Rabbot (who is still dancing to the music from Meatwad’s jam box) has made downtown unsafe and they must find some new restaurants and nightclubs. Carl then demands them out of his pool.

Stealth Pilot
In the original, December 30 "stealth" broadcast of this episode, there were many differences from the final cut. There was no theme song or opening titles, the segues that cut to another scene were also different - instead of Schooly D narrating over some rap music, they showed the old "outer space zoom" segue from the Hanna-Barbera Superfriends cartoon, with the ATHF (instrumental) theme music played over it.

In the cold open, after the Rabbot escapes, Dr. Weird says "Unleash the mechanical frog!" and the giant garage door opens again, showing a huge mechanical frog. There was also a scene of Master Shake sitting in the hair salon talking about things he hates. After Meatwad says "everyone likes dancing" it cuts to Shake getting his hair done and saying "..And I HATE dancing. It's one of my LEAST favorite things to do. Other things I hate are work, exercise, people, stupid people—".

This stealth broadcast was more refined than the "Rabbot - The Original Cut", found on the ATHF Volume 1 DVD and has never been aired since the premiere.

Cast
Note: Schoolly D's narration always goes uncredited.

Trivia

 * In this episode the producers used a number of different backgrounds cut straight out of various Hanna-Barbera cartoons, such as the city background behind the Aqua Teens' and Carl's houses, which are from SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron. The "Powerpuff Mall" is taken from the pilot episode of The Powerpuff Girls - "Meat Fuzzy Lumkins".
 * The hole the Rabbot creates is later on used as an escape hole for many monsters that Dr. Weird creates. Likewise, a similar hole can be seen on the Powerpuff Mall in every episode that features it sans the episode, "Super Spore".
 * Frylock sounds a bit robotic in this episode. He also answers to Shake's whims (no matter how illogical), which he later tends to ignore.
 * Shake's comment, "Dancing is forbidden" is sampled in the theme song and ending sequence since its debut. Televised Closed Captioning often translates this sample as "F-f-finger Puppets".
 * Meatwad's room is radically different in this episode than when it is seen in all following episodes.
 * In this episode, the voice work is noticeably out-of-sync with the mouth animations.
 * The theme song from Army of Darkness is also played as Frylock throws Carl up and onto his house.
 * Frylock sometimes hovers in a circular motion in this episode.
 * The intro has a sound effect for forwarding the camera to Master Shake, as with the next episode.
 * In this episode, the Danger Cart is green instead of red
 * In the Perfume store the Rabbot terrorized, there is a large plack visible on the wall in the backround. It says, "BLEU JEANS". An intentional misspelling for "BLUE JEANS".