The Lost Bots and the Claw Crusade

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Also known as The Quest for the Cannoli Grail
"The Lost Bots and the Claw Crusade"
Production company	Entertainment One
Airdate	March 25, 2022
Writer	Alan Denton & Greg Hahn
Directors	Paul O'Flanagan
Animation studio	Boulder Media Studio
Watch this episode on Netflix

Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?

Synopsis

The Lost Bots are hanging out in the arcade, where Kikmee is absolutely dominating everyone at every game they play. Their spree of free games comes courtesy of the fast-talking, super-shiny game-token-bot 24K-Bit, who offers to let them play any game in the place. Oh yeah! Kikmee is becoming bored with her winning streak, but then Clogstopper points out a machine in the corner under a tarp... a claw machine game! Kikmee is immediately enraptured by the lone plush snake in the pile of moldering teddy bears. Burgertron, however, is drawn to an old flier attached to the machine for the long-gone Costa Pasta restaurant; Spud Muffin used to talk of the legendary eatery and a mythical collector's cup that would grant its owner special powers. While Dimlit is enthralled and Burgertron hopes solving the mystery will get them back into the other BotBots' good graces, the other three are content to stay in the arcade tonight... besides, Kikmee really wants that snake.

Burgertron and Dimlit look up Costa Pasta's old location on the mall directory, their first clue to the cup's location. While the storefront had been sealed up ages ago, Burgertron knows another way to get in, taking the employee halls until they find the boarded-up door for C109. Burgertron is stymied by the "ancient" keypad that keeps the door locked, and scoffs at Dimlit's suggestion of trying "C109". He then proceeds to use a home-made fingerprint dusting kit to check for the buttons pressed the most often... the buttons "C" "1" "0" and "9". Ahem.

Back at the arcade, Kikmee is still fighting the claw machine, having been unable to dislodge her prize, much to her increasingly volatile aggravation. 24K-Bit pops up to give her a little advice: claw machine games are basically rigged, with there not being enough pressure in the claws to get a good grip. Kikmee, however, sees this as just another challenge to overcome, and demands 24K get back in the machine for another hundred attempts or so.

Inside the abandoned kitchen of the Costa Pasta, Burgertron and Dimlit make their way through the twenty-six different deadly challenges, crossing deep-fat-fryers, filthy sinks and more to finally make it to the brick oven home of the cup's guardian, Disgusto Desserto. After taking a little mild criticism about the sheer number of challenges, the cannoli-bot presents the pair with the collector's cup, resting in a shrine made of take-home boxes, then wanders off to go do something else with his life, over there somewhere. As Burgertron removes the cup, the shrine collapses, and the kitchen begins to tremble! The two dash through a whole new gauntlet of deadly traps and falling ceiling tiles, barely escaping a massive boulder of ricotta cheese, only to fall into a vat of sprinkles. Unable to free themselves, they read the words on the collector's cup, hoping its amazing secret powers would reveal themselves to them... and those powers turn out to be getting free soda refills during the month of February 1997. The pair are resigned to their doom, but then Kikmee and the other bots arrive, using the plush snake as a rope to free the two! The six run for it, only barely making it into the employee hallway before the door slams shut, locked once again.

Burgertron sighs, feeling he's wasted his time and risked his life retrieving a useless cup, but Kikmee convinces him to keep it. After all, it might come in handy some day. And 24K-Bit celebrates a happy ending. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

BotBots
Kikmee (1) Burgertron (2) Clogstopper (3) Bonz-Eye (4) Dimlit (5) 24K-Bit (6) Spud Muffin (7) Disgusto Desserto (8)

Quotes

"Look. We all love your big, life-changing shenanigans, but we were kinda hoping to just chill tonight."

—Bonz-Eye is not interested in adventure tonight

"While nobody knows the exact coordinates of the collector's cup, this old flier has our first clue! Costa Pasta's former mall store number! C109!"
"...there is no C109! *gasp* And there never was!"
"Uh, no, no, there was. It, it says it here."
"Oh, oh right, yeah, you just said that."

—Burgertron and Dimlit start their quest

Kikmee: This doesn't make sense! I am a natural at every game I play! What is this feeling?! This feeling of not instantly being the best at something?!
Bonz-Eye: Humility?
Clogstopper: The lingering sense you've already peaked and it's all downhill?

"Maybe it's time for a mental health break! Ain't no shame in pausin' that game!"
"GET BACK IN THAT COIN SLOT."
"Yes ma'am. Wahoo."

—24K-Bit's advice to Kikmee is re-jected! Oh yeah!

Dimlit: Thank you, oh wise but lazy caretaker.
Burgertron: We shall respect this chalice's great power, and wield it only when compelled by the forces of good. Also when we feel like showing off.
Disgusto Desserto: Yeah, sure. Whatevs. Not my problem anymore. Peace out, y'all.

Notes

Continuity notes

• The Costa Pasta mascot being a cannoli-robot that looks like a younger version of Disgusto Desserto raises some questions, all probably best not thought about too hard.

Real-world references

"24K-Bit can never die! Only the actors who play him!"

• 24K-Bit's mannerisms are inspired by Duffman, the loud-talking party-times mascot of Duff Beer from The Simpsons. Oh yeah!
• He's totally right about the claw machine games, by the way.
• According to writer Greg Hahn, Costa Pasta is based on a "legendary" New Jersey mall food court staple called Roli Boli, which closed way back around the turn of the millennium. As they wouldn't be able to use the actual name for legal reasons, he and co-writer Alan Denton suggested the close-enough name "Holi Cannoli" (which is why Disgusto Desserto was chosen as the caretaker), but that name apparently didn't pass legal either, leading them to settle on Costa Pasta instead.
• The Costa Pasta sequences are a broad parody of the Indiana Jones film franchise. Disgusto Desserto's role recalls the knight guarding the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The escape from the collapsing restaurant takes cues and scenes from the iconic opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark; Burgertron even reaches back into the closing door to retrieve his dropped bun, just as Indiana does for his dropped hat in that sequence. The rescue from sinking in a sprinkles vat by using a snake as a rope echoes a similar rescue from quicksand in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

BotBots cypher translations

• The text on the back of the Costa Pasta cup is... exactly what Dimlit says it is. Well, almost exactly. Numbers aren't part of the cypher, but having a plainly-readable "1997" would spoil the joke. Thus "1997" is actually rendered as "lkke".

Animation and technical errors

• International credits for the episode identifies the caretaker as The Plop Father while the descriptive audio identifies him as Disgusto Desserto. According to showrunner Chris Wyatt, the character was based on Disgusto Desserto, despite the significant differences in character design. Hahn confirmed this, noting that Desserto's name was the one written on the script and that he and Denton "would've taken a much different approach with a mafia guy" had the Plop Father been chosen as the caretaker instead.

Trivia

• The music playing over the end credits is an extended mix of 24K-Bit's theme tune.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "La machine à pinces" ("The claw machine")

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Os robôs perdidos e a última jogada" ("The lost bots and the last play")

European Portuguese

• Title: "Os robôs perdidos e a grande jogada" ("The lost bots and the big play")

Arabic

• Title: "روبوتات بوت بوت التائهة والخطّاف" ("The lost botbots and the claw")

Indonesian

• Title: "Robot yang Hilang dan Perjuangan dengan Penyepit" ("The Lost Robots and the Struggle with Claw")