Professor Farnsworth decides to take the Planet Express crew on a space cruise as a way of saying thanks for not reporting his numerous violations of safety and minimum wage laws. Unfortunately, the ship he chooses is the Titanic. Once on the trip, Fry begins fake-dating Leela and Amy to fool Zapp Brannigan and the Wongs, and Bender falls in love with a wealthy robot.
Tropes present:
- Adhesive Bow Tie: Bender wears a bow tie attached to his metal body with a magnet. After deciding against robbing a rich fembot, he throws it away in frustration and it sticks to a wall.
- Adults Dressed as Children: A sight gag has an extreme closeup of the Professor's face as he says that luckily there are enough lifeboats on the Titanic so no one would have to dress as women and children, with a Reveal Shot zooming out so we see that he's wearing a propeller beanie and holding a lollipop.
- Almost Kiss: Despite the fake kisses between Leela and Fry, the two almost share a genuine one, but are interrupted by the Titanic beginning to get sucked into a black hole.
- Benevolent Boss: Subverted: while the Professor does pay for the whole crew to come on the Titanic, it's only as a bribe so they don't report his "countless violations of health, safety and minimum wage laws".
- Big "NO!": Hermes yells one of these in a flashback when a boy injures himself trying to go under a limbo bar that's too low.
- Boyfriend Bluff: Fry poses as Leela's fiancé and Amy's boyfriend to fend off Zapp's advances and Amy's parents' meddling, respectively.
- Brick Joke: Kif and Amy are both attracted to each other at first sight. It'll be two seasons before this is referenced again.
- Characterization Marches On: Amy's parents fully support Kif and Amy getting together in this episode, while in later episodes they despise him and find him a poor fit for their daughter. Though they did assume he was captain and therefore of high status and then later found out he wasn't. Also, Amy's parents have a much firmer grasp on the English language than they do in later episodes, even though they still speak with prominent Chinese accents.
- Chekhov's Skill: Hermes is revealed to be a limbo champion, which helps him get past an emergency door that Zoidberg holds barely above the floor.
- Dirty Coward: Zapp Brannigan, being the arrogant fool that he is, decides to needlessly go off-course through a field of comets. To get away from the field of comets he flies the ship toward a black hole. After realizing he has doomed the ship, he proclaims the captain must go down with his ship, then promotes Kif to captain and takes an Escape Pod.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Zoidberg gets to sleep in first class while Amy is sent to the Fiesta Deck with Fry, Leela, and Bender. If this was a later episode Amy would probably have had her own room in first class and Zoidberg would have been down on the Fiesta Deck with Fry and the others — or more likely Amy would swap rooms with Zoidberg, given that Amy's ruse about her dating Fry would quickly fall apart if she and her parents were on the same deck.
- Escape Pod: Unlike the actual Titanic story, there are enough escape pods to safely evacuate the doomed ship.
- Fake-Out Make-Out: One between Leela and Fry to trick Zapp into thinking they're dating. Also, one later between Amy and Fry to trick Amy's parents.
- Flexibility Equals Sex Ability: After Professor Farnsworth takes part in the limbo contest, he remarks that it found him some action. Hattie McDoogal likes a man who's flexible. Apparently, at her age, a man who even tries to limbo counts even if he can't actually do it at all.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Countess de la Roca lets go of the escape pod the Planet Express crew are on board to allow it to escape the black hole she was eventually sucked into.
- Homage: The episode is a retelling of the story of Titanic (1997)... IN SPACE!
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place:Fry: Yeah, I'm never going to another planet called Cannibalon!Bender: Me, neither! The food was good, though.
- If I Do Not Return: Bender says this when he decides to go back to save the Countess:Fry: You're going back for the Countess, aren't you?Bender: Alright I am, but I don't want the others to know! If I don't come back, just say I died robbing some old man.Fry: I'll tell 'em you went out prying the wedding ring off his cold, dead finger.Bender: [hugging Fry] I love you, buddy!
- I Want Grandkids: Amy's parents want her to breed with someone as soon as possible.
- Living Crash Pad: When the Countess de la Roca crashes through the deck on the Titanic, a family breaks her fall. She apparently weighs two metric tons, so it's likely that they didn't get back up.
- Moment Killer: The black hole that sucks up the Titanic interrupts Fry & Leela's kiss.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Bender refuses to pay for some drinks at the bar. Two guards immediately emerge from the floor and are told to rough him up by the barman.
- Off the Rails: This Titanic journey was specifically planned to be straightforward and safe, unlike the original Titanic disaster, ...which again becomes a mirror of it due to Zapp getting bored and drastically changing the flight path, resulting in its destruction.
- Promoted to Scapegoat: See Dirty Coward above.
- Repeat Cut: Done to absurd lengths in the episode's Cold Open when Farnsworth announces to the crew where they're going on company vacation.
- Rising Water, Rising Tension: Parodied — Bender and the Countess panic when the room they're in starts flooding with water... and then when they're fully submerged, they're reminded of the fact that they're robots and don't need to breathe.Countess: (after a brief pause) So now what do you wanna do?
- Sexy Discretion Shot: One scene with Bender and the Countess parodies the sex scene from James Cameron's Titanic (1997).
- Ship Tease:
- Leela first pretend that Fry is her fiancé, then they have a fake kiss, but Fry apparently enjoy it, making Freudian Slip such as "romantic" for "platonic". Meanwhile Leela looks jealous when she sees Fry having Fake-Out Make-Out with Amy as well. Finally Fry and Leela Almost Kiss (for real), until the ship being sucked in the blackhole interrupt them. It's one of the first major Foreshadowing that will eventually lead to their Relationship Upgrade, way later.
- Kif and Amy meet in the very last minutes of the episode, but it goes well despite Amy's parents chose him in the first place. It's apparently Love at First Sight, as they kiss on the spot. It'll take more than a year to see each other again, but it's a certain Foreshadowing of them ending eventually Happily Married.
- Shout-Out:
- iZak the bartenderbot is both a reference to Isaac the bartender from The Love Boat, and the iMac computer, which had debuted the previous year.
- Zapp calls himself "the Velour Fog"; Mel Tormé's nickname was "the Velvet Fog".
- When Amy, Leela, and Fry try to figure out how to keep both of their fake dates intact at the same time, Fry claims he can figure it out because he watched Three's Company. When things start to go wrong, Fry starts to sing the theme song to himself for ideas.
- While the episode is largely a Whole-Plot Reference to Titanic (1997), its title is actually a reference to an earlier Titanic film, A Night to Remember.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Leela, Fry and Bender try to do this after narrowly escaping another delivery with their lives, though they change their minds when the Professor offers the trip.
- Tempting Fate: No one sees any problems with naming a luxury cruise liner Titanic. They even christen it by smashing Leonardo DiCaprio's head in a jar on the hull.
- This Is Reality: Fry tries to console Bender after the Countess is sucked into the black hole by saying that it's possible that she's still alive in another dimension and then asks the Professor to back him up on that. The Professor does, only to quietly tell Zoidberg that there's no chance and she's almost certainly dead.
- Trauma Conga Line: At least for Bender, who loses the love of a rich woman ... and the gem she left behind was fake.
- Tuckerization: The Countess de la Roca is named for writer Claudia De La Roca.
- Wealthy Yacht Owner: The Countess de la Roca doesn't just own a yacht, she is a yacht.
- When He Smiles: Bender's robot mouth manages to form a smile when he realizes he is in love with the Countess.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Titanic (1997).
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Fry thinks like Jack Tripper in Three's Company will get him out of the dilemna of having two fake dates at once. The problem is that the people he needs to convince of the ruse are all at the same table at the exact same time, so it's beyond the scope of a typical comedy of errors.
