I still have flashbacks of the last time I saw any of Forrest Gump.

The war on Arra-FUCKING-KIS!

I can.

If there's any plus side for him in all of this, it's that his running is certain to attract a worm that will make swift work of him before dehydration can do its work.

…you know, if it was between Stewart and McKellen for who could best take over for Nicol Williamson.
Yeah, Stewart. Hands down.

NO SHITPOSTS!
NO SHITPOSTS!

The absolute BEST I can think to give him is that this debacle may serve as the basis for publishing the presidential guidebook 'Don't Do What Donny Don't Does'

…it scares me how right that is.

Much as I like Del Toro, I'm not sure here.
He'd get the robots part down, but there's also the sizable wuxia component (not AS big a love letter as Giant Robo, but it's still prominent.)

Albeit with a certain macabre aspect care of Howard Hughes giving a large chunk of the cast and crew cancer with radioactive dirt.

'pretty explicitly' nothing. It's outright stated within the story pretty early on, care of that flashback where it's talked about by traffickers how rare Mikasa and her mother are for being Asian.

A pretty terrible businessman too.
Now that he doesn't have his usual business handlers to keep an eye on the money, that's becoming a lot more apparent.

To this day, there's a part of me that envisions an alternate cut of that ending, in slow-mo, with some dirtied film stock, comprised of scenes of Ewoks killing stormtroopers and that celebration…all set to the theme to Cannibal Holocaust.

The interesting thing for me is that he's not the only authority figure to make that slide.

I'm still trying to figure out if there's been any time AD managed to get darker than this third arc.

"I'm no good for you, Steve. I'm gonna go to Seaworld and punch out a dolphin!"

"…the piercings and the robot are gone by tomorrow or this hole becomes your grave!" — I don't know why, but I still love that THAT is the line they close the ep on.

It actually does turn into that at points, yeah.
See - the running gag in the Christmas episodes where the 'improved' present involved a dead Klaus mounted on the wall, and his genuinely pretty funny gag from Ricky Spanish:
"Ha ha! I made it into the episode! Pay me, bitches!"

The first couple of seasons are pretty rough, but there's still a few gems peppered throughout, as well as the fact a couple of the later episodes make callbacks to a couple of earlier ones (not mentioned on this list but notable - Bullocks to Stan, With Friends Like Steve's, Stan of Arabia, Camp Ra-foo-gee)

My favorite Patrick Stewart go-to still goes to:
"Steve Smith! Ricky Spanish! We're doing cocaine and firing guns! JOIN US!"