Futurama (TV series - season 2)

The title comes from the famous RMS Titanic docu-pic A Night to Remember

Summary

Acting as the honorary captain for Titanic's first voyage, Zapp Brannigan christens the ship by breaking the jar containing Leonardo DiCaprio's head against her hull. As the Planet Express team boards, they are stopped by Brannigan, who continues his futile effort to seduce Leela for a second time. In an attempt to avoid Brannigan's unwanted advances, Leela claims she is engaged to Fry.

After losing big at the craps table, Bender meets a sophisticated female robot, the Countess de LaRoca. Meanwhile, on the bridge, Brannigan plots a new course for the ship, leading through a swarm of comets. At the buffet, Amy unexpectly runs into her parents, Leo and Inez Wong, who immediately attempt to set Amy up with an unattractive fat man. In order to redirect her parents' attention, Amy claims Fry is her boyfriend.

Bender continues romancing the Countess, in several scenes that are a blatant parody of the movie Titanic.

The Planet Express crew sits down to dinner, with both Zapp Brannigan, and Amy's parents present. However, before the fake relationships are exposed, Kif calls Brannigan back to the bridge. His new course has placed the ship in danger. Unfortunately, his attempt to correct the problem results in the ship flying toward a black hole.

Brannigan abandons ship, leaving Kif to go down with the ship. Bender heads off to save the Countess, while the rest of the crew makes their way to the escape pods.

After waiting as long as they could for Bender, the crew launches the escape pod. Bender leaps from the Titanic, Countess in tow. He grabs the escape pod, but his grip slips, and the Countess is sent tumbling into the black hole.

Quotes

Mars University

Note: this episode features an alternate version of the opening theme song.

Summary

The Planet Express crew's latest mission is to deliver a crate to Professor Farnsworth's office at Mars University. While touring the campus, Bender comes across a chapter of his old fraternity, Epsilon Rho Rho (ERR). The nerdy fraternity brothers beg Bender for his help in the art of being cool.

Fry finds out that his 20th century college drop-out status translates to him being 31st century high school drop-out. Knowing this, he vows to enroll, and drop out all over again.

In a scene straight from Animal House, Bender and the Robot House boys climb a ladder to peek in a girl's dorm window. A mishap with Bender's extensible eyes causes them to fall and crush Snooty House's servants quarters.

Fry gets a room in the financial aid dorm, and finds his roommate Guenter is an intelligent monkey wearing an undersized hat. The Professor enters, and reveals that Guenter was the content of the crate, and that the electronium hat is the source of Guenter's intelligence.

Bender and the Robot House members get called before Dean Vernon, who places them on dodecetuple secret probation.

At the parents' reception, Fry humiliates Guenter by releasing Guenter's unintelligent parents from their cage. Later, Guenter expresses his unhappiness at his current life. At the 20th century history exam, the stress finally becomes too much for him, and he tosses the hat aside, jumps out the window, and into the martian jungle.

While Fry, Leela, and the Professor head off into the jungle to find Guenter, Robot House enters the fraternity raft regatta in a bid to lift their probation status.

When Guenter is found, the Professor offers him the hat, and Fry offers him a symbolic banana. Before Guenter can decide, Robot House speeds past with Bender on water skis. The boat's wake washes ashore and drags the humans into the river and towards a waterfall. Guenter puts the hat on and rescues them, but in the process the hat is damaged. Guenter announces that he likes the new reduced-capacity hat, and that he's decided to transfer to business school.

Meanwhile, Robot House wins the regatta, and a parade in their honor is held, lead by an unhappy Dean Vernon.

Quotes

Professor Farnsworth: [In an empty classroom] ...And so by process of elimination we can determine that the electron tastes like grapeade.

When Aliens Attack

Summary

The episode opens in the year 1999, with Fry making a pizza delivery to the control booth of WNYW, New York's Fox affiliate. While there, Fry spills beer on the console, interrupting the broadcast of Single Female Lawyer (a spoof of Ally McBeal). As the technician panics, Fry ominously states "Like anyone on Earth cares." The camera pulls back from the broadcast tower, away from Earth, and through the depths of space, settling on Omicron Persei 8, a thousand light-years away.

Back on Earth, the Planet Express crew decides to take a trip to Monument Beach, where most of the world's monuments now stand. While there, flying saucers arrive and blast the monuments to rubble. Lrrr, ruler of Omicron Persei 8, demands that the Earth produce "the one called McNeal". President McNeal, fearing for his own safety, orders Zapp Brannigan to lead an assault against the alien invaders.

After the attack ends in disaster, Earth's government hands over President McNeal. Lrrr announces that he is the wrong McNeal, and vaporizes the President. Lrrr shows the world a photo of the McNeal they want, and Fry recognizes her as Jenny McNeal, main character of Single Female Lawyer.

The Omicronians demand the broadcast of the television show, or they will destroy the Earth. Unfortunately, most videotapes were destroyed in 2443, during the second coming of Jesus. The Planet Express crew decides to fake the show in order to save the world.

Fry's script comes up short, and Leela (as Jenny), is forced to improvise. She proposes marriage to the judge (played by Professor Farnsworth). An aggravated Fry tells Bender (the camera) to go to commercial. Fry tells Leela that people don't watch TV for clever and unexpected situation, and Lrrr makes a public statement backing up Fry's assertation.

Fry quickly writes an ending where the judge dies, leaving Jenny McNeal as a single female lawyer. The Omicronians, satisfied with the ending, leave Earth to watch a one thousand year old Jay Leno monologue. However, they refuse to tell the humans the secret of immortality.

Quotes

Fry: Now just read these cue cards.(...)
:Professor Farnsworth [acting as the judge]: Miss McNeal, I'm afraid I must decline your offer of marriage, for you see, I'm dying. Cough, then fall over dead.
:Zoidberg [as the prosecutor]: My god, he's dead.
:Professor Farnsworth: *checks pulse*

Fry and the Slurm Factory

Production code: 1ACV13

First aired: 1999-11-14

Written by: Lewis Morton

Directed by: Ron Hughart

Opening Subtitle: LIVE FROM OMICRON PERSEI 8

Celebrity guest voice

Synopsis

Summary

Bender walks in sick, and Professor Farnsworth uses it as an excuse to test his experimental "F-ray", a device that enables people to look inside anything. After repairing Bender, the professor leaves the F-ray in the custody of Fry and Bender. After trying the F-ray out on random objects, Fry realizes that they could use the F-ray to scan Slurm cans for the golden bottlecap. After checking thousands of cans, they give up on finding the winning can, and return the F-ray. Fry settles in to relax with a Slurm, and chokes on the bottlecap.

Cut to Wormulon, where the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory spoof begins as the Planet Express crew arrives at Slurm Centralized Industrial Fabrication Unit. The crew takes a riverboat tour down a river of Slurm through the factory. Overwhelmed with thirst, Fry tries to drink from the river, and falls in. Leela dives in to save him, and Bender joins them for no good reason. The three are sucked into a whirlpool and deposited in a cave under the factory.

Under the factory, they discover that the factory they toured was a fake. Making their way through the tunnels, they discover Slurm's true nature: it is a secretion from a giant worm, the Slurm Queen. They are discovered and captured by the worms. The three are placed into overcomplicated death traps and left unguarded. They escape, but are pursued by the Slurm Queen. Slurms MacKenzie, exhausted from his years of partying, arrives and sacrifices himself to save Fry, Leela, and Bender.

The crew escapes to safety, but Fry keep the nature of Slurm a secret so that it can continue to be produced.

Quotes

I Second That Emotion

The title comes from the Smokey Robinson song, "I Second That Emotion".

Summary

Bender, annoyed with Nibbler, flushes the animal down the toilet. Leela is distraught at Bender's inability to understand the emotions of others. Professor Farnsworth proposes a solution: installing an empathy chip in Bender's head that will cause him to feel other people's emotions. After forcibly installing the chip, the chip is tuned to pick up Leela's emotions.

After a night of experiencing Leela's feelings, Bender flushes himself in pursuit of Nibbler. Fry and Leela enter the sewers, and quickly find Bender. Unfortunately, they also find a crowd of mutants. The mutants introduce them to their subterranean civilization. They also reveal that a monster called El Chupanibre has been terrorizing the mutants.

Leela, thinking that Nibbler is the monster, offers herself as a sacrifice. Unfortunately, El Chupanibre is actually a very large reptilian monster. Leela is forced to contain her emotions so that Bender can fight off the fearsome creature.

Quotes

:Leela: There's no such thing as mutants. That's a ridiculous urban myth.
:Farnsworth: Oh, don't be so sure. Many scientists believe humans really could mutate down there. Uh, due to exposure to toxic waste and radioactive runoff and good old American feces.
:Fry: (holding his hand to his heart) God bless America.

:Fry: We better watch out for sewer gators. I once heard of people flushing gators down into the sewers.
:Female Mutant: That's just a sub-urban legend.
:Fry: Then what are those? (Points at gators.)
:Female Mutant: Crocodiles.

Brannigan Begin Again

The title quotes a common phrase from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

Summary

The Planet Express crew arrives at the new Democratic Order of Planets (DOOP) headquarters in orbit around the Neutral homeworld, in order to delivery the oversized scissors for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Zapp Brannigan arrests them as assassins, and shortly thereafter destroys the entire station.

At the former DOOP headquarters in Weehawken, New Jersey, Zapp Brannigan is court-martialed and both he and Kif Kroker are both dismissed from DOOP service. Unable to find employement, the pair wander the streets until they finally arrive at the Planet Express building. Leela tries to turn them away, but Professor Farnsworth decides hiring Brannigan would be good for the company's public image.

The augmented crew is sent to deliver pillows to a hotel on Stumbos 4, a high-gravity planet. Fry, Bender, and Zapp decide to deliver all the pillows at once, which in the intense gravity causes the dolly to collapse. As punishment, Leela orders them to deliver the pillows by hand, which causes resentment among the crew.

Fry, Bender, and Zapp stage a mutiny against Leela, and lock her in the laundry room. Brannigan decides to attack the Neutral homeworld, thinking this will make him a hero and get him reinstated as a DOOP captain. However, when Fry and Bender discover the plan is a literal suicide mission, they free Leela, and she retakes command.

After returning to Earth, Leela testifies that Brannigan was an amazing hero, so the DOOP will reinstate Brannigan, and thus keep him out of her life.

Quotes

A Head in the Polls

Celebrity guest voice

Synopsis

Summary

Now merely a head with a pile of cash, Bender begins enjoying his new lifestyle. During a trip to the Hall of Presidents in the New New York Head Museum, Richard Nixon's head ruins Bender's illusions about the glamor of a life without a body. The next day Bender heads off to the pawn shop to retrieve his body, but it has been sold. Bender's body is quickly located when Nixon's head announces its candidacy for President of Earth, using Bender's body to escape a Constitutional provision that "nobody can be elected more than twice" (wording that is not in the current 22nd Amendment).

Fry, Leela, and Bender's head take off to Washington, D.C to stop Nixon and recover Bender's body. Directly confronting Nixon fails to recover Bender's body, so the crew infiltrates Nixon's room at the Watergate Hotel. Leela successfully separates the sleeping head from the robot body, but Fry accidentally wakes Nixon. Confronting the intruders, Nixon begins ranting about his future plans for Earth. His millennium as a head in a jar has caused him to go mad, and his domestic policy has followed suit. However, Bender's head has recorded the conversation. Knowing that the tape would ruin his election chances if released, Nixon trades the body for the tape.

On election day, Nixon wins by a single vote. He regained the robot vote by replacing Bender's body with a giant war robot, and Leela forgot to vote against him. The episode ends with Nixon on a rampage through the capital, escorted by Secret Service agents.

Quotes

Bender: Not so fast, Nixon. Are you familiar with 'audio tape'? *rewinds*
:Richard Nixon: Uh oh. I don't like where this is heading...

Xmas Story

Production code: 2ACV04

First aired: 1999-12-19

Written by: David X. Cohen

Directed by: Peter Avanzino

Opening Subtitle: Based on a true Story

Celebrity guest voices

Note: this episode takes place on December 24, 3000.

Summary

Fry decides to venture into the city to buy Leela a present. The others warn him to be back before sundown, or else he will be killed by a murderous robotic Santa Claus. Meanwhile, Bender befriends several homeless robots and they go on a robbery spree.

Fry buys Leela a parrot, which escapes. Leela heads out to rescue Fry from himself before Santa Claus arrives. After pursuing the parrot to the top of a tall building, he is saved from plunging to his death by Leela. Unfortunately, Fry's safety is short-lived, as Santa makes his entrance and opens fire.

Fry, Leela, Bender, and the other robots take refuge in the Planet Express building, but Santa breaks in through the chimney. Thanks to some quick thinking by Dr. Zoidberg (the only employee to not be judged naughty), Santa is forced back into the chimney, where an explosion sends him and his mechanical reindeer tumbling into the stratosphere.

Quotes

Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love

The title comes from the Dion song "Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love?"

Summary

Amy and Leela drag Fry and Bender to the gym, and Dr. Zoidberg tags along. While at the gym, Zoidberg begins behaving erratically and aggressively. Back at the laboratory, Professor Farnsworth examines a restrained Zoidberg, and determines that it's his species' mating season.

The crew flies to Zoidberg's home planet, Decapod 10. After a short tour, Zoidberg sets up a mound on the beach and begins trying to attract a mate. After an unsuccessful day of trying to attract a mate, Zoidberg meets Edna, an old classmate. She rejects him as well, leaving Zoidberg in a state of depression.

Fry begins teaching Zoidberg the ways of faking being in love, and Zoidberg uses the techniques on Edna, with some success. While at a restaurant, Leela reveals to Edna that Fry is responsible for the change in Zoidberg.

Under the pretext of discussing Zoidberg, Edna invites Fry to her apartment and begins an unsuccessful attempt at seducing him. Zoidberg walks in, sees them embracing, and immediately challenges Fry to Claw Plach, a ritual fight to the death.

In the arena, Fry is about to defeat Zoidberg, but cannot kill his friend. Unfortunately, Zoidberg doesn't feel the same way and cuts Fry's arm off. After more fighting, Fry and Zoidberg look up to discover the entire Decapodian audience has left. The time of the mating frenzy had arrived, and Zoidberg missed it. However, he has also missed a gruesome death, as his species dies after mating.

Quotes

Fry: Now, ask her how her day was.
:Zoidberg: Why would I want to know?
:Fry: You wouldn't, ask anyway!

Zoidberg: I'm confused Fry. I'm feeling a strange new emotion. Is it love when you care about a female for reasons beyond mating?
:Fry: Nope. Must be some weird alien emotion.

Put Your Head on My Shoulder

Production code: 2ACV07

First aired 2000-02-13

Written by: Ken Keeler

Directed by: Chris Louden

Opening Subtitle: THE SHOW THAT WATCHES BACK

Summary

With Valentine's Day approaching, Bender decides to start a computer dating service. While on a picnic to Europa, Amy, Fry, and Dr. Zoidberg are involved in a hovercar crash. In order to keep Fry's head alive, Dr. Zoidberg grafts it onto Amy's shoulder. Fry breaks up with Amy, and she makes Valentine's Day plans with another man.

After a dinner at Elzar's, Amy is about to leave with her date, and Fry's head. Luckily for Fry, Leela arrives at the table, and rescues Fry by engaging Amy's date in a boring conversation about banking industry regulations.

The next day, Zoidberg reattaches Fry's head to his now-repaired body, and everything returns to normal.

Lesser of Two Evils

Celebrity guest voice

Summary

While visiting the Past-o-rama theme park, Fry runs over a robot with an uncanny resemblance to Bender. They bring him back to the Planet Express building, where Professor Farnsworth repairs him. The robot's name is Flexo, and like Bender, he is a bending unit. The only physical difference between the two is that Flexo has a goatee. Bender and Flexo hit it off, but Flexo soon begins to grate on Fry's nerves.

The Professor reveals an atom of the fictional element Jumbonium, which the crew is to deliver to the Miss Universe pageant, to be held on Tova 9. Due to the value of the atom, the Professor hires Flexo as additional security.

Leela assigns Fry, Bender, and Flexo shifts guarding the atom, but when Fry's shift comes up, Fry falls asleep and the atom is stolen. Fry not only suspects Flexo, but believes he has disguised himself as Bender. After Bender re-establishes his identity, Fry, Leela, and Bender head off to inform pageant host Bob Barker of the theft.

They burst into the contest in pursuit of Flexo, and he and Bender start to fight. At the end of the fight, Bender's door is knocked open, revealing the atom. Flexo had seen Bender steal the atom and left to inform Bob Barker.

With the atom recovered, and Flexo accidentally falsely imprisoned for Bender's crime, the pageant concludes with a giant amoeba being crowned Miss Universe.

Quotes

Raging Bender

Celebrity guest voices

Summary

At the morning Planet Express meeting, the crew discovers Hermes has been assimilated by the brain slugs. To avoid Hermes' slack-jawed stare, the rest of the staff takes off for the movies.

While watching All My Circuits The Movie, Bender picks a fight with a robot that turns out to be Ultimate Robot Fighting champion The Masked Unit. The Masked Unit trips on Bender's oil-soaked popcorn, and is knocked out by the fall. Coincidentally, the commissioner of Ultimate Robot Fighting is at the movie, and hires Bender on the spot.

After training with Leela, Bender has his first fight against a chainsaw-equipped robot called The Clearcutter. By a stroke of luck, Bender defeats his opponent, causing The Clearcutter to explode into a pile of parts. However, Bender runs into the robot backstage, and the commissioner reveals that Ultimate Robot Fighting is fixed, and that the most popular robot always wins.

Bender spurns further training from Leela, and proceeds to win several fights, but eventually his popularity wanes, and he is told that he can either take a dive, or be killed by his giant opponent, Destructor. Bender asks Leela for help, but she initially refuses. When she discovers that Destructor is being trained by Arcturan kung-fu Master Fnog, she changes her mind. Master Fnog had ruined Leela's dream of competing in the Arcturan Kung-fu junior championships years ago, and Leela still holds a grudge.

While Bender is being thrashed by Destructor, Leela discovers that Destructor is being controlled remotely by Fnog. They proceed to fight and Leela wins, but when Fnog falls, so does Destructor, crushing Bender. After the fight, Fry and Leela roll up the flattened Bender and carry him home.

Quotes

A Bicyclops Built for Two

Summary

While playing an online virtual reality game, Leela meets the only other cyclops in the known universe, but Fry blasts him before she can find out who he is and where he comes from. The crew is sent on a delivery mission, so Leela can't take the time to find him, but he recorded her screen name and sends her a video mail. Leela abandons the delivery, and heads off to the coordinates provided.

The cyclops reveals himself to be Alkazar, sole survivor of the destruction of planet Cyclopia. He claims that Leela was sent away as a baby. Leela decides that it is her duty to help rebuild the Cyclopian civilization, which includes marrying Alkazar.

As the wedding begins, Fry and Bender break into the Forbidden Valley and discover the secret of planet Cyclopia. Alkazar is actually a shape-shifting alien who is engaged to marry four other women, each of a different species. Leela and the four other brides expose and reject him, and the crew returns to Earth.

Quotes

Fry (in jail): Psst! Leela! You've got to get me out of here! It's horrible! Eating scraps; letting my waste drop wherever it falls, like an animal in a zoo!
:Leela: Animals go in the corner.
:Fry: The corner! Why didn't I think of that?

How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back

Production code: 2ACV11

First aired: 2000-04-02

Written by: Bill Odenkirk

Directed by: Mark Ervin

Opening Subtitle: As Foretold by Nostradamus

Summary

Hermes is excited because the Central Bureaucracy is conducting an inspection the next day, and he expects to be promoted. Leela hosts a poker game at the offices that night, and Bender cheats. On the run from the other players, he takes refuge in Hermes' office, but the other players find him, and the savage beating he receives trashes the office.

The inspector, Morgan Proctor, places a suicidal Hermes on paid vacation and appoints herself acting Planet Express bureaucrat. Zoidberg suggests Hermes and his wife Labarbara take a trip to Spa 5, the sauna planet.

Morgan Proctor, who has a fetish for slovenly men, begins a secret affair with Fry, while Hermes and his wife discover that Spa 5 is actually a forced labor camp. After Bender discovers the illicit affair, Morgan downloads his personality to a disk, and sends it off to the Central Bureaucracy for filing.

Hermes begins to use his natural managerial skills to reorganize the labor camp for efficiency, and the rest of the Planet Express staff infiltrates the Central Bureaucracy in order to recover Bender's mind. When they arrive, they discover the master in pile, an enormous pile of pneumatic tube capsules.

The staff is daunted by the giant pile, but Hermes has returned from Spa 5. He had made the labor camp so efficient that they only needed one person to perform the labor. In a musical number, Hermes sorts the master in pile, recovering the disk with Bender's personality.

A Clone of My Own

Summary

While attending his 150th birthday party, Professor Farnsworth becomes concerned with his own mortality. He decides he needs to name a successor. The Planet Express staff expects one of them will be named, but Farnsworth reveals that his successor will be a 12-year old clone of himself, Cubert Farnsworth.

Unfortunately, Cubert decides that being an inventor is not an appealing career choice. A depressed professor makes a recording telling his crew that he has been lying about his age. He is actually 160, the age when robots from the Sunset Squad take people away, never to be seen again. Under cover of an overly-dramatic thunderstorm, a hooded robot arrives, and takes the Professor away.

The crew sets off to rescue the Professor, and finds the Near-Death Star, the Sunset Squad's base of operations. The crew sneaks in, and locates the Professor, who is unconscious and hooked to a life-support system. The robots discover the crew, and they race back to the Planet Express ship, Professor Farnsworth in tow.

As they reach the landing pad, Cubert is knocked unconscious, but they make it onto the ship in one piece. Unfortunately, when the ship takes off, the robots open fire, damaging the engines. A reawakened Cubert announces that he knows how to fix the engines, and the crew makes their escape. Safely back on Earth, Cubert tells the Professor that he has decided to follow in his footsteps.

Quotes

Professor Farnsworth: Goodbye cruel world!
:Professor Farnsworth: Goodbe cruel lamp!
:Professor Farnsworth: Goodbye cruel velvet drapes, lined with what would appear to be some sort of cruel muslin, and the cute little pon-pon curtain-pull cords, cruel though they may be, I... Uyhh

The Deep South

Production code: 2ACV12

First aired: 2000-04-16

Written by: J. Stewart Burns

Directed by: Bret Haaland

Opening Subtitle: A Stern Warning of Things to Come

Celebrity guest voice

Donovan Leitch - himself

Synopsis

Summary

Sunset comes, and the crew is ready to head back to New New York. Bender begins to haul in his line, but he has caught a colossal-mouth bass. The bass dives, dragging the ship to the bottom of the ocean before the hook slips loose. The Planet Express Ship survives its trek to the bottom, but its engines will not work underwater.

Professor Farnsworth conveniently has an anti-pressure suppository, and Fry uses it to go foraging for food with Bender and Dr. Zoidberg. Separated from them, Fry glimpses a mermaid, but when he returns to the ship no one believes him. That night, the mermaid Umbriel lures Fry out of the ship, and they leave to explore the wonders of the ocean bottom.

The next morning, the crew finishes modifying the ship to return to the surface, but find Fry missing. They set off following Zoidberg's sense of smell, and find the legendary lost city of Atlanta. There they find a civilization of merpeople with southern accents. A documentary (narrated by Donovan Leitch) explains that Atlanta moved offshore in an effort to boost tourism. The city overdeveloped and its excess weight caused it to sink to the bottom. Everyone that stayed with the city evolved into merpeople, with the assistance of leaking chemicals from Atlanta's Coca-Cola plant.

Ready to leave, the crew heads back to the ship, but Fry wants to stay with Umbriel. Fry settles in to enjoy his life with Umbriel, but when he discovers that the Atlantans' evolution has made them unable to have sexual intercourse with humans, he runs to try to catch his friends. The ship leaves without him, but Bender's hook is still attached to the tether. Fry grabs hold and is dragged behind the ship. The colossal-mouth bass returns, and is hooked when it swallows Fry whole. The bass stays caught, and Fry returns to the surface with the rest of the crew.

Quotes

Leela: Five thousand feet!
:Prof. Farnsworth: Dear Lord, that's over one hundred-fifty atmospheres of pressure.
:Fry: How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?
:Prof. Farnsworth: Well, it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.

Zoidberg: (placing a giant shell on his back) Look at me! I'm Dr. Zoidberg: homeowner!

Bender Gets Made

Production code: 2ACV13

First aired: 2000-04-30

Written by: Eric Horsted

Directed by: Peter Avanzino

Opening Subtitle: SIMULCAST ON CRAZY PEOPLE'S FILLINGS

Summary

Bender becomes a member of the robot mafia, which appeals to his love of stealing things. When the target of one of the thefts turns out to be Planet Express, Bender must find a way to save his friends without disappointing the other mobsters.

Quotes

Bender: That's some fine oilade there, kid. We could use a guy like you in the Robot Mafia.

The Problem With Popplers

The title comes from Star Trek's "The Trouble with Tribbles".

Summary

Mother's Day

Summary

Every Mother's Day, robots made in Mom's Friendly Robot Company factories around the world give sentimental gifts and cards to the owner of the corporation, Mom. However, this year, Mom, bitter about a romantic affair that had ended 70 years prior, orders the entire robot population of Earth to rebel and overthrow humanity. This doomed romance had been with a younger Professor Hubert Farnsworth, then an employee of the Friendly Robot Company. When Mom insisted that the Professor's latest design, a children's toy named Q.T. McWhiskers, be changed to a eight-foot-tall death machine to be sold on the intergalactic arms market, the Professor, enraged, stormed out of the room, and they hadn't seen each other again since.

Wishing to end the robot rebellion and save humanity, Mom's three sons, Walt, Larry, and Ignar, cooperate with the Planet Express crew to obtain the robot control Mom keeps in her bra. Their plan is to bring Mom to her rustic cabin in the Bronx, have the Professor seduce her, remove her bra, and use the control to end the rebellion.

When the Professor and Mom do meet, however, their love is rekindled, and they erupt into a whirlwind of hot, dry sex. Mom stops the rebellion, but dumps the Professor after learning of their plot. Life is then returned to normal.

Quotes

Mom: One Mother's Day, seventy years ago, the only man I ever loved walked out on me. Some snot-eating bastards say it made me a bitter woman.
:Larry: Gee, ma, you're not a bitter-
:Mom: CRAM IT, APE! *smack*

Fry: Wait, you mean you and Mom-
:Professor: Played pelvic pinochle? I'm afraid so.

Anthology of Interest I

Production code: 2ACV16

First aired: 2000-05-21

Directed by: Christ Loudon, Rich Moore

Written by:

* Eric Rogers - Giant Bender

* Ken Keeler - Impulsive Leela

* David X. Cohen - Fry and the Action Rangers

Opening Subtitle: PAINSTAKINGLY DRAWN BEFORE A LIVE AUDIENCE

Celebrity guest voices

Al Gore - himself

Stephen Hawking - himself

Nichelle Nichols - herself

Gary Gygax - himself

Summary

Professor Farnsworth invents the What-If Machine, a device that allows the user to view a hypothetical scenario. Bender wonders what would happen if he were 500 feet tall, Leela wonders what would happen if she were more impulsive, and Fry wonders what would happen if he were never Frozen. The last segment takes the series's first in-depth look into the events surrounding Fry's freezing. In this episode, Al Gore plays himself as the leader of the Vice Presidential Action Rangers – an elite team whose task is to protect the space/time continuum. The team is led by Gore; the other members are Stephen Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, Gary Gygax, and Deep Blue. In the episode, the members of the Action Rangers provide the voices for their own characters (except, of course, Deep Blue, who is voiced by Tress MacNeille).

Quotes

External links