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Anthology of Interest I
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Futurama episode | |
| "Anthology of Interest I" | |
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| Episode no. | 29 |
| Prod. code | 2ACV16 |
| Airdate | May 21, 2000 |
| Writer(s) | Terror at 500 Feet: Eric Rogers Dial L for Leela: Ken Keeler The Un-Freeze of a Lifetime: David X. Cohen |
| Director | Chris Louden Rich Moore |
| Opening subtitle | Painstakingly Drawn Before A Live Audience |
| Opening cartoon | "Bosko Shipwrecked" |
| Guest star(s) | Al Gore as himself Stephen Hawking as himself Nichelle Nichols as herself Gary Gygax as himself |
| Season 2 November 1999 – December 2000 |
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| List of all Futurama episodes... | |
"Anthology of Interest I" is episode sixteen in season two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on May 21, 2000. This episode, as well as the later "Anthology of Interest II", serves to showcase three out-of-canon "imaginary" stories, in a manner similar to the "Treehouse of Horror" episodes of Matt Groening's other animated series The Simpsons.
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Professor Farnsworth invites the employees of Planet Express to see his new invention: the Fing-longer. As he tries it out, it activates the What-If machine, a device that allows the user to view a simulation of a hypothetical scenario after the user asks it a 'what-if' question. The Professor then invites the crew to try out the What-If machine.
Bender asks the What-If machine what would happen if he were 500 feet tall. The simulation begins with the giant Bender being built by hundreds of regular-sized bending units. He reaches Earth, crashes onto Central Park and meets with a recently unfrozen Fry, becoming good friends with him. Giant Bender destroys nearly all of Central Park and the military is sent to deal with him.
The military is unable to damage Bender, but when they shoot Fry, he is electrocuted. Bender wreaks havoc upon New New York. Especially because he is friends with Fry, their havoc seems even worse when playing games. To combat Bender, the Professor uses his enlarging-ray on Zoidberg, only to see him wreak havoc as well, interrupted by Bender who isn't pleased with Zoidberg destroying "his" city. The two fight and Bender finally appears to win by pushing Zoidberg into a stadium of boiling water.
While Bender laughs in triumph, he is distracted by Fry. An enraged Zoidberg rises out of the water and snaps off Bender's feet, causing his impalement on the Empire State Building. A tearful Fry admonishes the citizens of New New York City about the tragedy of Bender, whose final words lament his inability to fulfill his dream: the killing of all humans. Bender dies, and the scenario ends.
The Professor asks Leela to try out the What-If machine. She asks what would happen if she were a little more impulsive.
Leela shows off her new boots bought on impulse, the only difference being a green stripe down the side. The Professor summons Leela to tell her that she will be his sole heir as she is so unimpulsive. He then proceeds to lean over a pit containing his man-eating anteaters while commenting on how very rich Leela will be as soon as he dies—the slightly more impulsive Leela gives in to her impulses and kicks him into the pit, where the anteaters eat him. As Hermes discovers her role in the death in a video will, she is forced to silence him by stuffing his body down a drain in pieces. When Bender deduces that she is the murderer, he proceeds to extort (Bender prefers "extort" to "blackmail", believing the x makes it sound cooler) money from her in return for his silence. Leela reacts by killing Bender with microwave rays (from the kitchen microwave) and turning his body into a go-cart. Horrified by how her murderous impulses are getting the better of her, Leela decides that whenever she wants to kill someone, she'll chew a piece of gum to distract herself. Amy insults Leela when she rides the go-cart. Leela asks Amy for a piece of gum. Amy has none, so Leela kills her and stuffs the body into a grandfather clock.
Zoidberg summons the rest of the crew in order to solve the murders. While Zoidberg obliviously reveals clues, Cubert, Scruffy and Nibbler attempt to implicate Leela, only to be slain by her whenever she turns off the lights. Zoidberg discovers Amy's body in the clock with her hand clutching a lock of purple hair. He then finds a letter from the deceased Bender, which finally reveals to him the identity of the killer. Just as he is about to reveal it to Fry (the only other living crew member), Fry declares Zoidberg "boring" and leaves the room. Leela kills (and eats) Zoidberg. When Fry finally figures out the next day that she was responsible for the murders, Leela is forced to do something really impulsive: sleep with him to keep him quiet. Fry declares that he likes the new, impulsive Leela. She then ominously asks Fry to turn off the lights. Fry does so and promptly begins screaming—and then says that he really likes her.
After being told that Bender's scenario would not be done again, Fry asks what would happen if he had not been frozen.
Fry narrowly misses falling into the cryogenic tube, and a rift in the space-time continuum appears, which shows the Planet Express crew in the future. The next day, after talking to Mr. Panucci, he comes to the attention of Stephen Hawking who arranges for Fry to be abducted. He is introduced to the "Vice Presidential Action Rangers", led by Al Gore, whose task is to protect the space-time continuum.
Fry explains what happened the previous night at the cryogenic facility and the Vice Presidential Action Rangers determine that Fry was supposed to die and try to kill him. Another rift appears during the attempted murder and Nichelle Nichols suggests that Fry be frozen and Gary Gygax gives Fry his +1 mace for protection against drunken robots in the future. Just before Fry is frozen, he smashes the cryogenic tube, causing the universe to collapse into a space-time rift. This results in Fry and the Vice Presidential Action Rangers appearing in some other indeterminate dimension which is not part of the universe. The scenario ends with them playing Dungeons and Dragons for the next quadrillion years.
After the end of Fry's scenario, the Professor curses the What-If machine for simulating scenarios even he found preposterous and dumps it into the trash can. He then judges the Fing-Longer to be a rousing success and is congratulated by the crew. It is then shown that everything before was just a simulation by the What-If machine when the professor asked what would have happened if he had invented the Fing-Longer, leaving him to lament about the possibilities if he had invented it.
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This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (December 2007) |
In the Futurama Comics, the Professor eventually would invent the Fing-Longer; it appears in the second issue of the Simpsons/Futurama Crossover Chaos! comic mini-series, and in later episodes in the show. An alternative explanation would be that the fing-longer already existed and he was wondering what would happen if he had invented it himself. Bender's speech before asking his "What If?" question in Act I, is an obvious introduction to his "What If?" question in "Anthology of Interest II".
In "The Un-Freeze of a Lifetime", Bender and Leela are seen with the rest of the Planet Express crew in the space-time rift. However, if Fry had not been frozen, it is unlikely that Bender and Leela would both have come to work at Planet Express (since Fry was the reason Bender didn't commit suicide and the reason Leela left her job at the cryogenics facility earlier in the series).
Also in this segment, when Fry falls backwards towards the cryogenic chamber, Nibbler's shadow is not visible on the wall. Despite Nibbler being absent, Fry still falls backwards off his chair, contradicting the later events of "The Why Of Fry", where Fry falls backwards a few seconds later due to Nibbler being stopped by Fry's future self, and only when pushed by a breath from his future self. However, as this story is simulated by the What-If machine, it is not canonical, and the machine would most likely not have known of Nibbler's presence at Fry's freezing.
Gary Gygax's appearance alongside Al Gore is something of an inside joke since Gore's wife, Tipper Gore, hates Dungeons & Dragons and has been publicly critical of it.[citation needed] When rebroadcast during the 2000 Presidential Election fiasco, the tagline at the start of the episode said, "Starring a guy who is kind-of, sort-of our next president, maybe!"[citation needed]
This episode guest starred Nichelle Nichols and Al Gore, both of whom would make later appearances in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" and "Crimes of the Hot" respectively. Al Gore received some criticism for his appearance because parts of the show "conflicted starkly with the anti-violence, anti-smoking and family-values themes of Gore's campaign". Gore's spokesperson responded by stating that most viewers would recognize that the show was meant to be entertaining and that it would be taken in the right spirit.[1]
This episode is one of four featured in the Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection as one of Matt Groening's four favorite episodes of the series.[2] In 2006 IGN.com ranked this episode as number thirteen in their list of the top 25 episodes of Futurama.[3]
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
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This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (December 2007) |
- The Giant Bender scenario is similar to the plot of the movie The Iron Giant.[4] The creator of the movie, Brad Bird worked with several of the Futurama writers as an executive consultant on The Simpsons.
- The music played during giant Bender's flight is Iron Man by Black Sabbath.[4]
- "Terror at 500 Feet" is a parody of "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", an episode of The Twilight Zone.
- "Dial L for Leela" is a parody of the film Dial M for Murder.
- Giant Bender's fight with the Giant Zoidberg pays homage to various Japanese monster movies such as Godzilla. The scene where Zoidberg rises out of boiling water may also be a tribute to the famous King Kong vs. Godzilla scene.
- Upon giant Bender's death, Fry says, "Good night, sweet prince." as Horatio said after the death of Hamlet in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The line is later used upon human Bender's death in "Anthology of Interest II".
- The book shown in the other dimension is the original Monster Manual from Dungeons & Dragons.
- What If...? was the title of several anthology comic book series published by Marvel Comics which featured hypothetical alterations to the established history of the Marvel Universe, based on a specific point of divergence, such as "What if Spider-Man had joined the Fantastic Four?"
- This episode's opening line "Painstakingly Drawn Before A Live Audience" is similar to a joke used in The Simpsons episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show", (Homer asks if the show is going out live, and the voice of Itchy & Scratchy says "Very few cartoons are filmed live, it puts a terrible strain on the animator's wrists") which was written by David X. Cohen, a developer for Futurama.
- The line "I'm a big robot, and I need a big cereal" refers to the Honeycomb cereal commercials aired during the eighties (with "robot" replacing "kid" in this version).
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| Season one | 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 |
| Season two | 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32 |
| Season three | 33 • 34 • 35 • 36 • 37 • 38 • 39 • 40 • 41 • 42 • 43 • 44 • 45 • 46 • 47 • 48 • 49 • 50 • 51 • 52 • 53 • 54 |
| Season four | 55 • 56 • 57 • 58 • 59 • 60 • 61 • 62 • 63 • 64 • 65 • 66 • 67 • 68 • 69 • 70 • 71 • 72 |
| Season five | Bender's Big Score • The Beast with a Billion Backs • Bender's Game • Into the Wild Green Yonder |