Futurama: Fear of a Bot Planet

(S01E05) Now that we all know that Futurama is coming back, I'm now watching these early episodes with even more zeal than I had before. Don't know why; I think it's the temptation of new episodes that's making me dissect the old ones, trying to catch all the in-jokes and details so I'm completely up to speed in time for the 2008 re-premiere.

This episode is full of little references that brought out the computer geek in me, which, judging by the commentary on the DVD, was what it did for the show's braintrust.

You have to understand, Matt Groening and David Cohen are nerds to the nth degree, not only bringing their knowledge of computers and sci-fi movies to the show, but their extensive expertise in role-playing games and sci-fi literature, as well. Believe me, if these guys weren't making cartoons, they'd be playing endless rounds of Magic: The Gathering.

In this episode, Bender's out of sorts. He thinks the "meatbags" around him only think of robots as machines that do menial tasks, not as equals. The crew has to deliver a package to Chapek 9, a planet full of robots where humans are killed on sight. They send Bender who gets caught as a human sympathizer; to get out of trouble, he makes himself out to be the biggest human killer ever. To find Bender, Leela and Fry pose as robots, and, of course, end up getting caught and sentenced to death.

(And, yes, they all escape. Would have been a short series if they didn't.)

Just the name of the planet itself is an in-joke: writer Karl Chapek coined the term "Robot" in 1921. Other little jokes revealed by the commentary: when the robots go on a people-hunt, the clarion call is the Macintosh startup sound. The ancient judge that sentences Fry and Leela is himself an old eighties-era Mac (with built-in floppy drive and screen) that crashes while rendering his decision. And my favorite side joke: a billboard that says, "got milk? than you're a human and must be killed." (OK, that's not a nerdy one, but it's pretty damned funny)

I'll let Billy West discuss the robot thing a little more in this week's edition of...

Billy West's take: I mean, we're doing stuff with robots that were copied soon by other cartoons. There's a lot in it for writers to write about robots, because you can't hold them up as an example for anything, good behavior, bad behavior, nothing because they're robots.

Very true. In fact, the robots on Chapek 9 are so bad that their elders made up tons of lies about humans just to cover up for their own problems, like the lugnut shortage. They tell the Planet Express trio as much after Bender defends them. By the way, I like how each elder started his statement with the exlamation, "Silence!" That and the robes made the elders very mystical (as is the weapon the want Bender to use to kill his friends: the killer-ma-jig. Cohen and Groening were trying to see if some Dungeons and Dragons weapons popped out of that thing during the commentary. God, they're dorks).

It seems pointless to review these episodes, since they're all so good, anyway. So, Futurama fans, I'll let you have at it; what are your favorite computer geek/sci-fi nut references in this episode? Let me know in the comments.