Futurama: S02E15: The Problem With Popplers

Not a bad episode in general. I enjoyed the brief visit from Lrrr and Ndnd, just because I love their names. I love the way Lrrr’s pupils change after he eats the hippie. A perfectly adequate middle of the road episode.

Two days from Earth with no food, Fry and Leela are forced to stop on a nearby planet to forage since their mission to the moocher’s planet leaves them destitute (and bereft of pants). Bender finds only rocks and mud but Fry discovers several ditches full of what look like fried shrimp. Leela analyzes them and takes a test taste. Before long, they’re stuffing their faces and taking a ship load back to Earth.

Everyone in the office is in love with the taste too. When they try to come up with a name for the morsels, Hermes finds two names not copyrighted: Popplers and Zitsers. Popplers it is! Bender and Fry sell them on the street and are discovered by fast food magnate Fishy Joe. He contracts them and they make several trips back to the planet to get loads and loads of popplers for the growing marketplace.

Protesters want poppler consumption to stop because they’re living creatures (not sure where they got that idea). Leela and friends argue with them until a week old poppler calls Leela mama. The crew starts protesting as well after that revelation, but no one listens. During a televised debate between Fishy Joe, the hippie protest leader (Free Waterfall, Jr.) and Leela, the Omicronians arrive to reveal that popplers are their offspring.

They want to eat one human for every poppler consumed, but Zapp Brannigan (aided by a very filling bowl of nuts) manages to negotiate them down to one human of their choice. They choose the first person to eat their young: Leela.

Her consumption is turned into a Madison Cube Garden event. Leela’s bitter and resentful since she tried to turn the tide in favor of the popplers. Zapp comes up with a plan to decoy an oragutan for Leela, since the Omicronians can’t tell the difference anyway. Kif works his magic on the simian, transforming it into a very hairy version of Leela.

The plan is about to work until the hippie spills the beans. Lrrr demands Leela be brought to him. He gets her as far as his mouth when the tiny poppler, Jrrr, jumps into Leela’s mouth to stop the proceedings. He tells his people not to sink to the humans level and that Leela is his friend. The Omicronians, chastised, agree. After the hippie annoys them, Lrrr eats him (Take that you hippie!), gets high from said hippie and they all leave Earth.

Back at Planet Express, they have a celebratory dinner of veal, suckling pig and dolphin to celebrate freedom and a lesson learned about what you should eat. Hypocrisy at it’s best. 🙂

This episode gets a succulent 8 out of 10.

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Futurama reviews are © 2006, 2007 Chrystal Litchford.
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Thanks to The Leela Zone