Futurama: S02E16: Anthology of Interest I

Good News Everybody, This is the first of the three part episodes, “Anthology of Interest I” Starts off With the Professors newest invention “The Fing Longer” which enables a person to operate equipment at great distances. This particular piece of equipment happens to be the “What-If Machine” Which allows a person to axe it a question and It’ll generate a video simulation of what would happen.

Bender is up first and wonders what would happen if he was 500 feet tall.

Part I Written By Eric Rodgers

This little vignette opens up with bunches of 3D bending units and one HUGE one. After the power-up belch Bender takes to the skies to a riff of Black Sabbath’s Ironman in the next cut we catch Fry trying to make friends with a duck in the park. And at that moment Bender lands a perfect Belly Flop in the lake and Fry gets caught in between Benders Optical Receivers.

They introduce each other and Bender is “a big robot and I (he) wants a big cereal!” (using a line from classic Honeycomb commercials). And they start a friendship with Hansen’s Mmm Bop playing in the background and doing friendship things like, Playing Hide and Seek, Spitting off a Bridge, Playing Frisbee ending up crushing the Hansen brothers heads in jars during a concert and their fans didn’t quite make it either.

Bender unwinds a bit with a chicken flavored cigarette and gets zapped by an army. Fry stands and let’s the community know that he’s your friend and not a monster. (A-la “Iron Giant” and any “Godzilla” flick) Well that little shock didn’t bother Bender, well for Fry it’s another story. And Bender goes on a rampage. (With a nice crushing for Zap and Kif in a tank.) Well the Planet Express crew see the devastation and come up with an idea that they need an equally large monster to stop Bender.

So the professor gets to try out his experimental enlarging ray and needs a guinea pig. Hiding behind a counter and waiting for Zoidberg to see what the crew had laid out for him. Gets trapped and the professor pulls the lever to turn on the “Super-Sizer” Zoidberg now big, gets a quick fix for revenge on the City, Chase Manhattan Bank, and The Apollo Theater. Bender sees someone else destroying his stuff and a fight ensues all over New New York. Ending with Bender getting skewered by a skyscraper, and a long speech about ethics.

Leela’s Turn next … and what would happen if she was a little more impulsive.

Part II Written By Ken Keeler

Leela walks in the all purpose room of Planet Express and shows off her new boots their like her old boots but with a crazy green stripe just to show off how impulsive she is. The professor comes to her and asks for a private session with her. As he explains to her, while feeding his man-eating anteaters, that he has no heirs and he won’t live forever, and he is naming boring ole Leela as sole heir.

She decides to do the impulsive, to become very very very rich, and knocks the professor in the pit holding his man-eating anteaters. The old professor gets gobbled up. (not after a long, drawn out, repetitive, remark that Leela killed him. When his remains are discovered by Hermes, he goes to call in the police (After he flushes a few things down the toilet) and Zoidberg willl have none of this due he has correspondence degrees in Muderology and Murderonomy. (The Futurama writers are notorious for making up names.)

Hermes goes through the files with Leela and finds a will that was recently changed to name her as the sole heir, of course not proving that she killed the professor, except it a video will and catches her in the act. While Zoidberg questions the anteaters in the pit he ignores Hermes cries for help.

Bender catches her in the act of disposing of the body but he wants in on the action so well he gets zapped by a broken microwave and his parts get used to make a go cart (can we say The Honking) Amy likes the ride and insults Leela in the process so we have victim #4.

Zoidberg calls everybody in the parlor (the writers created the “accusing parlor” for this episode. And also is Scruffy’s first speaking appearance.) So with Qbert, Scruffy, and Nibbler’s accusations they are all victims in a more comical way. Ziodberg was about to read off the killers name in a letter “sent” to him by Bender. Fry gets board and leaves the room so Leela can claim victim #8. Cut to scene in the kitchen where Leela is eating “Lobster” and Fry figured out what caused all the killings but Planet Express wasn’t built on an Indian Burial Ground, so to his surprise there can be only one answer. Leela forced to do one more really impulsive thing. She ends up this story in bed with Fry.

Finally Fry makes a request but his first request was so stupid they take his second request (it was less stupid but asked in a profoundly stupid way.) and what would happen if he never got frozen for one thousand years?

Part III Written By David X. Cohen

We see Fry in a very familiar scene it’s December 31st 1999 and he’s delivering a pizza for I. C. Wiener, finds out he’s been duped so as he sits at Applied Cryogenics during the countdown into the new millennium he blows on a noisemaker and the force if it recoiling in his face knocks him back???!!!!???? (ummm… no shadow and no eyestalk) Anyways he wangs his head on the side of a Cryopod and the door shuts.

And as he’s standing there rubbing his head a rip in the fabric of time appears and we see a babbling bender, a pondering professor, a lushes Leela, and Zoidberg. After the opening to the future that coulda been closes and the next day arrives, Fry is searching for answers if there are really monsters??? As Mr. Panucci puts it “there are only three real monsters kid. Dracula, Blacula, and Son of Kong” That’s not enough for our hero he even questions one of their customers, famed physicist Steven Hawking. Which hearing Fry has seen monsters in a hole out of nothing, looks worried and takes off without wanting his pizza.

Fry closes the pizzeria and heads down an ally, He gets attacked by shadowy figures with rackets. As he comes to he is surrounded and gets introduced to the Vice-Presidential Action Rangers, dedicated nerds whose sole duty is keeping the time continuum steady, Which include vice-president Al Gore the aforementioned Steven Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, Gary Gygax, and their summer intern Deep Blue.

They figure out that they have to go back to Applied Cryogenics and finish the act of what was supposed to happen to Fry when he fell back from his chair. And that blow to the head was supposed to kill him. So as they attempt to take care of Fry the attempted murder didn’t quite work as another rip had occurred with Bender getting abusive (when isn’t he) and throwing a bottle at Fry. 
They find that maybe freezing him would be the answer and he bravely works is way to the tube after receiving a +1 Mace (to fight off drunken robots in the future) he smashes the cryopod and laughs in victory but his “Fry Hole” gets bigger and sucks in the universe. Thus putting Fry and the Vice-Presidential Action Rangers in a Dungeon and Dragon campaign for the next quadrillion years.

And that my friends is what would have happened if the professor had invented “The Fing Longer”. This episode gets a 4 out of 10.

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This Futurama review is © 2004 Barabbas.
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