Season 2, Episode 8, "Raging Bender" (A-)

I’ve taught the toaster to feel love!



At least in my own experience, if there’s any one Futurama episode that even casual viewers can be counted on to be familiar with, it’s “Raging Bender”. For the past week, I’ve been watching it on repeat trying to figure out why. It’s not the funniest episode. It’s certainly far from being the most emotionally satisfying. It’s not even the most quotable or most meme-d episode. Surely there’s more to it than just The Gender Bender, which gives us both a memorable visual and a memorable play both the Bender’s name and the cross-dressing he engages in to play an Ultimate Robot Fighting villain.

Already this season Futurama has shown itself willing to ditch the mission-driven antics it was originally built around in order to just sort of hang out with the core cast of characters. In a way, Planet Express as an active delivery company is on its way to becoming a bit like Homer’s job on The Simpsons -- only really existing when necessitated by the plot. Indeed, much like the “Homer becomes a ______” plots The Simpsons came to lean on heavily, “Raging Bender” initiated a similar line of “Bender becomes a ______” plots (Mafioso, Penguin, Vampire) on Futurama. Fortunately for Futurama, they never became so frequent as to become tiresome -- though perhaps having only a fraction of the episodes helped to avoid that as well.

The episode certainly doesn’t stand out as being a rare, or even the first, Bender-centered episode. “Fear of a Bot Planet” developed him as a key part of the core trio, and “Hell Is Other Robots” delivered an early classic exploring just how evil - and how good - Bender could be. This may be the first time, however, we’ve seen just how desperate for attention he is. We’ve seen him be venal and dishonest in the name of sex and ill-gotten gains, but this is the first time we’ve seen just how much Bender loves the spotlight, and how intensely competitive he can be when challenged to hold it. Indeed, other than a fur coat and some floozies, all Bender ever materially gets out of his stint in Ultimate Robot Fighting is a coupon at Bed, Bath & Beyond. In a funny, and very illustrative moment, Bender is excited that he may have not only won his first match, but actually taken a life (which is rather dark, if in-character). That excitement, however, is nothing compared to the euphoria of finding out that the actual reason he won was that he was popular.


The show has done broad parody before, and would go on to do so again. Pro Wrestling always seems to have delved so far into self-parody that any reference to it will necessarily be parodic. Boxing, too, has a set of readily recognized traditions, tropes, and set-ups that the show can have fun with. I have to admit, I initially thought that Futurama went a little too on-the-nose in its sequence of rival wrestlers and their exaggerated qualities (and poetic defeats). Then I was advised to look up “The Million Dollar Man”, a pro wrestling baddie from the 1980’s, and realized “Billionaire Bot” was, in fact, a pretty spot-on take of how ridiculous both the characters and their fights could be.

We’ve even seen Bender and Leela paired up before, in “I Second That Emotion”, and the two are fun to see at play here. Leela, of course, takes her role as Bender’s trainer as seriously as she takes every job, while Bender quickly decides there’s no need for him to train, when all he needs to do is be popular in order to win. Of course, when he’s not popular enough to sell sandalwood bath soaps, he comes crawling back to Leela, who answers him with a perfect summary of her character: “If you wouldn't take my help when you didn't need it, why should I give it to you now when you do need it?”

Speaking of Leela, this episode does an excellent job of further developing her character as one who can be just as strong -- and as petty -- as any of the men. In fact, the episode gives her a great backstory, showing her demeaned and diminished by a sexist Arcturan Kung-Fu teacher, and lets her resolve that story by proving him wrong in a satisfyingly violent way. As she puts it, in spite of Bender losing his championship bout and being flattened, “The important thing is I beat up someone who hurt my feelings in high school.” Which is for the best, because I’m sure Master Fnog would be unconvinced of her victory. After all, she lacks the Will of a Warrior!

The episode also takes steps to build and re-enforce the show’s world in a satisfying way. The Brain Slugs return (and again attack poor Hermes - they must have something for dreadlocks) from a few episodes back, and we get to see a film clip featuring the Miss Universe crowned just two episodes back. “All My Circuits” and Calculon are revisited, and some other bit players show up, my possible favorite being Hattie calling for an evacuation of the movie theater by shouting, “Let’s all go to the lobby!”

There’s references a-plenty, beyond the Ultimate Robot Fighters themselves. There’s fun had with famous sportscasters, classic movies, Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Raging Bull. There’s even the obligatory nerd joke, as the crew goes to a movie theater named after an obscure mathematical concept.

So “Raging Bender really doesn’t do anything new. It does everything well and continues to raise the standard by which all future episodes of Futurama would be judged. But my God, why is this the episode that spawned a whole series of Bender dolls and Bender figurines, and seems to be the only episode that friends who haven’t followed the show identify with it (“Was there one with a wrestling robot in a dress or something”)?

It’s got to be The Gender Bender. As George Foreman’s head (John DiMaggio) put it, “He didn’t look half bad in a tutu.” And as Rich Little, imitating Howard Cosell, put it, “That he surely did not.”


Grade:A-[/b]

This Week’s Opening Title Subtitle:

Nominated for Three Glemmys!

This Week In Futurama Signage:


BENDER 3:16

Fry is so dumb… How dumb is he?[/b]

Fry is so dumb, the Brain Slug that attached itself to him died of starvation!

Stray Observations:

-“Interesting side note: As a head without a body, I envy the dead.” Wow, between that and Nixon’s description of the, “Sad and lonely life,” I’m beginning to feel bad for Walt Disney and Ted Williams. Well, I mean, I already felt bad for Ted Williams given the disgusting abuse his dismembered head went through, but… Well, I guess if he’s lucky, he’ll never be a head in a jar who has to find out about it?

-The best Mom line of all time was unfortunately cut out due to censor objections. Cheering on Destructor, she yells, “MAKE THAT BITCH YOUR BITCH YOU BASTARD!”

-I love the little detail of Hermes attempting to place a Brain Slug on a kid in the row in front of him, only to be stopped by Amy, who shakes her head disapprovingly.

-“What if I told you we wouldn’t be fighting… In the traditional sense?”

-“Quit scratching your axe-hole and get out there!” - now that there is a brilliant work-around to be able to say the A-H word on network TV in 2000.

-I someday hope to have the chance to use the line, “You were an excellent student. Too bad I was a lousy teacher!”

-Interactivity sucks, and your vote doesn’t count: things I learned from watching a movie where you can vote on exactly how they’ll surprise you.