Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2015 14:27:35 GMT -5
In which Bender was just enjoying a tasty watercress sandwich
My favorite creations of the Futurama universe are the ones that are so gleefully absurd, yet fully fleshed-out, that they don’t ask for anything like suspension of disbelief: They convince you that it’s just more fun to believe there really is a Robot Mafia. And, for that matter, ethnic Italian robots and deliberately crippled child robots who write in adorable backward letters. Because of course there are.
It’s creations like the Robot Mafia - Don Bot, Joey Mousepad, and Clamps - that make an episode like “Bender Gets Made” such a consistent delight, even when it fails to reach the brilliant heights the show is capable of. Indeed, the episode is (relatively) lacking in quotable lines, it never tugs at our heartstrings, and the plot is neither mind-boggling or terribly exciting. But even on repeated viewing, it’s hard not to watch with a smile throughout. In thinking about what makes Futurama so special, it can be easy to forget the sheer playful imagination of its universe and the clear creative joy that went into it.
Although the plot isn’t the most exciting (and honestly, I’m astonished at how little it references classic Mob movies), it does have a nice easy flow to it, with an accident at Elzar’s TV studio leading to an A and B plot that intertwine in the third act. It has enough business to keep things rolling along at a good clip, and enough coherence that it appears free of obvious seams or deus ex machinas. Everything stems from Bender’s sheer obnoxiousness in the studio audience for Elzar’s TV show. It results in Leela’s episode-long blindness, which results in a fantastic dinner Elzar prepares to apologize to her, the dinner turns into an arrest for dine-and-dash, the arrest results in Bender working at the restaurant to repay the debt, at the restaurant Bender winds up meeting the Robot Mafia, the Robot Mafia heists a Planet Express delivery because Leela can’t fly or fight (competently) while blind, and after some clever run-around, everything wraps up with a violent attack on a child and Fry mistakenly thinking he knows what really happened.
As I said, not a remarkable plot, but one with more than enough going on to maintain a good pace, unlike last week’s “The Deep South”. It’s important, especially in episodes like this that aren’t exactly straining at sci-fi boundaries, for that sort of pacing, in order to keep the focus on the gags, and avoid letting us linger too long on awkward incongruities.
I’m thinking of course, of Fry’s sudden and unexpected competence in rigging the ship’s controls with strings so as to fly it while shooting from the Millenium Falcon-style turret. There’s also the matter of why the Robot Mafia would leave Bender alone in space to burn down the Planet Express Ship. How were they expecting him to get home? Also, didn’t they do any background snooping on him? And couldn’t Bender, upon seeing it was Planet Express, use his employment and familiarity there to pull off a relatively non-violent heist?
Well, sure, there’s all that, but then you’re only a stone’s throw away from wondering why on Earth anyone would build a robot child with a missing leg and a crutch for an arm, and that way lies madness. The point is, the plot sweeps us along to the final act of disguised voices and mistaken identities quickly enough that we don’t worry about how we got there -- it’s enough for us to just sit back and watch Bender switch between his two vocal modes: “Normal” and “King”. DiMaggio clearly has a blast with this, especially with Bender’s increasingly sloppy switch-offs when he gets distracted or upset. His additional voice, for Joey Mousepad, is a fantastic pastiche of stereotypes, while Maurice LaMarche gives us a Clamps who perfectly captures Joe Pesci’s Goodfellas turn in robot form, and a suitably menacing Don Bot.
It’s this sort of consistent creativity and joy that makes even unremarkable episodes of Futurama so enjoyable and worthwhile. Unlike its predecessor, The Simpsons, which increasingly took flack for being “too cartoonish” as its years went on, Futurama has a universe which allows for its creators’ imaginations to run wild while still seeming to be entirely plausible. And when it gives us creations like the Robot Mafia, it’s all but impossible to resist settling in and enjoying a universe much more entertaining than our own.
Grade: B
This Week’s Opening Title Subtitle:
Simulcast on crazy people’s fillings
This Week In Futurama Signage:
(Pat’s Pool Hall: Rich Beginners Welcome)
Fry is so dumb… How dumb is he?
Fry is so dumb, he thinks Bender is like a big computer who runs on magic! Oh, also, he forgot to buy flight insurance.
Stray Observations:
- On the “too plausible/realistic” front, however, we have the New New York Police, who will beat you over the head for
- Fantastic details inside the Robot Mafia space-car mimicking the restaurant in The Godfather. Oh, and everyone wearing “wife-beater” tank-tops.
- “Hurry up and blindfold them before they see us some more!”
- I love that Bender’s only two voice modes are “Normal” and “King”.
- Leela: Where were you last night? Farnsworth: Where am I now?
- It’s not exactly quotable, as it’s an exchange, but I do love Maurice LaMarche’s delivery of “File not found,” when a petitioner begs him to open his “Mercy File”.
- Originally, the episode called for Bender to scratch out his serial number to hide from the Robot Mafia, and the scratched serial number we see would actually be Flexo’s from “The Lesser of Two Evils”. The creators ultimately decided it would be too infuriating - unnecessarily - for fans.