The Bots and the Bees

"The Bots and the Bees" is the one hundred and fifteenth episode of Futurama and the first of the seventh production season and the ninth broadcast season. It is scheduled to air on 20 June 2012 on Comedy Central. Planet Express gets a new soda machine and Bender impregnates it.

Plot
Bender's son Ben is born - however, due to his mother not having arms, he lacks his father's talent in bending.

Production
On 20 December 2011, Volume 6 was released and, with it, a part of the animatic for the "The Bots and the Bees" was also released, hinting that "The Bots and the Bees" was 7ACV01. In 2012, a few revelations concerning the episode were made. On 25 January, Eric Rogers revealed that the episode would air in June. On the next day, he revealed that the production team had just seen the first full-color animation for the episode, calling it, "Un. Be. Lievable." On the day after that, Aimee Steinberger revealed that the full-color animation had been screened on the Fox lot, that it received "lots of yays", that she could not go due to her work on "7ACV14", that she watched it nonetheless and that she found it "lovely". On 18 February, Eric Rogers revealed that the episode "Probably" was titled "The Bots and the Bees". On 29 February, CGEF confirmed that it was and revealed its writer to be Eric Horsted and its director to be Stephen Sandoval. On 25 April, revealed the episode's air date.

In May, Countdown to Futurama began releasing promotional material for the episode. It has so far released four items: A version of the part of the animatic for the episode released with Volume 6 in color, but smaller and with different music, on 1 May, two character designs for the new character Bev on 2 May and a character design for an alien pet on 3 May.

Reception
On 30 January 2012, Eric Rogers revealed that his favourite episode from the ninth broadcast season was either this one, "A Farewell to Arms" or "31st Century Fox".

Trivia

 * BoozMart, the market which Bender and Ben rob, was originally called "Liquors" - according to the animatic. Its final name was first seen in the video released by Countdown to Futurama.

Allusions

 * The episode's title is a reference to the phrase "".

Characters

 * Debut: Ben
 * Bender
 * Bender's mother (mentioned only)
 * Debut: Bev
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Leela
 * Queen of Yonkers
 * Sal