Cold Warriors

"Cold Warriors" is the one hundred twelfth episode of Futurama, the twenty-fourth of the sixth production season and the eleventh of the eighth broadcast season. It aired 25 August, 2011 on Comedy Central. Fry's sneezing reintroduces the common cold to the world of the future, with devastating consequences.

Act I: "What the hell's a common cold?"
Fry catches the common cold during an ice fishing trip, though the rest of the Planet Express crew are unaware of what the disease is as it was eradicated 500 years ago. Professor Farnsworth explains that the common cold virus had survived within Fry while he was frozen for 1000 years and has thus been reintroduced to mankind, which has lost all resistance to the virus. During this time, flashbacks to the year 1988 show Fry taking an ice fishing trip with his father, during which he falls through the ice and catches a cold. Later, egged on by his brother Yancy, he decides to enter a science competition judged by Buzz Aldrin in which the winner's entry will be launched into space in a satellite. His idea is to infect his pet guinea pig with the cold virus and see if can be cured by exposure to cosmic rays. A rival competitor, Josh Gedgie, learns of Fry's entry and decides to create an experiment about the common cold as well.

Act II: "Chicken. Water. Fire."
In the present day, the pathogens of the cold are detected and Planet Express is quarantined. Bender, who is immune to biological illness and forced to take care of the sick crew, becomes exasperated and breaks through the quarantine after being sneezed on by Zoidberg, spreading the virus across Manhattan. Richard Nixon becomes concerned with the rapid spread of the disease and brings in Dr. Ogden Wernstrom to resolve the situation. Wernstrom's solution is to destroy the virus by enclosing Manhattan in plastic wrap, lifting it into space, and hurling it into the Sun.

Act III: "Blow them to baco bits with a well placed warning shot!"
Believing that a vaccine can be created using a sample of the original virus, Farnsworth plans to extract it from Fry by grinding his body into a paste. Fry remembers that the winning science competition entry contained a virus sample. The crew escapes the city and finds the satellite containing the experiment, now encased in ice on Enceladus, with a flashback revealing that Gedgie's project won the competition. As the Professor uses Gedgie's virus sample to create a vaccine, and Manhattan is set back in place and its residents are inoculated to stop the outbreak, Fry has a flashback to the ice fishing trip with his father just after being pulled out of the ice, where Fry's father tells him that he loves him, and explains that he is only so hard on Fry because he wants Fry to grow up strong.

Production
During June 2011, Countdown to Futurama released two items of promotional material for the episode: concept art of Fry's guinea pig on 5 June and part of the storyboard showing Leela engaged in a broom fight on 6 June.

Two promotional pictures for the episode were released by Comedy Central Press.

On 24 August, Comedy Central released a video clip featuring the Planet Express crew being put under quarantine.

Reception
"Cold Warriors" was well-received by fans, and many considered it to be one of the better episodes of broadcast season 8. However, it did not do so well on IGN, where it scored only 6.5/10. "Cold Warriors" got a 0.7 rating from adults 18-49 and was viewed by 1.524 million, up about 142,000 views from the previous episode.

Trivia

 * This episode's storyline is similar to that of the comic book "The Cure for the Common Clod". Writer Eric Rogers has commented on this via, writing that "[t]hey are different stories".
 * This is one of four episodes of broadcast season 8 to be broadcast in production order. The other three are "Fry Am the Egg Man", "Overclockwise" and "Reincarnation".
 * If one was to consider each of the movies as one episode rather than four, then "Cold Warriors" could technically be considered the 100th episode, rather than "The Mutants Are Revolting".
 * Alternatively, if the movies are canon, but non-episodic, "Cold Warriors" is the 96th episode.
 * This is the second episode in a row to feature flashbacks in between the episode, with the previous one being "The Tip of the Zoidberg".

Allusions

 * The title of the episode is a reference to the and the s.
 * In the Flashback to 1988, Barack Obama is shown working as a pizza delivery guy.
 * Fry calling Josh Gedgie LL Fool J is a reference to American rapper and actor, while Gedgie calling Fry Grandmaster Phlegm is a reference to another rapper,.
 * One of the images Wernstrom shows Nixon's head and Zapp is a coverage map.
 * The scene where the hovercopters cover Manhattan with a wrap is reminiscent of the scene where the helicopters cover with a  in .
 * The concept of Manhattan being cut from the planet's surface and taken into space is reminiscent of the novel Manhattan Transfer by John E. Stith.
 * One of the science experiments presented for the space launch involves . Tang became popular in the United States due to it's association with NASA and the manned spaceflight programs of the 1950s and 1960s.
 * Leela remembers that all ancient satellites were swept up as space junk in 2113 while ing. Furthermore, the title caption mentions.

Continuity

 * This is the first onscreen appearance of Yancy Sr. and Mrs. Fry since Bender's Big Score, and their first speaking roles since "Jurassic Bark".
 * In the episode "The Luck of the Fryrish", which is the first episode in which Philip's parents appear, Yancy Sr. is seen reading a magazine titled 'Cold Warriors' while Mrs. Fry is giving birth.
 * In a flashback, Fry is seen carrying his seven-leaf clover from "The Luck of the Fryrish".
 * Even though Smitty retired in "Law and Oracle", he somehow returned to the force in this episode.
 * In the scene in Panucci's Pizzeria in 1988, Fry can be seen writing left-handed like most other characters in Matt Groening's cartoons.
 * Nixon had again a meeting with Zapp in the Secret White House, like in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela".
 * Dr. Wernstrom pronounces his name as "Vernstrom", but he previously pronounced it as "Wernstrom" in "A Big Piece of Garbage" and The Beast with a Billion Backs. Both ways may be correct.
 * The Nimbus launches a missile resembling the Universe to Universe Missile from The Beast with a Billion Backs towards the wrap.
 * This episode continues the trend of guinea pig deaths seen in "Anthology of Interest I" and Bender's Big Score and mentioned in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela".
 * The footage of Manhattan being returned to its proper place is similar to the footage of Atlanta being moved in "The Deep South".

Goofs

 * Normally, when Bender sleeps, he has his visor down, but, in this episode, he does not.
 * According to Wernstrom's diagram's for Nixon, the cold virus has not spread outside of Manhattan. However, both Morbo and Linda of √2 news have the cold, despite the location of their broadcast having been identified as Los Angeles in "A Big Piece of Garbage".
 * However, more recent episodes are showing their location in New New York.
 * Fry's father's story of when he was shot down over Korea and had to consume his interpreter implies that he fought in the Korean War, but it was established in "Roswell that Ends Well" that he was born in 1948.
 * Then again he once claimed that his ancestors fought commies in the revolutionary war so his historical knowledge is iffy at best.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Debut: Buzz Aldrin
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Debut: The female CDC scientist
 * Yancy Fry, Jr.
 * Yancy Fry, Sr.
 * Mrs. Fry
 * Fry
 * Debut: Fry's guinea pig
 * Debut: Josh Gedgie
 * Hattie
 * Hermes
 * The Hyper-Chicken
 * Kif
 * Leela
 * Linda
 * Debut: The male CDC scientist
 * Morbo
 * The paper-hatted salesman
 * The perfume saleswoman
 * Randy Munchnik
 * Richard Nixon's head
 * Barack Obama
 * Mr. Panucci
 * Debut: Vijay Patel
 * Debut: Rose Mary
 * Sal
 * Smitty
 * URL
 * Dr. Ogden Wernstrom
 * Zapp
 * Zoidberg