A Fishful of Dollars

"A Fishful of Dollars" is the sixth episode of Futurama and of the first season. It aired 27 April, 1999 on FOX. It guest stars Pamela Anderson as herself in a jar. Fry's old bank account's interest rate have developed into a huge fortune, however, because he obtains a can of anchovies, he becomes a prime threat to Mom's, whose sons manages to steal his money, but Fry remains to eat the anchovies.

Act I: "Give it a rest, you two!"
Fry is trying to sleep, but is kept up by a rhythmic squeaking from the next apartment. A pan through the wall reveals a pair of spring-bodied robots playing cards.

Act II: "Being Poor Sucks"
Fry has a dream; he's in a class, the teacher tells him he is only wearing his underpants, which triggers a Lightspeed Briefs commercial. When he tells his co-workers, they tell him it was just an advertisement, which are now broadcast into people's dreams. In spite of everyone's claims not to be affected by the dreams, they all run to Alien Overlord & Taylor. Amy is stopped by a perfume saleswoman, a cosmetologist makes Leela "prettier" by drawing attention from her eye and Fry wants to buy a pair of Lightspeed Briefs but discovers he can't afford them, while Bender steals a lot of stuff, including many Mom's Old-Fashioned Robot Oil cans. Mom, who Fry had never heard of and learns from Amy that she's the world's most huggable industrialist, appears on TVs advertising her robot oil, and Fry suggests Bender should buy it but he is busted by the cameras. When they're trying to bail Bender out, Fry discovers his old bank account is still open. The teller tells him thanks to compound interest, his $.93 has grown to 4.3 billion dollars.

Act III: "50 million dollars worth of Anchovies"
Fry's new-found wealth immediately goes to his head. He spends a fortune taking his friends out and doing whatever expensive, ridiculous things they can think of, such as celebrating at Planet Express wearing top hats and visiting Le Spa. When he tried to buy his friends dinner, Professor Farnsworth tells Fry that his favorite pizza topping, Anchovies, have been extinct for 800 years, thanks to Zoidberg's species who loved Anchovies and ate them all. Fry tells them they were delicious. Later, they go to an auction and Fry gets into a bidding contest and buys stupid things spending a lot of money. He fights Mom raising the money for the last known can of anchovies in the world, which he ultimately buys for 50 million dollars. Fry begins to turn inward, immersed in his private recreation of the 20th century.

Act IV: "That stench... that heavenly stench!"
Mom reveals to her sons that anchovies represent a potential source of a super lubricant that would put Mom's Friendly Robot Company out of the oil business, costing her billions. She plots with her sons to get Fry's anchovies back, by tricking Fry into revealing his pin number - "the price of a cheese pizza and a large soda" at Panucci's Pizza where Fry used to work. They drug Fry and place him in a staged scene in Panucci's, where Walt, dressed as Mr. Panucci, tells him he just dreamt he was in the future, then Pamela Anderson's head (on Igner's body) enters and places an order, a cheese pizza and a large soda. Fry stupidly falls for the obvious trick and reveals his pin number. Mom steals Fry's money, and tries to extort the can of anchovies out of him. Fry refuses, insisting that it is more important to share the anchovies he loves with his friends than to be rich. Realising Fry doesn't know the anchovies secret and her oil monopoly is safe, Mom leaves. Fry puts the Anchovies on a pizza, but with the exception of Dr. Zoidberg, his friends hate them.

Trivia

 * The teacher in Fry's dream can later be seen on the escalator after Bender sprays the saleswoman.
 * In this episode, we learn that the currency of the year 3000 (Dollar) has not changed since 2000. We often see prices in Futurama, which are normally at the similar levels to nowadays. Thus, either there was no inflation from 2000 to 3000, inflation was eventually reversed, or, more likely, a "New Dollar" was created once inflation made ordinary goods worth thousands of dollars.
 * The perfume saleswoman looks pretty similar to a jingle singer in the Torgo's Executive Powder sponsor of "Bender's Big Score Part 1".
 * This is the first episode to be rated TV-14 for language.
 * Amy says that her obscene tattoo, which is blurry to the audience, couldn't be seen on a low-definition television. This pokes fun at the dominant low-definition televisions on which the episode was likely viewed at the time it aired.  However, subsequent years saw the rapid rise of plasma and LCD high-definition televisions, removing some of the humor from the joke for anyone watching on a high-definition television.
 * There may be TVs with even higher definition in the future. Plus, watching this on a HD TV doesn't change anything, as it was produced in SD.
 * $.93 with interest of 2.25 percent over one thousand years actually is 4.3 billion dollars. 0.93×1.0225^1000=4,283,508,449.711329.
 * Fry's bank account used compounding interest, which at %2.25 interest compounded annually comes to 4,283,508,449. (Source: http://www.moneychimp.com/calculator/compound_interest_calculator.htm)

Goofs

 * In this episode, the clothing company is called Calvin Clone, but in "That's Lobstertainment!" it's spelled Calvin Klone.
 * This may not be a goof so much as an avoidance of copyright infringement.
 * Bank accounts go dormant after 3 years of no activity and are turned over to the government as unclaimed funds, at which point no further interest would be earned. Activity can be something as little as checking the balance or simply receiving a phone call from the bank, but unless there has been someone doing this for the last thousand years, Fry's money would only have accrued three years of interest, not one thousand.
 * Fry has a box full of 20th century television shows on VHS (including Sanford & Son). However, in the episode "When Aliens Attack", it is stated that all videotapes from that era were destroyed in the second coming of Jesus.
 * Most videotapes, not all.
 * At the end of the episode, Fry is seen opening the can of anchovies and putting one on a slice of pizza, but the rest of the anchovies are already on the pizza, meaning that the can must have been opened prior to the start of the scene.
 * After Zoidberg eats the anchovies and demands more, Fry tells him that there "aren't any more, and there never will be." However, Zoidberg only ate the anchovies that were actually on the pizza, and there were many more in the can.
 * It's possible Fry was lying to protect them from Zoidberg or Fry ate them before he put some on the pizza.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Debut: Auctioneer
 * Debut: Beauty specialist
 * Bender
 * Debut: Big Apple Bank teller
 * Censored couple (cameo)
 * Dr. Zoidberg
 * Debut: Dream Teacher
 * Fry
 * Hermes
 * Leela
 * Debut: Alien Overlord & Taylor clerk
 * Debut: Mom
 * Debut: Pamela Anderson's head
 * Debut: Perfume saleswoman
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Debut: Robot Chef
 * Debut: Scruffy
 * Smitty and URL
 * Debut: Spring Robots
 * Debut: Walt, Larry and Igner

Episode Credits

 * Writers
 * Patric M. Verrone
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * Dave Herman
 * Special Guest
 * Pamela Anderson