In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" is the ninetieth episode of Futurama, the second of the sixth production season and the seventh broadcast season. It aired on 24 June 2010 on Comedy Central. It guest stars Chris Elliott as the V-GINY censor ship. When a death sphere is threatening to destroy Earth, President Nixon calls for Professor Farnsworth for a plan. The Professor has devised an undetectable ship which Turanga Leela and Zapp Brannigan must use to get into the death sphere and destroy it. But not all goes according to plan.

Act I: "Let's see how crazy I am now, Nixon!"
After Zapp Brannigan dreams about The Transcredible Exploits of Zapp Brannigan, he is called to the Secret White House, where President Richard Nixon has bad news. A death sphere have been seen destroying planets in nearby systems, and they now know it is headed for Earth. But when Zapp Brannigan is too cowardly to devise a plan, Nixon decides to try and ask a man he once deemed crazy, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. The Professor, acting on the fact that every death sphere has a small weakness, has devised a plan involving a Tiny One-Man Stealth Fighter.

After some deciding about who should go, they decide to send Turanga Leela and Zapp Brannigan together. They lift off at Cape Knievel. However, a side effect of its perfect cloak, means that only the ship itself is hidden, not its inhabitants, whom just appear to be floating. They make it near the death sphere, where it appears to have written V-GINY across it and lots of surveillance on its surface.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Professor is trying to figure out what the V-GINY is. But as it does not exist in any known catalogue, he assumes his thinking in his Chamber of Understanding.

Turanga Leela and Zapp Brannigan make it inside the sphere, which seems to be censoring television broadcasts by spitting a black spit on them. Inside, Leela and Brannigan are spotted, and they flee, but as they make a narrow escape out of the hatch, they lose control of the ship.

Act II: "So, the orgy's off?"
Leela and Brannigan awake in a jungle, where Leela is pinned underneath a tree. However, Brannigan is unable to lift it, so she is forced to sit still. Leela complains about her spacesuit being too hot, and Brannigan suggests taking them off, Leela complies and put on leaves to hide their 'naughty bits'. Leela, however, notices a strange act in Brannigan's behaviour, where he is far more considerate and tries to help her out while pinned. Brannigan goes out for food.

Back at Earth, Fry is beginning to wonder about why Leela isn't back yet, much to the annoyance of Bender, who feels he is being a third wheel. And while the crew discuss how best to make use of their time as the death sphere approaches, Farnsworth announces he has identified the death sphere to be a collision of two satellites; USAF Flying Destiny and FCC V-Chip. Farnsworth has further discovered that the ship is just acting in its programming, and thus destroying indecent planets, like Planet XXX, Poopiter and That world that can't be mentioned in polite company. Farnsworth's plan is to convince the people of Earth to be less indecent, so that the censor ship may reconsider destroying it.

Meanwhile, Brannigan returns with nuts and fruit berries for Leela. He explains that there are no intelligent life to be found on the planet as well as the ship being destroyed following the crash. After discussing the planet they have landed on, Brannigan notices how it is sort of like the Garden of Eden. A talking snake appears to explain how their situation is just like Adam and Eve, but Brannigan throws it off as just being delirious from dehydration.

In New New York, Farnsworth's plan goes under way to convince people to be more decent, but it takes the form of a 'the world is end' protest, which is easily dismissed as crazy. They see Sal attempting to pay five dollars for a night with Petunia, who announces she could go for just three dollars, much to Sal's disgust, and thus goes into the Pubic Library (and not public library as Fry thought).

The talking snake continues to convince Leela, she should do it with Zapp. Meanwhile, Zapp fetches the telescope so they could view whether Earth was still whole. On Lo'ihi Island in the Pacific Ocean on Earth, the Planet Express crew makes one desperate attempt to convince the censor ship of there being some decency left on Earth. However, during their purity chant, Bender cannot keep it in his pants and starts doing it with the satellite dish.

And as such, Leela observes V-GINY destroying the Earth. Leela becomes convinced that perhaps she should attempt to do it with Zapp to recreate the human race. As they discuss their plan for their new humanity, an apple falls onto Leela's head, whom begin seductively suggesting a kiss to Zapp.

Act III: "Approved for all audiences!"
Leela begins to notice that the nut berries Zapp brought her earlier was quite too salty for nut berries, and the apple is really helping, as the salt made her quite delirious. In fact, they were exactly as salty as Fry's trail mix. She then discovers that the nuts and berries were actually the trail mix Fry gave her before the trip and Zapp confesses. Zapp begins to discuss how the entire scenario with them on the planet was entirely of his making to get in Leela's pants with avoiding mentioning of finding the ship, water and other provisions.

Even the tree upon her is of Zapp's making and the ship is still operational. But Leela remembers seeing Earth being destroyed, however, as they are talking, Fry arrives on the scene. Leela wonders how he ended up on this planet as well, to which Zapp confesses the Earth blowing up was simply a visualisation created by the ship's holographic targeting projector. Zapp explains his motives was simply to get Leela to make out with him, which she can easily believe, and thus beats him up.

And just as they reunite with the crew, the V-GINY arrives. V-GINY explains that the Earth may yet be redeemed if Zapp and Leela make love like Adam and Eve. Leela decides to comply as it is to save Earth, while Zapp has become nervous by doing it. The crew is horrified by the act and Fry demands V-GINY censor it, but it instead, ironically, decides to label their activities as 'approved for all audiences' and then leaves Earth.

Production
By 20 August, 2009, the writing of this episode was ready for its table reading.

Due to Futurama being on Comedy Central, a cable channel, the writers and producers can now be a bit more lenient about the show's content. Though, David X. Cohen stresses, that they aren't doing anything that wouldn't have been accepted on its former network, FOX, but they are doing it in an amount that might not have been content with the FOX censors.

To increase momentum for the new season, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" aired right after "Rebirth" on 24 June, 2010.

In an interview to Entertainment Weekly, David X. Cohen reveals that the plot, being Matt Groening's brainchild, playing on the Adam and Eve trope, wherein two characters must "recreate" an entire species as the lone survivors. In this episode, Zapp Brannigan and Leela land on a Garden of Eden planet, but unlike the trope, this story is based on, this part of the plot occurs in the beginning of the episode, and never actually gets to the reproduction of the human species.

Reception
"In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" aired 24 June, 2010 10:30pm EST on Comedy Central, preceded by "Rebirth" as a lead-in to . The episode received 2.775 million viewers according to, 0.2 million less than "Rebirth". It received 1.8/3 of households and 1.5/5 of adults between 18 and 49.

It received mixed reviews, some people saying it was better than "Rebirth" due to it being a standalone episode, but most people saying it was not as good. A great portion of the Futurama fans hated the ending, and many of them did not like that Fry and Leela's relationship was probably in a strange limbo once again. There have also been complaints about Leela's lack of devotion to Fry.

Due to its airing together with "Rebirth", "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" was immediately compared to that and many reviewers did not consider "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" as strong an episode as "Rebirth".

Shows in the V-GINY
When Leela and Zapp travel through the V-GINY (a massive censoring module), the viewer can see tens of screens with different shows, including many commercials and shows previously seen in the Futurama universe.




 * This list is incomplete.


 * All My Circuits
 * Bachelor Chow commercial
 * Channel √2 News with Linda and Morbo
 * eyePhone commercial
 * Fishy Joe's commerical
 * Hypnotoad
 * Leela and Zapp traveling through the V-GINY (presumably security camera)
 * Richard Nixon's head
 * Slurm commercial
 * Torgo's Executive Powder commercial



Trivia

 * The opening sequence was abridged in this episode. Consequently, there is no opening cartoon.
 * With this episode, David Herman was officially promoted to a series regular.
 * The sound effect used for the stealth ship's cloaking is the transporter sound from Star Trek.
 * Inside the V-GINY, among many shows and commercials, there is an eyePhone commercial. This is the eyePhone's first appearance in Futurama, later having a much larger appearances in the very next episode, "Attack of the Killer App".
 * The picket signs that the Planet Express crew hold are as follows:
 * Amy: "Shame on everything!"
 * Zoidberg: "Sin no more!"
 * Hermes: "Judgement Day is at hand!"
 * Bender: "Bender is great!"
 * Fry: "The end is nigh!"
 * Farnsworth: "Repent!"
 * Hermes is shown to listen to his iPod, but it is unlikely to have any connections to the name of the eyePhones, which were a major plot point in "Attack of the Killer App", since his eyes are not involved in the product.

Allusions

 * The episode's title is a spoof of the Iron Butterfly song , which was apparently first called In the Garden of Eden.
 * Leela and Zapp's infiltration of the sphere includes many references to, including Leela mentioning the Force and a voice very reminiscent of as.
 * Zapp once again mentions his "captain's log", a reference to.
 * Hermes tried to find references to the V-GINY ship in the Janeway's Guide, a reference to the captain of and.
 * The index search for the V-GINY against silhouettes is similar to the method of identifying the Cygnus in.
 * The V-GINY is similar in both name and origin (i.e., from an old 20th century Earth vessel) to V'Ger from.
 * In yet another reference to, the plot point of two probes colliding and merging in both form and programming is taken from the episode.
 * President Nixon says, "Sock it to me!" This is a reference to his appearance on Laugh-In.
 * Zapp makes a reference to .
 * The V-Chip censored such programs as  and Assarama, very obvious inappropriate versions of both of Matt Groening's shows.
 * Nixon refers to Kif as Reptilicus,.

Continuity

 * President Nixon's map of the Solar System shows Uranus being renamed Urectum.
 * This episode marks the second (and probably last) appearance of Planet XXX, the Nude Beach Planet, although this is the first time its proper name is used.
 * The Pubic Library wasn't an adult book store in "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", but we could easily say it was changed into one sometime between the events. Alternatively it could be a different, near-identical, building.
 * 'The Bender' reappears for the first time since A Pharoah to Remember

Censorship

 * This episode was subject to censorship by itself.

Goofs

 * After being shown a (fake) scene of Earth being destroyed by the V-GINY, Leela gets depressed because "everyone [she knows] is dead" and she and Zapp are "the last humans in the universe". Obviously she was ignoring the fact that in the 31st century many humans inhabit other planets in the universe, including Earth's closest neighbour, Mars.
 * Leela was dehydrated so she wasn't thinking clearly.
 * Leela cannot clearly move her legs, yet she manages to take her space suit overalls off in a few seconds.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Calculon
 * Debut: Emperor Chop Chop
 * Fry
 * Debut: Fake Planet Express Crew
 * Hermes
 * Kif
 * Leela
 * Linda
 * Monique
 * Morbo
 * Richard Nixon's head
 * Petunia
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Sal
 * Debut: Serpent of Eden
 * Transition Announcer
 * Debut: V-GINY
 * Zapp Brannigan
 * Zoidberg