31st Century Fox

"31st Century Fox" is the one hundred and twenty-fifth episode of Futurama, the eleventh of the seventh production season and the ninth broadcast season. It aired 29 August 2012 on Comedy Central. It guest stars Patrick Stewart as the Hunts Master. Bender discovers a cruel hunt of robot animals and decides to take action.

Production


On 29 February 2012, CGEF revealed the episode's title, its writer to be Patric M. Verrone and its director to be Edmund Fong. On 29 June, revealed the episode's plot and air date.

On 12 July, following the broadcast of the episode "Zapp Dingbat", the public were given the opportunity to participate in a live chat with the Futurama cast and crew. Several clips of "31st Century Fox" were shown during the live stream.

Reception
On 30 January 2012, Eric Rogers revealed that his favourite episode from the ninth broadcast season was either "The Bots and the Bees", "A Farewell to Arms" or this one.

Trivia

 * This is the first episode (in production order) of season 7 to be aired out of order, as the broadcast order of both this episode and "Viva Mars Vegas" were swapped.
 * The plot is a direct reference to the short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" written by Richard Connel.
 * With this episode, the Awesome Express uniforms have officially been acknowledged as serving Planet Express.

Allusions

 * The episode's title is a reference to 20th Century Fox, the company that owns Futurama.
 * The uniforms tried on by the crew contain many references:
 * The first uniforms are stillsuits from the film of by.
 * The red thong with suspenders is a reference to Sean Connery in the film .
 * Leela wears a costume from .
 * Amy wears a Pan Am uniform from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 * Fry wears an operations uniform from Star Trek.
 * Zoidberg wears Storm Trooper armor from Star Wars.
 * Squidward Scissorhands is a reference to and the character of Squidward Tentacles from .
 * The highway sign reading "Highway jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive" is a reference to the song.


 * As Lela tries to kill the robot fox with her sign she cuts off half its facial fur, a possible reference to .
 * "Missed it by that much" was a reference to .
 * "Newmar's Own Catnip" is a reference to both the "Newman's Own" brand of products from Paul Newman and Joan Woodward and Julie Newmar's Catwoman on the television show .

Quotes
Farnsworth: Fox news, everyone! I've decided to make the fox our new corporate mascot! Leela: Where's the Hunt Master? Poopenmyer: Remember when you said "Nobody leave." and then turned your head briefly....He left an hour before that.

Goofs

 * When shopping for new uniforms, Fry is wearing a red operations uniform from Star Trek, including the emblem. After the Decapodian store owner walks past Fry the emblem vanishes.
 * The trench that the Hunts Master knocks Leela in, isn't there before or after (later on the second hunt) he knocks her in.
 * Leela states she's okay with a robot fox dying, but later goes to Benders antiviolence to robot animals meeting.
 * She could have changed her mind or Bender could have forced her to go to the meeting.
 * Bender says he's starving, but as a robot, it's been stated he doesn't get hungry.
 * He's a self-professed drama queen.
 * Bender cuts his finger off with a knife, but he's made of metal.
 * He didn't necessarily cut off his finger, he could have just dislodged it from his hand, such as how his arm can disconnect from his torso.
 * Bender is unable to break a metal cage, but is strong enough to bend an unbendable bar?
 * Bender runs farther than the distance shown when the hunt catches up with him the first time.
 * When the horse falls on Bender the first time, it flattens him, but the second time he just keeps running, with it on his back.
 * It's stated the fox urinated on the floor, but its made clear by Bender in several stories that robots don't go to the bathroom.
 * The fox could have simply done something likened to urination.
 * Fry says Bender got rid of all robot animal cruelty in fifty yards of the building, but there is no farm or pier in fifty yards of planet express, as shown in overshots.
 * That means Bender didn't really do anything noteworthy and they were really just trying to get him to bring everything to a close.
 * Whats the point of robot hen eggs? Or cutting up robot animals? They can't be eaten as they're made of metal, so why waste resources on them simply for cruelty?
 * You answer your own question (the Hunts-Master blew up a robot horse just to prove a point) and it was later proven he himself was a robot (and was ready to kill Bender for hunting too.)
 * The robot chicken could be a means of mass producing robot hens. It's proven robots can have babies
 * There could be alien species that eat metal and consider robot animals as some perverted form of food. Some consider Human noses aphrodisiacs.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Farnsworth
 * Fry
 * Hermes
 * Debut: Hunts Master
 * Leela
 * Mayor Poopenmeyer
 * Debut: Robotic Fox
 * Ron Whitey
 * Debut: Squidward Scissorhands
 * Zoidberg