Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles

"Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" is the sixty-third episode of Futurama, the ninth of the fourth production season and the seventh of the fifth broadcast season. It aired 30 March, 2003 on FOX. An attempt to youthise Farnsworth works... little too well, in the attempt, the entire Planet Express crew are turned into children, and Farnsworth's first attempt to fix the problem only makes matters worse.

Act I: "We've talked it over and everybody thinks you're too old"
After his pet gargoyle Pazuzu escapes from the Planet Express lab, Professor Farnsworth sets off to hunt down the errant monster with Fry, Leela and Bender in tow. He is acting extremely geriatric, driving extremely slow and being very forgetful. He even forgets what he set out to do initially and parks the ship in a Florida diner to catch the early bird dinner special, where Wanda says his "angry crotchety grandpa" discount card has expired, despite it being good for a lifetime. Then his nuclear-powered teeth cause mayhem. The crew decide that the Professor is too old and decide that he has to be youthasized. They bring him to the The Bubbling Geezer spa where Heather, a Neptunian, is assigned as his personal youthasizer. Heather's first several treatments bringing about no change, the Professor is directed to bathe in age-reducing tar. Bender overdoes the pumping of the whirlpool function of the tar pit and everyone gets covered in tar. The Professor, previously at a biological age of 161, is now at 53 again, everyone else has reverted to teen age (Fry is 14). Zoidberg even reverts to a larval, codfish-like form.

Act II: "Shut up and go live with your parents!"
While the Professor tries to restore their normal ages, the crew have to adjust to their teenage selves - mostly by acting very childishly. Leela choses to go live with her parents to experience the childhood she never had. Her parents agree to this, even as Leela asks them to be really strict so she can get the whole teen experience. Amy's parents are not amused, though - they will have to wait longer for a grandchild. Fry and Leela go out on a date and win a race through the sewers against Moose and Mandy, but end up damaging the Martin Luther Thing Jr. High School.

Meanwhile, the Professor has thought of a way to restore their correct ages - a genetically engeneered oil eating bacterium that should eat away the tar still stuck to their DNA (in Bender's case, his RNA, Robo Nucleic Acid). Leela refuses the treatment, as she wants to go on living out her teen age with her parents. The rest of the crew enter the Bacterial Spew Chamber for controlled infection with the bacteria. The plan, however, backfires - the tar is gone, but the chronitons within it are now roaming free inside the crew's system, making them younger by the minute. The Professor is now 35 years old, and Amy is only 8. They all now face a fate worse than death: pre-life... and then death.

Act III: "He always had to be the center of attention!"
While the Professor is desperately thinking of a way to stop the youthing process, Leela (who is still a teen as she didn't take the treatment) takes care of the crew that is now around four or five years old at her parent's home. While reading them a story, she stumbles on a story about the Fountain of Aging. She informs the Professor, who thinks that it may really exist. The whole crew flies to an extremely old solar system, where they locate the Fountain. The youthasized crew, except the Professor, have now reverted to their embryonal stage, except for Bender - all what is left of him is a CD with Bending Robot Blueprints. A sibling from Zoidberg (his brother Norman) falls into the Fountain, gets caught in its eddy, ages rapidly and crumbles to dust. The Professor, now around three years old, enters the Fountain with the others, where everyone ages quickly. However, the current is too strong and the Professor loses his grip, they all get drawn into the center of the fountain. Leela jumps in after them, tied to a safety rope, and manages to retrieve everyone, now at about their correct ages again - except the Professor, who is drawn right into the center of the fountain. He is saved, however, by Pazuzu, who earns his freedom that way and lives on Notre Dame in Paris afterwards with his son.

Trivia

 * The book Leela reads the stories from is "A Child's Garden of Space Legends".
 * Leela is carrying a backpack with a "Curious Pussycat" logo on it.
 * The poster behind Leela in her bedroom is from the "mu-teen" magazine, it shows "Tentacle Chachi" and "Four-Legged Chachi".
 * The stories from the book include "Snow-White Dwarf and the Seven Red Dwarfs", "Charlotte's Tholian Web" and "The Fountain of Aging".

Outside References

 * The title of the episode is a spoof of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", a franchise built out of a series of comic books made most famous by its animated adaptation in the 80's.
 * The Professor destroys with the 'high beams' of the Planet Express Ship.
 * The oil eating bacteria is based on Namco's Pac-man.
 * The race was inspired by Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace's Podracers.
 * Pazuzu could be named after a god in Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, the king of the demons of the wind.
 * Pazuzu is also the name of the demon in The Exorcist.
 * Moose and Mandy could be based on a couple from the classic Archie comics. Archie's Moose goes by the same name and has a similar appearance and manner. Mandy could be a reference to his girlfriend, Midge. This might also mean that Fry corresponds to Archie, due to his red hair, and Leela to Betty (or Veronica).

Goofs

 * While en route to the Fountain of Aging, Professor Farthsworth's custard-bowl haircut changes between shots from being all orange, to orange with dark brown sides, to all orange again.
 * Professor Farnsworth was wrong, Leela could simply relive her childhood by going back to the spa and perform the accident on purpose.

Continuity

 * Wanda's comment that Professor Farnsworth's discount card is expired, despite the fact that it should be good for a lifetime, may be an allusion to the law put forward in "A Clone of My Own". Farnsworth is 160, meaning he should have died (his lifetime expired) ten years ago.
 * In this episode, Zoidberg goes through larval stages, but in "A Taste of Freedom" he is seen as a Humanoid child.
 * It is possible that after the slug stage, Decapodians become a Humanoid child that will eventually grow into adult size.
 * In this episode, Bender has a growing factor (being built small and advance in hieght & appearance as he ages) unlike "Bendless Love", where he was built the same way he is now.
 * It is possible that Bender's RNA is effected in this way by the tar but that naturally he does not age. Other Robot children have been shown before thus it is conceivable that while Bender was built as he is now his RNA allows him to have a childhood form (imagine cloning a Human adult, the clone is in adult form but its DNA is able to exist in a childhood state even if it never has done).
 * Another likely explanation would be that the younger versions of him were previous models of Bending Units that his personality inhabited, but it kept on getting rebuilt and upgraded. The newest version of him could have been built four years prior to "Bendless Love".
 * In the commentary for the the episode, it is remarks that no one can see what is going on while Bender is being assembled. A child form for Bender also fits in with the revelations from "Lethal Inspection".
 * The chronitons that affect the Planet Express crew are the same ones used to grow the Mutant Atomic Supermen "Time Keeps on Slippin'".

Characters

 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Dwayne
 * Dwight Conrad
 * El Chupanibre
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Fry
 * Debut: Heather
 * Hermes
 * Inez Wong
 * LaBarbara Conrad
 * Leela
 * Leo Wong
 * Turanga Morris
 * Debut: Moose and Mandy
 * Turanga Munda
 * Debut: Pazuzu
 * Debut: Pazuzu's son
 * Randy Munchnik
 * Debut: Wanda
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Jeff Westbrook
 * Director
 * Bret Haaland
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * Dave Herman
 * Tress MacNeille
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Jeff Westbrook
 * Bret Haaland
 * John DiMaggio
 * Maurice LaMarche