Bendin' in the Wind

"Bendin' in the Wind" is the forty-fifth episode of Futurama, the thirteenth of the third production season and third broadcast season. It aired 22 April, 2001 on FOX. It guest stars Beck as himself. Bender becomes a folksinger after being broken, and starts touring with Beck.

Act I: "This thing can't go faster than 80,000 miles per hour?"
While walking, Fry and Bender come across the NNY Hole Project. Fry gets a recently excavated  that he pushes back to Planet Express. Though petroleum no longer exists, a can of whale oil is supplied. Bender starts to open it with the can opener, but he is caught by the magnetic forces and is horribly damaged. at the hospital, Bender learns that his hydraulics are ruined, he can never move again. While wallowing in his misery, he notices Beck, his favourite folk singer. Beck invites Bender to be his new washboard player, giving him robotic mini-arms, which allow him to play by scraping them across his broken chest.

Act II: "My shell ran."
Bender and Beck go on tour, with Fry, Leela, Amy and Zoidberg following them in the microbus. While at a laundromat, Zoidberg's shell runs, ruining their money. Beck and Bender organize a benefit for broken robots and Bender starts writing his own song. After he finishes writing his song, he is visited by Fry and the rest; they are shocked to find he is capable of moving again.

Act III: "I didn't get my beads!"
Bender is wondering how he can play at his upcoming concert, Bend-Aid and thinks of something... by faking still being injured. At his concert, Bender sings with Beck, while the others make money by selling "love beads", pearls coughed up by Dr. Zoidberg. Bender receives a giant check before singing the song he wrote, "My Broken Friend", and right before he finishes his song, his secret is exposed as he gets too cocky and starts to dance. Bender escapes, lands in the VW, and drives off with the others.

Act IV: "Put the metal to the pedal to the other metal!"
Bender and the rest start driving through town, trying to outrun Beck and his minions. The VW falls off the Golden Gate Bridge, because it is a hover bridge and they aren't in a hovercar. Bender grabs a cable and manages to save himself and the others. Once safe, the others let go of Bender, causing him to be slingshot into the air. He lands near Beck's bus, where Beck recovers the huge check, but spares Bender. With a magnet placed on his head, singing "Bender is Great", Bender returns to the crew, who are paddling home by using the bus as a raft.

Trivia

 * Cedars-Sinewave Hospital is a play off of.
 * Non-speaking appearances are made by the heads of and, on Beck's tourbus.
 * Bender's music, as shown on the sheet music (approx 11:07), is actually the melody of the first movement of.
 * In this episode we learn the 4th millennium's names for many of the States of America:
 * New York -> New New York
 * New Jersey -> New New Jersey
 * Pennsylvania -> Sylvania and the Penn Republic (an allusion to the splitting of )
 * Virginia -> East West Virginia (West Virginia's name remained unchanged)
 * Washington D.C. -> Washington 
 * Ohio -> eHIO (possibly a pun on )
 * Kentucky -> 'Ucky
 * Montana -> tana
 * Washington -> 
 * Wyoming -> 
 * Colorado -> ado
 * Idaho -> User ID:aho
 * Oregon -> egon
 * Nevada -> Nukevada
 * Arizona -> Human Farm (The name is written, possibly officially, in AL1)
 * California -> HighCal and LoCal

Continuity

 * The broken robots shown throughout the episode include:
 * Oily, from "Mars University"
 * A Humorbot, though presumably not Humorbot 5.0, who appears fully functioning in earlier and later episodes
 * Malfunctioning Eddie
 * The headless Robot Chef, who we see explode in.
 * The drummer in Beck's band is a Neptunian.

Allusions

 * Bender eats some Olestra chips from the 1990's and suffers the usual side effects of the product.
 * Patchcord Adams is a spoof of real life medical doctor Patch Adams who was made famous when he was portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie of the same name. His voice is more of a dead-on impression of Williams.
 * Cylon and Garfunkel are the 31st century equivalent of Simon and Garfunkel. They sing the latter's "Scarborough Fair".

Goofs

 * Issues come up involving the state names. In, Washington A.C. was called Washington D.C., New Jersey only called "New New Jersey" in this episode, And in , Bender references Eugene, "Oregon", differing from "XORegon". Presumably these state parodies were only thought up for this episode as they are not used at any other point in the series.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Debut: Beck
 * Bender
 * Cylon
 * Fry
 * Debut: : Art Garfunkel's descendant
 * Hermes
 * Debut: Country Blob
 * Leela
 * Malfunctioning Eddie
 * Neil Young's Head
 * Oily
 * Debut: Patchcord Adams
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Robot Chef
 * Sal
 * Unnamed Fat Guy
 * Debut: Wailing Fungus
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Eric Horsted
 * Director
 * Ron Hughart
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Phil LaMarr
 * David Herman
 * Lauren Tom
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Eric Horsted
 * John DiMaggio
 * Billy West
 * Special Guest
 * Beck