Forty Percent Leadbelly

"Forty Percent Leadbelly" is the one hundred and twenty-eighth episode of Futurama, the fourteenth of the seventh production season and the fourth of the tenth broadcast season. It aired on 3 July 2013 on Comedy Central. At a maximum-security prison, Bender meets a famous folk singer and attempts to make a copy of his precious guitar.

Production
On 27 January 2012, assistant director Aimee Steinberger commented that she could not go to the FOX-lot screening of the first full-color animation for "7ACV01" due to her work on this episode. On 14 February 2012, she said that the animatic for the episode was "done" and would be screened "[on the next day] at the FOX lot". On the next day, she stated that she thought that it had gone "pretty well".

As late as 8 January 2013, it was revealed that the title "Forty Percent Leadbelly", which had been, in February 2012, added to the and said by show writer Eric Rogers to be the title of something "supergood", was the episode's title.

On 12 April 2013, a preview clip for the episode was released during a interview with Futurama writer Patric Verrone, showing Bender using the help of Dr. Ben Beeler to bring a guitar image stored in his file system into reality by use of a large -like device, the Make-O-Matic. The air date for the second half of season 7 was also revealed.

Lyrics

 * "The Ballad of Me, Ramblin' Rodriguez"
 * The rap song

Trivia

 * This is the only episode of the tenth broadcast season not to be featured in the Vulture preview clip.
 * Dr. Ben Beeler is named after Futurama writer Ken Keeler, who wrote this episode. Dr. Beeler also appeared in another episode written by Keeler, "Overclockwise", but he did not speak.
 * Bender's porn drive has a memory size of 100,000 terabytes and his main drive has the memory size of only 1 terabyte.
 * This episode confirms Dandy Jim's name, which was first used in a Volume Three menu.
 * Bender is wrong, "octopi" is not a true plural form of "octopus" and originates from a misconception on Latin pluralization rules.
 * Ramblin' Rodriguez's birth year is given as 2996. This may be Bender's birth year.

Allusions

 * The episode's title is a reference to a running gag that has Bender claim to be 40% of something that keeps changing and the late American musician . In the game, Bender is 40% lead.
 * Dr. Brutalov's finger knives may be a reference to the claws of the superhero or the glove worn by the primary antagonist of the  film series,.
 * When Bender declares that he will duplicate the guitar, Silicon Red states that "with all Salmonella and me been through, her sound is unique". This may be a reference to  violins, as no modern copy has been able to truly replicate their "perfect" sound.
 * Fry is trapped in a block of carbonite, a reference to the Star Wars franchise.  was also trapped in carbonite in .
 * T.G.I. Folky's is a reference to the restaurant chain T.G.I. Friday's.
 * The name of Bender's song, "The Ballad of Me, Ramblin' Rodriguez", may be a reference to English musician 's song "". It's also a reference to Bender's catchphrase "me, Bender".
 * The name Ramblin' Rodriguez may be a reference to one of the following.
 * Folk singer.
 * , a children's-show host from series creator Matt Groening's home town of, Oregon.
 * The 1962 song "".

Continuity

 * The Awesome Express uniforms, from "The Route of All Evil", appear once again.
 * Bender's dream of being a folk singer was established in "The Series Has Landed", which was also written by Ken Keeler.
 * Fry previously did karate in "Attack of the Killer App".
 * When Dr. Beeler accesses Bender's main drive in his file system, two folders can be seen within it, "Main Personality" and "Penguin Personality", a reference to when Bender was rebooted in penguin mode in "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz".
 * Funnily enough, his main personality file has a memory size of 3 MB, whereas his penguin personality has a memory size of 150 MB.
 * A few penguins attend Bender's funeral later in the episode.
 * The prism railroad previously appeared in "The 30% Iron Chef".
 * The front door to Fry and Bender's apartment no longer contains the main cupboard for Bender, from "I, Roommate", at the opening. This means the main apartment is no longer just a "closet" and simply is the apartment.
 * Leela refers to a phone as a cell phone telephone, as she and Bender did in Into the Wild Green Yonder.
 * The funeral dresses that Leela and Amy wear are the ones from "The Sting".
 * The Wong Hotel & Casino has got a strike through "Wong", possibly because the Martians took it over in "Viva Mars Vegas".
 * Bender previously rapped during the end credits for "Free Will Hunting".

Goofs

 * When the ship lands at the prison, the crew is already at the door.
 * The autopilot may have been on.
 * When everyone is at T.G.I. Folky's, Hermes doesn't have a pipe in the first shot but later on he does.
 * In the scene where Bender is lying in bed with Jezebel, the left sleeve of his shirt isn't outlined.
 * In the scene where Fry and Leela are watching TV in Fry and Bender's apartment, the shot depicting the television set is clearly the one used for the Planet Express employee lounge.
 * Leela states that Big Caboose, Duplicate Fry, and Cookie are simply creations from Bender's song, but Bender met Big Caboose and Cookie before he wrote the song.
 * She is referring to the Big Caboose that was in the apartment. She may also be saying that she met Cookie herself, sometime after Bender presumably wrote him into his song.
 * Dr. Beeler says that a duplicate was created as a decoy in Star Trek: , but, in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", Star Trek had been outlawed.
 * Dr. Beeler could have found an illegal method of watching Star Trek.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Dr. Ben Beeler
 * Bender
 * Debut: Big Caboose
 * Debut: Cookie
 * Debut: Dr. Brutalov
 * Dandy Jim
 * Dr. Daniel Zenus' robot
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Debut: Fast Frank Brogan
 * Fry
 * Gus
 * Helper
 * Hermes
 * Humorbot 5.0
 * The Hypnotoad
 * Debut: Jezebel
 * Leela
 * The male nurse
 * The Robot Chef
 * Debut: Silicon Red
 * Zoidberg

Characters at the funeral

 * Abner Doubledeal
 * Albert
 * Angleyne
 * Bev
 * Boxy Robot
 * Bubblegum
 * Destructor
 * Fat-bot
 * Gearshift
 * The human friend
 * Lucy Liu's head
 * Oily
 * Penguins
 * Ruth and Esther
 * The Robot Devil
 * Sally
 * Scruffy
 * Tinny Tim
 * The whale biologist

Places

 * Debut: 11-Worth Variable-Security Prison
 * Alabama
 * Apartment 00100100
 * New Hampshire
 * Debut: Mississippi
 * The Planet Express conference room
 * The Planet Express employee lounge (goof)
 * The Planet Express headquarters
 * The Planet Express kitchen
 * The prism railroad
 * Robot Arms Apartments
 * Debut: The Rusty Rail
 * The technology lab
 * The Temple of Robotology
 * Debut: T.G.I. Folky's
 * The Wong Hotel & Casino