A Head in the Polls

Production Number: 2ACV03 Title Caption: From The Makers Of Futurama First Aired: 12/12/99

Act I: "How are you going to live without a body?"
Bender and Fry are on the couch at Planet Express watching "The Scary Door" when Leela runs in and changes the TV to the Presidential Debates. The candidates, Jack Johnson and John Jackson, are clones, with identical views on nearly every subject. Fry says he's not even registered to vote, so Leela makes him go register immediately. Fry meets representatives from all the political parties, and begins to become interested in politics. Back at Planet Express, they see a news report about a mining accident on Titan traps over 1000 robots and sends Titanium prices through the roof. Bender, whose body is 40% titanium, sells his body to a pawn shop.

Act II: "I spent most of my teen years loving my body."
Bender begins living it up with his new wealth. After speaking with the presidents' heads at the Head Museum, Bender realises he has made a mistake and tries to buy back his body. But when he gets to the pawn shop, his body has already been sold - to Richard Nixon's head. It unfolds that Nixon is using Bender's body to run for president on a technicality ("nobody can be elected more than twice").

Act III: "You've got real charisma from the neck down."
Nixon's Head, thanks to his shiny new robot body, sweeps the robot voters in early polls in spite of his miserable performance in the debates. Bender and friends try to get Bender's body back from Nixon. When Nixon refuses to return it, they break into his hotel room at the Watergate Hotel to steal it back. They are successful, but Nixon just buys a new body, a bigger one, with heavy weapons, and slides into office on the robot vote anyway.

Quotes

 * Bender: Bodies are for hookers and fat people.
 * Nixon's head: "Listen here, missy. Computers may be twice as fast as they were in 1973, but your average voter is as drunk and stupid as ever. The only thing that's different is me; I've become bitter, and lets face it, crazy over the years. And once I'm swept into office, I'll sell our childrens' organs to zoos for meat, and I'll go into people's houses at night and wreck up the place. Muahahaha!

Characters
(In alphabetical order)
 * Bender
 * Brain Slugs
 * Fry
 * Leela
 * Linda
 * Morbo
 * Pawnshop Worker
 * Farnsworth
 * Zoidberg
 * Richard Nixon's head

Errata

 * Leela and Bender's Arms are overlapped incorrectly in one scene (image)
 * Truman's Head's jar should read "Harry S Truman," without the '.' after the 'S' (image)