Commentary:Bend Her

Topics of Discussion

 * They had to make some changes to the episode due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
 * Specifically, Bender had originally claimed he was from Afghanistan when trying to enter the Olympics. This scene was a deleted scene on the DVD.
 * Michael Rowe was originally going to be credited as "Mike Rowe", but his wife convinced him otherwise.
 * The commenters discuss whether there are commentaries for horror movies or not.
 * This episode was the second time Unbendable girders were bended, the first time being in Bendless Love.
 * Michael tells the story of how the story for this episode came about; he was pitching stories to David X. Cohen and Ken Keeler, but they were unexcited.  The last story he pitched to them simply said "Bender gets a sex change operation."
 * David joked that they perked up at this suggestion because they heard the word 'sex'.
 * Keeler was instrumental in this episode.
 * The writers wanted to do an episode centered on Barbados Slim, but they couldn't think of one.
 * The writers had wanted to do an episode involving the Olympics for a long time.
 * Whenever David sees a shot in slow motion, he feels sorry for the animators.
 * Michael was not a big sci-fi fan, so it was hard for him to write an episode of Futurama.
 * Originally, Bender was going to be impersonating a woman's voice in Act 1, but the writers soon realized that this would mean three acts of Bender impersonating a woman's voice.
 * There is another movie about a man who pretends to be retarded to be in the ; the commenters wonder if they got the plot idea from this episode.
 * Billy West jokes about suing them.
 * The commenters wonder why they designed female robots, kid robots, ect.
 * Bender retains his love for himself even after he becomes Coilette.
 * David asks John DiMaggio if he had to dig deep for the Coilette voice. He says no.
 * David was worried about the response to Bender getting a sex change.
 * The commenters think the barbecuing pirate in the All My Circuits episode is odd.
 * Rowe has kids, who he hopes will become Futurama fans when they're older.
 * The commenters all jokingly say 'hi' to their kids.
 * They also joke about their kids bringing the Futurama DVDs in for show-and-tell, but no one would know how to play DVDs anymore.
 * Later in the commentary, Mike jokes that his kids were adopted.
 * James Purdum thinks David designed the spinning robot hands, but David says he was thinking of the stripper robot in The Lesser of Two Evils.
 * The spinning hands were relatively hard to animate.
 * John wonders why Coilette's breasts aren't bigger; James jokes that they went by John's breast size.
 * Mike tells a story he calls 'The Gay Guy and the Ghost' about his gay roommate from some time ago that had a romantic interest in him. He didn't know the guy was gay until years later.  This story was apparently a big influence on the episode.
 * The writers joke about making the story into a sitcom.
 * They also joke about what they would do if they found a ghost in their house.
 * The writers weren't sure how physical Coilette's relationship with Calculon should be.
 * Maurice LaMarche claims that Calculon sounds nothing like the Transition Announcer.