Anthology of Interest I



Production Number: 2ACV16

Title Caption: Painstakingly Drawn Before a Live Audience

First Aired: May 21, 2000

Act I: "I'm a big robot!"
The Professor demonstrates his latest invention, the Fing-Longer by turning on the What-If Machine. Bender wants to ask it a question, What if he was 500 feet tall?

Bending units complete work on Bender, who blasts of and heads to Earth, where he meets Fry and they become friends. Bender kills the heads of Hanson and thousands of their fans, the DOOP retaliate and Bender goes on a rampage. The Professor enlarges Zoidberg so that he can fight Bender. Zoidberg, near death himself, kills Bender.

Act II: "The crime is unsolvable."
Leela gets to ask a question, what if she was more impulsive?

Leela buys some boots. The Professor makes Leela his sole heir because she's not impulsive. She kills the Professor. Zoidberg begins investigating. Hermes finds the video will, so she kills him too. Bender catches her disposing of the body, so he tries to extort her. She kills Bender. Amy insults her, then dies. The remaining staff gather in the accusing parlour. Cubert, Scruffy and Nibbler meet their demise as they are about to reveal the killer. Zoidberg finally works it out, only because he gets a letter from Bender, but Fry leaves before he can say and Leela kills Zoidberg. The next day Fry works it out, Leela stops him from talking by having sex with him.

Act III: "Ask something less stupid!"
Fry's turn to ask a question, what if he never came to the future?

Fry makes his fateful delivery to I. C. Wiener at Applied Cryogenics. Instead of falling in the freezer, he hits his head. This rips the fabric of space-time, through which we see some of the Planet Express staff. The next day Stephen Hawking drops by Panucci's Pizza. Fry asks him about the hole in nothing, with monsters in it. After work, the Vice Presidential Action Rangers abduct Fry. The rangers inform him that they have to fix the time-space continuum or the universe will be destroyed. Fry tells his story and it is decided that when he hit his head he should have died, the attempt at murder fails to fix it and the hole reappears, they try to make him enter the tube but instead he breaks the glass. The universe collapses on itself and Fry and the Vice Presidential Action Rangers are floating around outside the universe, they start a game of Dungeons and Dragons.

The Professor throws away the What-If Machine because he didn't think the stories were realistic, but declares the Fing-Longer a success.

It is revealed that this whole thing is being watched on the What-If Machine by the Professor, who wanted to know what life would be like if he'd invented the Fing-Longer

Trivia

 * The first of several Anthologies. The Anthology of Interest episodes (and to a lesser extent the comics) are equivalent to Treehouse of Horrors on The Simpsons.
 * The Earth forces that try to stop Bender consist of tanks, foot soldiers and strange double-decker fighter planes, this is a reference to the original King Kong movie.

Quotes

 * Zoidberg: Friends, help! A guinea pig tricked me!
 * Farnsworth: Ohhh! You've killed me! You've killed me! Leela: Oh, god. What have I done? Farnsworth: I just told you. You've killed me!
 * Hermes: What are you hacking off? Is it my torso? It is! My precious torso! Zoidberg: Hermes, quiet! I'm deducing things.
 * Farnsworth: That question was less stupid. Though you asked it in a profoundly stupid way


 * Al Gore: If we don't go back there and make the event happen, the entire universe will be destroyed. And as an environmentalist, I'm against that.

Inside References

 * The Applied Cryogenics scene is missing a certain shadow that was seen in Space Pilot 3000.
 * The DOOP attempts to destroy Bender with electricity, this is a known drug for robots.
 * The anteater spitting the glasses back onto the Professor's skull is a reference to the fact we never see his eyes.

Fast Forward

 * The events of Roswell that Ends Well explain the timeline issues which cause the universe to be destroyed.
 * The Professor later invents the Fing-Longer.

Characters
(In alphabetical order)


 * Debut: Al Gore
 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Cubert Farnsworth
 * Debut: Deep Blue
 * Fry
 * Debut: Gary Gygax
 * Hermes
 * Glab
 * Kif Kroker
 * Leela
 * Lou
 * Debut: Narrator
 * Nibbler
 * Debut: Nichelle Nichols
 * Mr. Panucci
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Scruffy
 * Debut: Stephen Hawking
 * Terry
 * Zapp Brannigan
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writers
 * Eric Rogers (Act 1)
 * Ken Keeler (Act 2)
 * David X. Cohen (Act 3)
 * Directors
 * Chris Loudon
 * Rich Moore
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Lauren Tom
 * Phil LaMarr
 * David Herman
 * Kath Soucie
 * Frank Welker
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Ken Keeler
 * John DiMaggio
 * Billy West


 * Special Guests
 * Al Gore
 * Gary Gygax
 * Nichelle Nichols
 * Stephen Hawking