Commentary:The Silence of the Clamps

Topics of Discussion

 * Peter Avanzino says he can never get enough of Clamps.
 * Maurice LaMarche is the "Billy West" of this episode, due to him playing a large number of the characters.
 * David also notes that he plays "66.6% of the Robot Mafia".
 * The lyrics of Calculon's long were written, but Maurice improvised the melody.
 * This episode is right in the middle of the run of 26 episodes, and coming up with new ideas was difficult until Eric Rogers pitched an idea of Bender going into witness protection.
 * One of the initial high points of the episode was a scene where Bender wears a wire in an Italian restaurant and tries to get the Donbot to rat himself out. However, the scene was cut out for time.
 * The wedding scene was inspired by the beginning of, and is set at the house from.
 * Patric Verrone is the crew's expert on The Godfather, and was called by a contestant on the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" as a phone-a-friend for a question on The Godfather, and answered the question correctly.
 * Phil LaMarr provides the voice of Robot Stack.
 * There are a lot of courtrooms in this series; all different.
 * The courtroom was drawn for this episode, and then copied and recoloured for an upcoming episode.
 * The Hyper-Chicken is a prosecutor now, and he used to be a defense attorney.
 * He is one of Matt Groening's least favourite characters.
 * The jury is packed with famous robots.
 * Additionally, it has two members of the Ultimate Robot Fighting League; the Chain Smoker and Masked Unit.
 * The doodle of Fry that Bender draws was actually done by Carolyn with her left hand.
 * Animators get really mad when asked to draw something poorly.
 * The scene with Bender saying goodbye to everyone was straight from Eric's original draft
 * There have been many occasions where Fry and Bender say goodbye forever, and they should know it doesn't mean anything.
 * A lot of the characters first names are revealed this season; we learn Clamps' in this episode, and later in the season we learn Mom's first name.
 * Zoidberg gets this upper hand this episode, and again in a later episode.
 * Maurice went all the way with the swearing.
 * The Billy West joke caused a big laugh at the episode's table read.
 * The pizza place is Family Bros. Pizza.
 * This is one of the few episodes with an actual death.