A Leela of Her Own

"A Leela of Her Own" is the forty-eighth episode of Futurama, the sixteenth of the third production season and the tenth of the fourth broadcast season. It aired on 7 April, 2002. It guest stars Hank Aaron and Bob Uecker as themselves in jars. Turanga Leela finds herself being the first female ever to play major league Blernsball, not because she is any good at it, but because she is a great crowd pleaser.

Act I: "We got guano. Very fresh"
After the wall of a nearby strip club fell down, Fry took to looking out the window. But eventually noticed a pizza parlor opening next door. After Fry reminisces about his old job, the crew decide to go and welcome their new Cygnoid neighbours. The pizzas turn out to be disgusting, so Fry decides to help them. He explains how to act like Earthicans; giving them advice on the pizza parlor and teaching them about Blernsball. The Planet Express crew and their families play a game against the Cygnoid's pizzeria. Leela proves to be a terrible pitcher, hitting the batters in the head each time. Her bad playing draws a crowd and she is recruited for the Mets.

Act II: "Now pitching for the Mets, Turanga Leela"
Leela's pitching "skills" prove popular with Mets fans. Leela garners many fans and some advertising appearances, thanks to her agent, Bender. During a signing at Family Bros. Pizza, Jackie Anderson, an NNYU blernsballer tells Leela off for ruining the chances for competent women players. After a quick review of Leela's statistics Hermes informs her that she is likely to become the worst player ever, and Leela vows not to let that happen. To prevent this from happening, the crew visit the current worst player, Hank Aaron XXIV, at the Blernsball Hall of Fame. After several failed attempts, Aaron manages to teach Leela not to hit batters.

Act III: "Ancient Cygnoid secret"
The Cygnoids open a franchise at Fenway Park, and then sell it to Fishy Joe. Leela convinces the coach to let her play after having trained with a Hank Aaron. Leela's unconventional pitching manages to strike out two players before Jackie comes in to bat on the third strike. To the shock of the crowd, Leela manages to get two strikes before Jackie hits the ball hard enough to break the string and send the ball into the "win the game" hole, scoring a grand slam blern. Leela is now officially the worst player ever, and retires, having inspired women to prove they aren't all terrible.

Reception
There are several fans of Futurama who have a low opinion of this episode. Several complaints of this episode involve the more serious nature of the episode, the jokes that the episode had falling flat, and the less positive ending of the episode compared to others in the series. Can't Get Enough Futurama: Episode Reviews: 3ACV16 - A Leela of Her Own This episodes ranking on gotfuturama.com is currently 50%, and ranked, for a long time, as the lowest rated Futurama Episode. (In December 2010, it was "surpassed" by "The Futurama Holiday Spectacular", which has a 45% rating.)

Trivia

 * This episode comes closest to explaining Blernsball, the writers intend to make the sport confusing and so they threw in a few oddities at the end of the episode.
 * Hank Aaron was reluctant to be in this episode, but agreed when he found out Bob Uecker had agreed.
 * Jackie Anderson's name and uniform number (24) is a reference to, the first black (male) player in Major League Baseball.
 * One of the players who broke the various color barriers was a half-black and half-white alien. This is a reference to the s from Star Trek.
 * The Clown who played for the Mets is a reference to Max Patkin who was a former player dubbed the clown prince of baseball.
 * Leela's number 7/8 is a play on the number 1/8 which was the jersey number for midget Eddie Gaedel who played 1 game for the St. Louis Browns. Patkin was coaching at 1st base when Gaedel was walked in his only at bat.
 * The female Cygnoid's line about moving to Earth so she and her husband can raise fat, spoiled Earth kids and hang underwear from Earthican clotheslines originally included a line about bringing Earth weapons back to their home country to the terrorists of their planet. Because the episode aired after the 9/11 attacks in America, the "sending weapons back to [our] home country to the terrorists," was changed to "live Earthican dream."
 * The "ancient Cygnoid secret" exchange is lifted from a famous early 70s commercial for Calgon Water Softener. It involved the same back and forth, between the owners of a Chinese laundry, with Calgon being the "ancient Chinese secret."

Goofs

 * Hank Aaron XXIV is shown to have played for the Atlanta Braves but, as we learned in "The Deep South", Atlanta has been submerged in the Atlantic Ocean for quite some time. Unless his lifespan is somehow incredibly longer than everyone else's, he would have to be either a mermaid or a head in a jar.
 * This was something the production staff were aware of and the Atlanta Braves logo is updated from the 20th century design, which used a tomahawk, to feature a trident.
 * Additionally, in "The Deep South", Zoidberg says about the underwater Atlanta: "sure, they've got the Braves, but it's a third-rate symphony," perhaps showing that the Braves still exist as an Atlanta team.
 * In the episode "Anthology of Interest I" Shea Stadium is shown to be a complete bowl, but in this episode, it is shown to be more like the actual Shea Stadium, and is open in the outfield.
 * All the whole numbers couldn't have been retired since they are infinite.
 * It may be that the whole numbers used were only a specific subset, say from 1 to 99.
 * During the ending scene between Leela and Jackie Anderson, Leela's eyeliner disappears and reappears between shots.
 * Hermes makes a reference to Leela having not recorded an out in 77 innings. However, if no outs were recorded, then Leela would not be credited with any innings pitched, at least if the rules of blernsball are similar to those of.
 * Hank Aaron XXIV drinks from Wade Boggs' head jar but contrary to "All the Presidents' Heads", Hank is not transported through time due to the crystalline opal within the jar fluid. However, Wade Boggs' jar might use something else to maintain the head.
 * It is possible that crystalline opal is only used for people of historical importance (i.e. U.S. Presidents), or the writers recently established it.

Characters

 * Abner Doubledeal
 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Debut: Blek and his wife
 * Debut: Bob Uecker's head
 * Cubert Farnsworth
 * Dwight Conrad
 * Fishy Joe
 * Fry
 * Debut: Hank Aaron's head
 * Debut: Hank Aaron XXIV
 * Hermes
 * Debut: Jackie Anderson
 * LaBarbara Conrad
 * Leela
 * Michelle (cameo)
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Randy
 * Scruffy
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Patric M. Verrone
 * Director
 * Swinton O. Scott III
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * David Herman
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * Dawnn Lewis
 * Tom Kenny
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Patric M. Verrone
 * Swinton O. Scott III
 * John DiMaggio
 * Special Guests
 * Hank Aaron
 * Bob Uecker