Cold Warriors
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"Cold Warriors" is the one-hundred-and-twelfth episode of Futurama, the twenty-fourth of the sixth production season and the eleventh of the eighth broadcast season. It aired 25 August, 2011 on Comedy Central. Fry's sneezing reintroduces the common cold to the world of the future, with devastating consequences.
Plot
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Production
During June 2011, Countdown to Futurama released two items of promotional material for the episode: concept art of Fry's guinea pig on 5 June and part of the storyboard showing Leela engaged in a broom fight on 6 June.
Two promotional pictures for the episode were released by Comedy Central Press.[1]
On 24 August, Comedy Central released a video clip featuring the Planet Express crew being put under quarantine.[2]
Reception
The episode was well-received by fans, and many considered it to be one of the better episodes of Broadcast season 8. However, it didn't do so well on IGN, where it scored only a 6.5/10.
Image gallery
The production script cover.
Concept art of Fry's guinea pig.
Page 43 of the storyboard.
The first promotional picture for the episode.
The second promotional picture for the episode.
A screenshot from the video clip.
Additional Info
Trivia
- This episode's storyline is similar to that of the comic book "The Cure for the Common Clod". Writer Eric Rogers has commented on this via Twitter, writing that "[t]hey are different stories".[3]
- This is one of four episodes of broadcast season 8 to be broadcast in production order. The other three are "Fry am the Egg Man", "Overclockwise" and "Reincarnation".
- If one was to consider each of the movies as one episode rather than four, then "Cold Warriors" could technically be considered the 100th episode, rather than "The Mutants Are Revolting".
- Alternatively, if the movies are canon, but non-episodic, "Cold Warriors" is the 96th episode.
Allusions
- The title of the episode is a reference to the common cold and the cold warriors.
- Fry calling Josh Gedgie LL Fool J is a reference to American rapper and actor LL Cool J, while Gedgie calling Fry Grandmaster Phlegm is a reference to another rapper, Grandmaster Flash.
- The scene where the hovercopters cover Manhattan with a wrap is reminiscent of the scene where the helicopters cover Springfield with a dome in The Simpsons Movie.
- One of the science experiments presented for the space launch involves Tang. Tang became popular in the United States due to it's association with NASA and the manned spaceflight programs of the 1950s and 1960s.
- Leela remembers that all ancient satellites were swept up as space junk in 2113 while Facebooking. Furthermore, the title caption mentions Twitter.
- In the Flashback to 1988, Barack Obama is shown working as a pizza delivery guy.
Continuity
- This is the first onscreen appearance of Yancy Sr. and Mrs. Fry since Bender's Big Score, and their first speaking roles since "Jurassic Bark".
- In a flashback, Fry is seen carrying his seven-leaf clover from "The Luck of the Fryrish".
- Even though Smitty retired in "Law and Oracle", he somehow returned to the force in this episode.
- Like many retiree's, he quickly learned that his many years in the workforce has tailored his life to that of a working man.
- Nixon had again a meeting with Zapp in the Secret White House, like in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela".
- Dr. Wernstrom pronounces his name as "Vernstrom", but he previously pronounced it as "Wernstrom" in "A Big Piece of Garbage" and The Beast with a Billion Backs. Both ways may be correct.
- This episode continues the trend of guinea pig deaths seen in "Anthology of Interest I" and Bender's Big Score and mentioned in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela".
Goofs
- According to Wernstrom's diagram's for Nixon, the cold virus has not spread outside of Manhattan. However, both Morbo and Linda of √2 news have the cold, despite the location of their broadcast having been identified as Los Angeles in "A Big Piece of Garbage".
- Since Nixon is also from the 20th century, shouldn't he also know that the common cold is not an actual threat?
- Then again Nixon may just want an excuse to overreact to something.
- It is said that the virus had died out and humans no longer have resistance to it, so his reaction may be justified and the virus may actually be a threat.
- Then again Nixon may just want an excuse to overreact to something.
Characters
- Amy
- Bender
- Debut: Buzz Aldrin
- Professor Farnsworth
- Debut: The female CDC scientist
- Yancy Fry, Jr.
- Yancy Fry, Sr.
- Mrs. Fry
- Fry
- Debut: Fry's guinea pig
- Debut: Josh Gedgie
- Hattie
- Hermes
- The Hyper-Chicken
- Kif
- Leela
- Linda
- Debut: The male CDC scientist
- Morbo
- Randy Munchnik
- Richard Nixon's head
- Barack Obama
- Mr. Panucci
- Debut: B.J. Patel
- Debut: Rosemary
- Sal
- Smitty
- URL
- Dr. Ogden Wernstrom
- Zapp
- Zoidberg