Leela's Homeworld

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Season 4 episode Broadcast season 4 episode
Leela's Homeworld
No.	56
Production number	4ACV02
Written by	[[Kristin Gore]][[Category:Episodes written by Kristin Gore|Leela's Homeworld]]
Directed by	[[Mark Ervin Swinton O. Scott III]][[Category:Episodes directed by Mark Ervin Swinton O. Scott III|Leela's Homeworld]]
Title caption	It's like "Hee Haw" with lasers
First air date	February 17, 2002
Broadcast number	S04E05
Opening cartoon	In a Cartoon Studio, Van Beuren Studios, 1931
Additional
Commentary (Transcript) Transcript Pictures
Season 4
Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch Leela's Homeworld Love and Rocket Less than Hero A Taste of Freedom Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television Jurassic Bark Crimes of the Hot Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles The Why of Fry Where No Fan Has Gone Before The Sting Bend Her Obsoletely Fabulous The Farnsworth Parabox Three Hundred Big Boys Spanish Fry The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings ← Season 3 Season 5 →

The Story

Act I: "Get back in the sewer, weirdy!"

"Just make sure you get my nonchalant side."

Leela is named "Orphan of the Year" in the orphanarium she grew up in, the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium, and attends a ceremony there receiving the award. At the same time, the Professor builds a new machine that produces glow-in-the-dark-noses, but also causes a great amount of toxic waste which Bender disposes of into the sewers.

Act II: "Mu-tate! Mu-tate! Mu-tate!"

As Bender overdoes it, the Sewer Mutants strike back and pull Bender, Leela, and Fry into the sewers. All three are sentenced to be dumped into the Mutagenic Sewage Lake to be mutated (the liquid can't harm mutants as they already are mutated; nor can it harm robots because they don't have DNA) and beaten up afterwards, but are rescued by two mysterious robed strangers who somehow know Leela's full name. While running from the mutants, the crew break into a house that has a complete biography of Leela pinned on the walls plus a lot of stuff she flushed down the toilet. They are caught by the mutants and sentenced to death, but the mysterious strangers intervene again and they are only banished from the sewers. Fry and Bender go to the surface, but Leela stays behind and dives into the Mutagenic Sewage Lake in pursuit of the strangers.

Act III: "Isn't that the same machine that makes noses?"

Leela finds that she is not mutated by the sewage and pursues the two strangers deep into the sewers. Fry, in the meantime, searches for clues on Leela's origins in the orphanarium, and aquires the note that was pinned to Leela's basket when she was abandoned, written in an alien language. He lets the Professor analyze it with his Nose Machine, and finds out that the note originated from the sewers and that Leela's parents are Sewer Mutants. They decided to give her up to the orphanarium to enable her to lead a real life on the surface, and her mother wrote the note in alienese to convince the warden Leela was an alien, not a mutant. Her parents chose never to reveal her true origins so she would not learn the shameful truth. The only connection between them is a bracelet they left with their daughter, of which her mother has a duplicate.

Meanwhile, Leela has caught up with the robed strangers and threatens them with a gun, desperate to retrieve information about her origins. She finds the duplicate of the bracelet she wears on her right arm on one of the strangers, and suspects they have taken it from her parents after they killed them. The strangers confess the deed, and Leela is about to kill them when Fry literally drops in from above and reveals the truth - the strangers are indeed Leela's parents. They were so desperate that their daughter should not learn her true heritage that they were prepared to rather die than reveal that piece of information, and they fear her daughter might despise her because of all they did. Leela, realizing that after decades of searching she has finally found her parents, embraces them - the family is reunited.

Additional Info

Trivia

• One of the orphans who won an award for 'being seen in the background of news spots' appears in the background of Leela's interview one minute later (see picture).
• The closing song for this episode is "Baby Love Child" by Pizzicato Five.
• Although the commentary states that the dead whale Bender stuffs into the sewer is Mushu, this is impossible, since Mushu doesn't appear for fourteen more episodes.
• The orphanage offers expresso to the orphans.
• The pedestrian crossing sign in the sewers had an image of a person with two heads and three legs.
• The leg sewer mutant was wearing a Boston Red Socks baseball hat.
• Fry was lifting his shirt at Space Mardi Gra.
• This episode was named #23 on IGN's list of Top 25 Futurama Episodes.

Continuity

• "A Big Piece of Garbage" (1ACV08)
  
  • News paper front page in the "Leela Museum" about the PE crew saving Earth from the garbage ball.
• "Fry and the Slurm Factory" (1ACV13)
  
  • Leela dives into a pool of green stuff.
• "I Second that Emotion" (2ACV01)
  
  • Leela's parents appear in a mutant crowd but don't make contact.
• "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?" (2ACV05)
  
  • Bender tells the story about how he became known as Honest Bender.

Goofs

• Raoul Inglis is previously shown and said to have only one ear, but is now shown with both ears intact.
• Although the orphanarium was renamed the "Bender B. Rodriquez Orphanarium" in "The Cyber House Rules" (3ACV09)
  
  , it seems to have reverted to the original name "Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium".
• At grade-school, Leela was shown doing math homework. One of her answers is wrong.

Real-World References

• Among the parts of parade balloons used in creating the hot air balloon that returns to the surface is made from Underdog, Bart Simpson, Bullwinkle J. Moose and Garfield's owner Jon Arbuckle.
• Professor Farnsworth says that deciphering the alien language on Leela's note could take an hour or a hundred million years. This is a reference to the halting problem in computability theory.
• The wall upon which Leela's parents have chronicled her life is a reference to Being John Malkovich.
• When Leela comes across the wall with her chronicled life, she gasps "Great Cheech's ghost!", which is a reference to the Superman character Perry White, who often says "Great Caesar's ghost!" when angry, exasperated or surprised. A similar reference was also made in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television" (4ACV06)
  
  .
• The computer on the Warden's desk appears similar to the personal computers used in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Businesses in the sewers include Bed, Bath and Beneath, Big Mutant Boy's, and Starbucks.
• Free Willy 3: The Rescue is referenced when Bender says he has to clean up the set and dumps a whale in the sewers.
• The Professor's Glow-in-the-dark noses are an obscure reference to the movie Skin Deep.

Quotes

Warden Vogel: It is not easy being an orphan. Not if I've anything to do with it!

Hermes: It looks like toxic waste. [He sniffs.] And it smells like toxic waste.
Fry: What does it taste like?
[Hermes tastes it.]
Hermes: Delicious fig pudding! Ooh, that's good! But a distinct aftertaste of toxic waste.

Characters

• Hermes
• Professor Farnsworth
• Fry
• Bender
• Leela
• Turanga Morris
• Turanga Munda
• Warden Vogel
• Amy
• Orphans
• Raoul Inglis
• Vyolet
• Dwayne
• Debut:Leg Mutant

Episode Credits

• Writer
  • Kristin Gore
• Director
  • Mark Ervin
  • Swinton O. Scott III
• Voice Actors
  • Billy West
  • Katey Sagal
  • John DiMaggio
  • David Herman
  • Tress MacNeille
  • Phil LaMarr
  • Lauren Tom

• DVD Commentary
  • Kristin Gore
  • Billy West
  • Matt Groening
  • David X. Cohen
  • Swinton O. Scott III
  • Rich Moore

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