31st Century Fox

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Season 7 episode Broadcast season 9 episode
31st Century Fox
A still showing Bender carrying a NNYPD horse on his shoulders.
No.	125
Production number	7ACV11
Written by	Patric M. Verrone
Directed by	Edmund Fong
Title caption	Today's Episode Brought To You By The Letter (Alien Letter)
First air date	29 August, 2012
Broadcast number	S09E12
Title reference	20th Century Fox
Special guest(s)	Patrick Stewart
Additional
Commentary (Transcript) Transcript Pictures
Season 7
The Bots and the Bees A Farewell to Arms Decision 3012 The Thief of Baghead Zapp Dingbat The Butterjunk Effect The Six Million Dollar Mon Fun on a Bun Free Will Hunting Near-Death Wish 31st Century Fox Viva Mars Vegas Naturama Forty Percent Leadbelly 2-D Blacktop T.: The Terrestrial Fry and Leela's Big Fling The Inhuman Torch Saturday Morning Fun Pit Calculon 2.0 Assie Come Home Leela and the Genestalk Game of Tones Murder on the Planet Express Stench and Stenchibility Meanwhile ← Season 6 Season 8 →

This article is about the episode. For the in-universe organisation, see 30th Century Fox.

"31st Century Fox" is the one hundred and twenty-fifth episode of Futurama, the eleventh of the seventh production season and the ninth broadcast season. It aired 29 August 2012 on Comedy Central. It guest stars Patrick Stewart as the Hunts Master. Bender discovers a cruel hunt of robot animals and decides to take action.

Plot

Bender becomes the hunted after saving a robotic fox from hunters.

Production

A screenshot from the episode shown during the live stream, showing Bender caught in an animal trap.

On 29 February 2012, CGEF revealed the episode's title, its writer to be Patric M. Verrone and its director to be Edmund Fong. On 29 June, MSN TV revealed the episode's plot and air date.

On 12 July, following the broadcast of the episode "Zapp Dingbat", the public were given the opportunity to participate in a live chat with the Futurama cast and crew. Several clips of "31st Century Fox" were shown during the live stream.

Reception

On 30 January 2012, Eric Rogers revealed that his favourite episode from the ninth broadcast season was either "The Bots and the Bees", "A Farewell to Arms" or this one.

Additional information

Trivia

• This is the first episode (in production order) of season 7 to be aired out of order, as the broadcast order of both this episode and "Viva Mars Vegas" were swapped.
• The plot is a direct reference to the short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" written by Richard Connel.
• With this episode, the Awesome Express uniforms have officially been acknowledged as serving Planet Express.

Allusions

• The episode's title is a reference to 20th Century Fox, the company that owns Futurama.
• The uniforms tried on by the crew contain many references:
  • The first uniforms are stillsuits from the film of Dune by Frank Herbert.
  • The red thong with suspenders is a reference to Sean Connery in the film Zardoz.
  • Leela wears a costume from Barbarella.
  • Amy wears a Pan Am uniform from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • Fry wears an operations uniform from Star Trek.
  • Zoidberg wears Storm Trooper armor from Star Wars.
• Squidward Scissorhands is a reference to Edward Scissorhands and the character of Squidward Tentacles from SpongeBob Squarepants.

Goofs

• The trench that the Hunts Master knocks Leela in, isn't there before or after (later on the second hunt) he knocks her in.
• Leela states she's okay with a robot fox dying, but later goes to Benders antiviolence to robot animals meeting.
  • She could have changed her mind or Bender could have forced her to go to the meeting.
• Bender says he's starving, but as a robot, its been stated he doesn't get hungry.
  • He's a self-professed drama queen.
• Bender cuts his finger off with a knife, but he's made of metal.
  • He didn't necessarily cut off his finger, he could have just dislodged it from his hand, such as how his arm can disconnect from his torso.
• Bender is unable to break a metal cage, but is strong enough to bend an unbendable bar?
• Bender runs farther than the distance shown when the hunt catches up with him the first time.
• When the horse falls on Bender the first time, it flattens him, but the second time he just keeps running, with it on his back.
• It's stated the fox urinated on the floor, but its made clear by Bender in several stories that robots don't go to the bathroom.
  • The fox could have simply done something likened to urination.
• Fry says Bender got rid of all robot animal cruelty in fifty yards of the building, but there is no farm or pier in fifty yards of planet express, as shown in overshots.
  • That means Bender didn't really do anything noteworthy and they were really just trying to get him to bring everything to a close.
• Whats the point of robot hens eggs? Or Cutting up Robots animals? They can't be eaten as there made of metal, so why waste resources on them simply for cruelty?

Characters

(In alphabetic order)

• Amy
• Bender
• Farnsworth
• Fry
• Hermes
• Debut: Hunts Master
• Leela
• Mayor Poopenmeyer
• Debut: Robotic Fox
• Ron Whitey
• Debut: Squidward Scissorhands
• Zoidberg

References

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