Saturday Morning Fun Pit

Disputed canon

Episode-related article

This article is about an episode the canon of which is considered disputed.

{{episode infobox 2 |name=Saturday Morning Fun Pit |image= |image text=Promotional picture of the Futurama and Friends Saturday Morning Fun Pit! title card, released by Countdown to Futurama on 18 May, 2013.

On 11 December, with the release of Volume 7 and its commentary for "Naturama", it was revealed that the episode would be directed by Crystal Chesney-Thompson.

On 5 February, 2013, Vulture.com released a preview clip for the tenth broadcast season, which contained footage from the episode.

The Countdown to Futurama posts from 19 May and 20 May, revealed the title of the Strawberry Shortcake-esque segment to be "Purpleberry Pond" and the title of the Scooby-Doo-esque segment to be "Bendy Boo", respectively. However, the Scooby-Doo-esque segment is actually called "Bendee Boo and the Mystery Crew".

By 9 July, the animatic for the Strawberry Shortcake segment had been released online.

Image Gallery

• 

  Fry as "Lord Loquat", in the style of Strawberry Shortcake.

• 

  Leela as "Princess Purpleberry", in the style of Strawberry Shortcake.

• 

  Promotional picture featuring Larry Bird clones.

• 

  Concept art of Purpleberry Puffs cereal.

• 

  Promotional picture featuring Amy, Fry, Leela, Bender and Hermes, as children.

Reception

By 5 December, the episode had been nominated for the 2014 Writers Guild of America Awards.

Additional Information

Trivia

• At one point, the episode's production number was planned to be 7ACV25.
• The episode is among the few Futurama media featuring its title.
• This is the only segmented episode of the second run to not be a broadcast-season finale.
• During the Bendee Boo intro, the crew runs from someone on a motorcycle. Also running from the motorcycle is who appears to be former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.
• The main Futurama characters only appear in the cartoon parodies, making this one of three episodes in which none of the main characters appear, the others being "Reincarnation" and "Naturama".

Allusions

Click here to see cultural mentions made in this episode.

• The Futurama and Friends Saturday Morning Fun Pit title card features a stylized version of the pattern of blue lights that appear in the opening sequence.
• In the Bendee Boo segment, the crew members are re-imagined as Scooby-Doo characters. Fry plays the role of Shaggy, Leela plays the role of Daphne, Bender plays the role of Scooby-Doo, Hermes plays the role of Fred, and Amy plays the role of Velma.
  • Billy West, who voices Fry, provided the voice of Shaggy in the 1998 film Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.
  • The Harlem Globetrotters appear, just like they did in the T.V. show The New Scooby-Doo Movies, and the shot of them sleeping in the same bed is taken from their appearance.
• One of the protesters outside of the White House holds a sign which reads "Animation Dumb-a-nation", a reference to the Sunday-evening animated-programming block airing on Fox, Animation Domination, which was created in 2009 and includes The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad! (which will be airing on TBS in 2014), The Cleveland Show (which got canceled in 2013), and Bob's Burgers.
• The "Purpleberry Pond" segment parodies the common criticism of many classic Saturday-morning cartoons: that they were little more than thirty-minute-long commercials directed at children. In fact, the decline of this genre of cartoon is related to actions taken by the United States government to ban product tie-ins and mandating increased educational content in shows directed at children.
• The professor's character in the Purpleberry Pond segment is a parody of the Purple Pieman, from Strawberry Shortcake.
• Micky is a parody of Little Mikey, from Life cereal's 1970s "Mikey Likes It" ads.
• Fry's name in the G.I. Zapp segment is Freezer Burn, a reference to the fact that he was frozen at the beginning of the show^[1ACV01] and has been frozen multiple times since.^{[2ACV19][4ACV10][BBS][7ACV14]}
• Nixon renames the Leela character in G.I. Zapp as Pat. This is a reference to Nixon's wife, Pat Nixon.
• At the end of the episode, the announcer says "Now stay tuned for six hours of golf", angering Agnew. This is a reference to how Saturday-morning cartoon line-ups in the 1980s and 1990s always aired sports telecasts (or local programming) after the last cartoon, and to the real Agnew's bad golf playing, which would cause him to accidentally hit spectators with his golf ball.

Continuity

• The professor also kept lengths of wire in "Space Pilot 3000".
• George Takei's ancestry was previously referred to in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before".

Goofs

• Although the professor's cloning machine is shown being turned on, every other shot of it (especially while it is actively cloning) depicts the switch pointing at "off".
  • This may be intentional, and just parodying the cheap production values of Scooby-Doo.
• Scratches and visible edge lines on the animation "cel" are added as a parody of said cheap production values (Futurama is animated digitally, such effects would never occur normally).

Quotes

Fry: Like, it's basketball superstar Larry Bird!
Hermes: Larry Bird?! What are you doing here?!
Larry Bird: Hi, this is Larry Bird calling. Listen, my agent sent me a cartoon script and I've decided I don't wanna be involved in any way.
[An answering machine beeps.]

Amy: It all makes sense! He knew that if he scared the Globetrotters away from the big basketball game, disappointed fans would flock to his kabuki theatre!
Hermes: Of course!
George Takei: No, that's not why I did it.
Fry: Then, like, why did you do it?
George Takei: I'm mentally ill.
[The laughtrack plays.]

Narrator: Purpleberry Puffs are the sweetest part of your complete breakfast, along with juice, toast, ham, eggs, bacon, milk, cheese, liver, waffles, and a biiiig horse vitamin!

Nutcracker: I will avenge him, you heartless...
Nixon: Bastards! [to Agnew] It's okay if I say it.

Appearances

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(In alphabetic order)

Characters

• Amy / Debut: Lady Lavender / Debut: Boxcutter
• Bender / Debut: Bendee Boo / Debut: Marquis of Mulberry / Debut: Orphan Crippler
• Bubblegum
• Debut: Cereal girl
• Debut: Cereal girl's mother
• Cubert
• Curly Joe
• Dwight
• Farnsworth / Debut: Berry burglar / Debut: Profestro
• Fry / Debut: Lord Loquat / Debut: Freezer Burn
• George Takei
• Globetrotters
• H.G. Blob
• Hermes / Debut: Viscount Violet / Debut: Waterboard
• Huge-assed woman
• Jimmy Carter (cameo, 1:00)
• Kif
• Debut: Larry Bird
• Debut: Last clone of Agnew
• Leela / Debut: Princess Purpleberry / Debut: Nutcracker
• Debut: Micky
• Morbo (cameo, 0:55)
• Randy Munchnik
• Recruitment officer
• Richard Nixon's head
• Rose Mary
• Scruffy
• Sweet Clyde
• Zapp Brannigan
• Zoidberg

Places

• Japan (mentioned in speech only)
• Oval Office
• Planet Express headquarters
• Washington, D.C.
• White House

Miscellaneous

• Futurama (mentioned in speech and text only, in text at unknown moment)

References

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