Benderama

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Season 6 episode
Broadcast season 8 episode
Benderama
Benderama Maths.png
The crew examining the Professor's formula at the conference table.
No.105
Production number6ACV17
Written byAaron Ehasz
Directed byCrystal Chesney-Thompson
Title captionOthers ask "what if?"
We ask "why if."
First air date23 June, 2011[1]
Broadcast numberS08E02
Opening cartoonHollywood Capers (1935)
Special guest(s)Patton Oswalt
Additional
Commentary
(Transcript)
Transcript
Storyboard

Pictures

Season 6
  1. Rebirth
  2. In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela
  3. Attack of the Killer App
  4. Proposition Infinity
  5. The Duh-Vinci Code
  6. Lethal Inspection
  7. The Late Philip J. Fry
  8. That Darn Katz!
  9. A Clockwork Origin
  10. The Prisoner of Benda
  11. Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences
  12. The Mutants Are Revolting
  13. The Futurama Holiday Spectacular
  14. The Silence of the Clamps
  15. Möbius Dick
  16. Law and Oracle
  17. Benderama
  18. The Tip of the Zoidberg
  19. Ghost in the Machines
  20. Neutopia
  21. Yo Leela Leela
  22. Fry Am the Egg Man
  23. All the Presidents' Heads
  24. Cold Warriors
  25. Overclockwise
  26. Reincarnation
← Season 5Season 7 →

"Benderama" is the one hundredth and fifth episode of Futurama, the seventeenth of the sixth production season and the second of the eighth broadcast season. It aired 23 June, 2011, immediately following "Neutopia".[1]

Story

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The Professor invents a machine called the Banach-Tarski Dupla-Shrinker that takes in any object and creates two half-sized copies, consuming matter provided to it in order to do so. He uses the machine to create a number of sweaters suited to his shrunken, old-aged self and sets Bender on the task of folding them. Bender looks for a shortcut and creates duplicates of himself using the machine to do the job for him. This soon escalates and eventually there are trillions of increasingly smaller copies of Bender creating copies of themselves until eventually they threaten to consume all of the matter on Earth.[2]

Production

During May and June 2011, Countdown to Futurama released six items of promotional material for the episode: concept art of the unattractive giant monster (together with confirmation that he will be voiced by Patton Oswalt) on 9 May, a promotional picture featuring various copies of Bender on 10 May, part of the storyboard showing the Planet Express crew prepare to deliver a package to the monster on 11 May, a promotional picture featuring three Benders riding a bicycle on 12 May, a promotional picture featuring a fight between a giant Bender and the monster on 13 May, and a video clip featuring the crew discussing the many Benders by the conference table on 15 June.

On 21 June, Entertainment Weekly posted another video, this one featuring the monster destroying New New York.[3]

Image gallery

Reception

In a preview of "Neutopia" and "Benderama", Katie Schenkel from CliqueClack TV commented that these two episodes "[weren't] [her] favourite".[4] Reflecting on "Benderama", Schenkel commented that the end of the episode had its own plot, after the main plot had been resolved, as if the main plot wasn't long enough,[4] in addition, Schenkel commented that she felt that the guest star, Patton Oswalt – while excellent in his performance – was given a throwaway role.[4] Of the two episodes, Schenkel preferred "Benderama" over "Neutopia".[4]

Additional Info

Trivia

  • It is among the few one-word titled media.
  • "Benderama" is one of only three season 6 episodes to include the full opening sequence, the other two being "Rebirth" and "That Darn Katz!". In the other episodes, the opening sequence is abridged and the opening cartoon is cut to save time.
  • The song played during the montage of the Planet Express crew killing all the Bender clones is "Rock and Roll Pest Control" by Young Fresh Fellows.
  • The formula that the professor shows is fake. The real amount of total matter consumed is equal to the amount of 'generations'.

Allusions

The The Scary Door episode resembles the "The Brain Center at Whipple's" episode of The Twilight Zone.
  • The title is a pun of Bender and Futurama.
  • The Scary Door narrator says "A picture of yourself in a boat on a river", a play on the first line of The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" - "Picture yourself in a boat on a river".
  • Bender says, "Hi, I'm Bender, this is my robot Bender and this is my other robot Bender." This is a reference to the TV series Newhart, specifically the character of Larry and his brothers Darryl, whom he always introduced, "Hi, I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl and this is my other brother Darryl."
  • After 50 foot Bender falls and "dies", Fry falls to his knees and screams "no", similar to the vision in the What-If Machine from "Anthology of Interest I". The scene is a reference to King Kong.
  • The duplicator's name is a reference to the Banach–Tarski paradox.
  • Farnsworth asks Scruffy what the tiny Bender is doing in his soup. This is a play on an old vaudeville joke where a customer asks a waiter what a fly is doing in his soup, and the waiter usually replies, "The backstroke."
  • Farnsworth refers to the bathroom as "the situation room", most likely a reference to the CNN program of the same name.

Continuity

Braino appearing on the Earthican $30 bill.

Characters

(In alphabetic order)

References

  1. ^ a b reed (03 May 2011). "How many Benders is too many?". CGEF. Retrieved on 04 May 2011.
  2. ^ Can't get enough Futurama: Episode Guide: 6 ACV
  3. ^ 'Futurama': A giant Patton Oswalt unleashes his wrath on New New York
  4. ^ a b c d Schenkel, Katie (20 June 2011). "Futurama comes back … with a stumble". CliqueClack TV. Retrieved on 20 June 2011.