Commentary:Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television

Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television

Production Number: 4ACV06
DVD: Season 4, Disc 2

Commentary

Topics of Discussion

• Billy West and John DiMaggio do a beat for this episode's Opening Sequence instead of the traditional theme tune.
• Monique was originally just a demo robot for the series but was popular enough to be included as a character.
• Louis is one of the few writers to write in all four seasons others include David and Ken.
• Calculon's voice is a mixture of a large number of actors.
• The noise the Hypnotoad makes is nicknamed Angry Machine.
• The teenage robot's now have new beeping zits.
• They couldn't come up with a name for Human Friend so they just called him Human Friend.
• John, Billy and Maurice have had some terrible auditions.
  • Once Billy was auditioning for a radio show with a hangover and he threw up all over the recording equipment.
• They finally get to make fun of the network executives in this episode.
• A lot of computers in the show are similar to Apple's Mac computers.
• They wanted to use some more pop-ups saying things like You're watching Futurama the show that doesn't encourage the cool crime of robbery.
• Cubert was supposed to be punched by characters when he became annoying but they thought that punching a twelve year old was tight.
• They use the joke F.A.R.T a lot in this episode.
• Donbot seems to have a child as he is part of F.A.R.T.
• The show produces many toy figures.
  • Whenever they see H.G. Blob they think of the little toy figure of him.
• Calculon isn't actually nice and is extremely greedy yet everyone loves him.

Highlights / Quotes

• David X. Cohen: What was the idea for this episode Louis.
  Louis Morton: I don't know.
  David X. Cohen: You came in and said what if Bender was a TV star.
• Maurice LaMarche: (As Calculon) Do you think so really?
• Maurice LaMarche: Look it's Morbo who sounds like Lrr or Horrible Gelatinous Blob.
  David X. Cohen: You have a guilty conscience, because whenever Lrr, or Morbo...
  Maurice LaMarche: I'm going for a running joke here for the people that paid attention to all the commentaries.
• Billy West: God that guy sould do his own movie promo's. Come see it again for the eighth time.
• Billy West: He came in and said this place smells like cheese.
• Maurice LaMarche: Look its Horrible Gelatinous Blob who doesn't sound like Morbo or Lrr.

Other Commentary Reference

• The commentators carry on the joke of Maurice LaMarche saying Lrrr, Morbo and H.G. Blob from The Route of All Evil (commentary).
• They mention that the Hypnotoad is voiced by 'the Angry Machine' The Day the Earth Stood Stupid (commentary)

Commentators

• Matt Groening
  • Executive Producer
• David X. Cohen
  • Executive Producer
• Rich Moore
  • Supervising Director
• Louis Morton
  • Writer
• Brain Sheesley
  • Director
• John DiMaggio
  • Actor (Bender, miscellaneous)
• Billy West
  • Actor (Fry, miscellaneous)
• Maurice LaMarche
  • Guest Actor (Calculon, miscellaneous)