Leela's Homeworld

Episode Name or Quote

Production Number: 4ACV02
Title Caption: IT'S LIKE "HEE HAW" WITH LASERS
First Aired: February 17, 2002

The Story

Act I:

Leela is named "Orphan of the Year" in the orphanarium she grew up in, the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium, and attends a ceremony there. At the same time, the Professor builds a new machine that produces glow-in-the-dark-noses, but produces a great amount of toxic waste which Bender disposes of into the sewers. 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, but are rescued by two mysterious robed strangers who somehow know Leela's name.

Act II:

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 senteced 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. She finds that she is not mutated by the sewage and pursues the two strangers deep into the sewers.

Act III:

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 were 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 never learn the shameful truth. The only connection is a bracelet they leave with their daughter, of which her mother has a duplicate. In the meantime, 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, and suspects the strangers have taken it from her parents after they killed them. The strangers confess the deed, and Leela is about to kill them when Fry litterally 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 th 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

• The closing song for this episode is Baby Love Child by Pizzicato Five.

Quotes

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

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Characters

• Hermes
• Professor Farnsworth
• Fry
• Bender
• Leela
• Turanga Morris
• Turanga Munda
• Warden Vogel
• Amy

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