Three Hundred Big Boys
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Futurama episode | |
| "Three Hundred Big Boys" | |
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| Episode no. | 70 |
| Prod. code | 4ACV16 |
| Airdate | June 15, 2003 |
| Writer(s) | Eric Kaplan |
| Director | Swinton O. Scott III |
| Opening subtitle | Voted "Best" |
| Opening cartoon | unknown |
| Guest star(s) | Roseanne Barr |
| Season 4 January 2002 – August 2003 |
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| List of all Futurama episodes... | |
“Three Hundred Big Boys” is the sixteenth episode of season four of Futurama, which aired June 15, 2003.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
Zapp Brannigan leads a successful attack on Tarantulon VI, claiming a huge prize of silken artworks. Earth President Richard Nixon gives the riches away to the citizens of Earth in the form of a three hundred dollar tax rebate (in the form of the $300 “Tricky-Dick Fun Bill”). The Planet Express staff plots what they’re going to spend their money on. Leela plans to swim with a whale, while Fry decides to purchase (and drink) one hundred cups of coffee. Dr. Zoidberg sets off to live like a rich man. Scruffy the Janitor decides to get "one of them three-hundred-dollar haircuts", as "this one’s lost its pizazz". Zapp Brannigan calls up Leela, and invites the whole staff to the reception displaying the silk treasures.
Later, Kif rents a paddle plane, and he and Amy go for a flight. Amy shows she has a talking tattoo. On the ground, Professor Farnsworth buys one pound of stem cells and proceeds to smear the goo on his face, which causes a skin-deep (temporary) anti-aging effect. Across the street, Bender spies a ten-thousand-dollar cigar at a tobacco shop. Unable to afford it, he instead buys a set of $300 burglar’s tools. Hermes purchases a pair of “Bamboo Boogie Boots” (boots that turn into bamboo stilts) for his son Dwight. When Dwight rejects the gift, Hermes puts the boots on, but they instantly malfunction and Hermes becomes an out-of-control menace, with Dwight hanging on too.
Professor Farnsworth, now looking 135 years younger, meets a twenty-odd year old woman, and they hit it off. Leela purchases a ticket for her swim with a whale named Mushu, while Fry continues on his quest for coffee at the aquarium’s coffee stand. Kif and Amy continue their flight, with Kif presenting her with a watch. They fly over the aquarium, and when Amy waves to Leela and Fry, the watch falls and is swallowed by Mushu. Her talking tattoo plans to tell Amy’s other tattoos. That night, Bender uses his new burglar’s tools to steal the Grand Cigar, unaware that he is being videotaped; meanwhile, Hermes has fallen asleep in his still-malfunctioning stilts.
Back at the office, Scruffy devises a plan to recover the watch. Leela will feed rotten fish from Elzar’s to Mushu when she goes for her scheduled swim, which will cause him to vomit up the watch. The next day, Leela arrives at the aquarium with her swimsuit stuffed with rotten fish, and Mushu eats both the fish and the suit. Later, at the aquarium’s whale show, Mushu vomits up the watch. Kif dives in and recovers the watch, but is arrested for stealing aquarium property.
That night everyone attends the silk gala. Kif manages to get himself released when he returns the ambergris in which he was covered when he jumped into Mushu’s pool of regurgitation and heads to the party. At the party with his new girlfriend under a royal spider robe, Professor Farnsworth’s stem cells reject his body and crawl off. After Farnsworth confesses his age, his girlfriend pulls a ring out of her navel and her weight rapidly increases by several hundred pounds. Putting aside their physical problems, they confess their love for each other.
In an unexpected twist, Hermes crashes through a window, still on the Bamboo Boogie Boots and unable to control his movement. The stilts hit Bender’s lit cigar, sending it flying into a silk tapestry. As the flames spread rapidly through the room, an agitated Fry, shaking violently from his massive caffeine intake, heads for the buffet table and drinks his hundredth cup of coffee. Fry enters a caffeine-induced state of hyperspeed, then rescues everyone at incredible speed and puts out the fire.
Everyone finds themselves in an alley behind the gallery, confused but unharmed. There they find Zoidberg, who having been unable to make himself feel rich, has bought a large meal for a group of hobos. Everybody joins in, the surplus is gone and Bender gets beaten by the cops for stealing the cigar.
[edit] What people buy with their $300
- Fry: 100 cups of coffee.
- Leela: A pass to swim with a whale.
- Bender: $300 burglars' tools (which he uses to steal a $10,000 cigar).
- Farnsworth: Stem cells to make him look younger.
- Hermes: Spent $299.99 on “Bamboo Boogie Boots” as a gift for Dwight. He gave the last penny to Dwight to invest on his own; Dwight used it to buy 5 shares of Amazon.com stock (seen by Hermes as a risky investment).
- Zoidberg: After trying different things (jewels, golf, food at Elzar’s) he buys turkey dogs for some hobos.
- Amy: A Satan-like talking tattoo
- Scruffy: A $300 haircut.
- Zapp: A medal (rented).
- Kif: Rents an ornithopter for him and Amy. Buys a watch with a picture of him and her that displays the time wherever the both of them are.
- Mom: She blows her nose on hers in contempt.
- Farnsworth’s girlfriend: A belly button ring that, when worn, makes her thin.
- Crack Addict: After leaving a crack house, he uses his $300 to visit a “crack mansion.”
- Randy (In a deleted scene): He and his boyfriend chuck their money into the fireplace, deciding love is more important than money.
- Hattie (In a deleted scene): A giraffe neck.
[edit] Goofs
- In "Space Pilot 3000," Bender doesn't seem to be hurt by the cops' "lightsabers," yet in this episode, he does.
- When URL first saw Bender stealing the Grand Cigar, he had the red siren light on his head already. When the view zoomed out from the monitor on his body then up to his face, a siren rose up out of his head again.
[edit] Cultural references
- Fry saying "coffee" over and over very quickly is similar to what George did in the movie George of the Jungle. When he started eating unbrewed coffee beans, he said the word "java" over and over very quickly
- As Fry drinks more and more coffee, the effects of the caffeine make him increasingly agitated until his hundredth cup, which causes him to relax into a calm Zen-like state but allows him to move at several hundred times normal speed, a film and animation technique sometimes referred to as bullet time.
- Nixon’s line, “The loot, the loot, the loot is on fire!” is a parody of the 1985 dance hit “The Roof Is on Fire” by Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three. The song’s chorus includes the frequently referenced line, “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.”
- The lab name and the sign reading “Geneworks S.K.G.” are a parody of the movie company DreamWorks.
- Nixon’s consultation of “voodoo economists” is a reference to the Ronald Reagan-era fiscal policy of supply-side economics that was derided by critics as “voodoo economics.”
- The scene in which Bender steals the $10,000 cigar is based on a similar scene from the film Mission: Impossible.
- When Smitty and URL are watching the security video of Bender stealing the Grand Cigar, URL calls the crime being committed “grand theft tobacco,” a play on the crime of “grand theft auto”.
- Roseanne Barr appears/guest stars as a holographic encyclopedia.
- At one point in the episode, Professor Farnsworth takes his leave, saying, “Gotta go. Fight club.” As his girlfriend later turned out to be extremely fat and hiding it thanks to reconstructive surgery, this may be a reference to a character in Fight Club, Marla, who regularly has cosmetic treatments using the body fat liposuctioned from her Mother.
- At the beginning of the episode, Kif uses a two-bladed weapon (with flyswatters as the "blades") reminiscent of the lightsaber Darth Maul uses in Star Wars: Episode I.
- The ingredients of the perfume Kif was going to make for Amy were Lilac, Jasmine, and Franken Berry.
- When Zoidberg encounters the bums in the alley, they ask him to move aside so they can search for food in a garbage can, saying "Hungry hungry hobos", a reference to the game Hungry Hungry Hippos.
- One of the brands of cigars in the cigar store is The Royal Kooparillo, a play on C. Everett Koop
- Amy's talking tattoo calls Kif Gordon Gekko, a reference to the character from Wall Street.
- At the end of the episode, Nixon says the line "The entire surplus has gone! What a MacGuffin I've been". A MacGuffin is a term for a plot device, usually unrelated to the purpose of the story, used to get the characters into a particular situation. The subtitles on the DVD, however, say that the line is "What a McGovern I've been", referring to George McGovern, the man he beat in the 1972 election.
[edit] Production notes
- The idea for this episode came from George W. Bush announcing that he would give all Americans a $300 tax refund. However, one week later the terrorist attacks of 9/11 happened and the story was forgotten by most. The other half of the idea for this episode came from the Simpsons episode “22 Short Films About Springfield,” in which several stories about bit characters were done.
[edit] Continuity
- When Leela walks through Elzar's kitchen there is a peacock cooking in a pot. In "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings", Fry mentions that peacocks are eaten in the Future.
