A Bicyclops Built for Two
From Futurama Wiki
| A Bicyclops Built for Two | |
|---|---|
| |
| Episode | 9 |
| Season | 2 |
| Air date | March 13, 2000 |
| Running Time | 30 minutes |
| Directed By | Susan Dietter |
| Written By | Eric Kaplan |
| Opening subtitle | This episode has been modified to fit your primitive screen |
| Preceded by | Raging Bender |
| Followed by | A Clone Of My Own |
"A Bicyclops Built for Two" is episode nine in Season Two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on March 13, 2000.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Professor Farnsworth brings good news; after several years of trying, he has finally logged onto the internet via AOL. The Planet Express crew gets into their Net Suits and visits the internet in a virtual reality simulation. Chased by ads, the crew finds refuge in different pornography websites, including an adult chat room populated by children and a website Bender created using Amy's head on Leela's body. Disgusted by the men visiting the Filthy Filthy Chatroom, the women, accompanied by Bender, go into the Filthy Chatroom.
Bored with sex, they play Death Factory III, the legend of Death Factory II. Fry, an accomplished video game player, dispatches all of the crew easily, including a one-eyed man Leela had been happily chatting with. Leela is mad that Fry has ruined her one chance to learn who she is.
The crew is en route to Cineplex 14 in order to deliver desperately needed popcorn when Leela receives an email from Alkazar, the one-eyed man she met online, who invites her to his home. Leela dumps the popcorn and changes course to find where she belongs.
Alazar greets Leela and 'her servants' and introduces her to "Cyclopia" and the forbidden valley, where no one must go. At Alkazar's castle, he tells Leela the story of what happened to their people. He claims that Leela was sent away as a baby when the blind moles of Subterra 3 launched missiles in every direction, hitting forty planets including Cyclopia. Alkazar had been employed as a pool cleaner and was spared from the chaos while fishing out a dead possum. Leela decides to help Alkazar save their race and sleeps with him.
However, the next morning, Leela discovers that Alkazar is rude and abusive. Fry doesn't trust Alkazar and attempts to visit the forbidden valley where he is captured and put into a dungeon. Leela changes her clothes and hair in an attempt to impress Alkazar, who insults her in front of his friends, Pig, Rat Man and Rat Woman. Fry tells Leela that Alkazar is a jerk and is hiding something from her, but she doesn't want to destroy the cyclops race by breaking up with him. At dinner, Alkazar proposes to Leela, who accepts.
The day of the wedding, Fry and Bender break into the Forbidden Valley to find out what makes it so forbidden. They discover four identical castles, each more identical than the last. Before Leela can say, "I do", Fry and Bender return with four women, each the last of their species. Alkazar tries to reason with the women, shapeshifting each time to match their form; the women quickly beat him into submission, and he takes his real form, a green cockroach-like alien. He explains that he wanted to make it with five weirdos and have them scrub his five castles.
Leela returns with the rest of the crew to Earth, sadly contemplating her desire to find her species, wondering "How many planets could there be?" as she looks out at space.
[edit] Background notes
- Color stylist Bari Kumar won an Emmy award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation for this episode in 2000[1]. Susie Dietter was nominated for an Annie Award in 2000 for "Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Television Production" for this episode, she lost to Brian Sheesley for the Futurama episode "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?"[2].
[edit] Trivia
- The title spoofs the song Daisy Bell and its well known line about "A Bicycle Built for Two". This song is best known for its inclusion in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey; the song was the first information programmed into Hal 9000 the ship's computer, and he sang it as he was being disconnected.
- There are two additional references to 2001: A Space Odyssey: As Fry enters the internet, the famous 2001 theme Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss is played and moments later, he references Dave Bowman's line "My God, it's full of stars!" from the 2001: A Space Odyssey novel by saying "My God, it's full of ads!"
- Parts of this episode are a spoof of Married... with Children, which also starred Katey Sagal, the voice of Leela. Leela dresses, does her hair like and acts like Peggy Bundy, Alkazar acts like Al Bundy. Leela in fact refers to him as 'Al' several times and his friends act like the uproarious studio audience.
- One of Alkazar's four other would-be brides appears to be a member of the Great Race of Yith, a species of time-travelling body-snatchers from the H.P. Lovecraft story, The Shadow Out of Time.
- When Fry is on the internet playing a video game reminiscent of 2-D sidescrollers, Fry jumps and shoots some crates and a Donkey Kong look-alike. When he jumps he makes noises similar to the sounds Mario makes in his 3D video games. He also quickly tucks and rolls through a small space, almost exactly like the Morph Ball from Metroid.
- A scene where Bender falls into a machine and slips between gears is a references to the Charlie Chaplin film, Modern Times..
- The story about the destruction of Cyclopia and the planet's greatest scientist sending a Cyclopian baby, Leela, to Earth is a reference to the origin of Superman, where, before the destruction of his home planet Krypton, master scientist Jor-El sends his only son, Kal-El to Earth. Leela, like Superman, is supposedly the last member of her race.
- Writers Ken Keeler and Eric Kaplan are depicted as nerds in the chat room. The nerd Fry beats in the video game is executive producer David X. Cohen.
- The Planet Express crew entering cyberspace may be a reference to TRON.
- The Professor's head appearing as a giant blue hologram may be a reference to the Emperor's appearance in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
- Alkazar's castle resembles Angkor Wat and the mosaic of the goddess resembles Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.
- During the video game scene, Fry shoots a laser from his arm, much like Megaman.
[edit] Continuity
- In Love's Labors Lost in Space, Leela said she wouldn't care how many eyes a guy had, "...as long as it's less than five". In one of his forms, Alkazar has five eyes.
[edit] Debut Appearances
[edit] Alienese
- The Alienese signs read, "Plump Juicy Humans Web" and "Codebreakers Chat Room".
[edit] Footnotes
