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"Jimmy crack corn and I don't care, Jimmy crack corn and I don't care, Jimmy crack corn and I don't care, Cause the master's gone away."
Bender [singing]

Plot[]

Fry brings a Volkswagen van from the 1970s to the Planet Express Building, but then he finds out that fossil fuels haven't been used in centuries. Bender gets coaxed into using the giant can opener to open a can of Whale oil, which has replaced gasoline. After complaining that the can opener nearly cut his head off one time, he is sucked up by the magnet, cut in a spiral and is completely immobilized. While Bender is in the hospital, he meets Beck's Head, who is being attached to a mannequin he found in a dumpster. Beck gives a speech to Bender and gives him a pair of robot arms to wear around his neck and to play his cut-up torso as a washboard. Beck invites Bender to play in his concert tour. Fry proposes that the Planet Express Crew follow Bender in the hippie van, but only a few of them come along while Professor Farnsworth and Hermes stay behind.

Fry and the rest of the crew do their laundry and Zoidberg's shell runs in the wash, tye-dyeing all the clothes. When Amy tries to buy something at one of the concerts, she discovers that all of the money was destroyed in the wash, including the change. While on the road, Zoidberg keeps getting sick and coughing up pebbles that are surprisingly pretty and colorful which the others use as a money-making tool. After a forty minute washboard solo that put Beck to sleep, the concert ends. The concert hall is next to a broken robot smelting facility that makes broken robots into paperweights. Bender declares that he will be an icon and a role model for broken robots and that he will play and raise money for them in Bend-Aid.

A day before Bend-Aid, Bender is at the hotel when Fry and the crew walk in and realize that life is better without television. They turn it on and see the Bend-Aid preview. To everyone's amazement Bender gets up and walks during his speech. The next day during the concert, Bender fakes paralysis, while Fry and the crew proceed to sell Zoidberg's "Love beads". Before the concert, Bender is presented with a very large check. During the concert, Bender shows off and dances. Angry, all the broken robots try to re-break Bender. Bender takes Fry's Van and drives it around San Fransisco in a Bullitt-style chase. During the chase, Bender drives the Van off a Hoverbridge and it lands on a spot of land. However, Bender is shot into the air. When Bender surfaces he is immediately hit by Beck's bus and tries to fake being paralyzed again but Beck takes the check back. Bender takes a magnet, sticks it on his head and he walks out into the bay to the van, singing, "Fry cracked corn and I don't care, Leela cracked corn and I don't care, Bender cracked corn and he is great, take that you stupid corn!"

Alienese[]

  • On the map, the State of Utah now reads "Human Farm" in Alienese.

Ongoing Themes[]

Character Arcs[]

  • The whole episode revisits Bender's dream of being a folk singer, which he first articulated in "The Series Has Landed".
  • Sal is having a good day at the beginning of this episode, delivering his one brief line more-or-less intelligibly.

Time-Travel[]

Inspecting Fry's new van, Farnsworth asks after the "device that speeds or slows the passage of time". Fry produces a bong from under the seat.

Death, near-death, mutilation[]

  • Bender is gruesomely crippled and disfigured by the electric can opener in the Planet Express kitchen.
  • A couple of piles of nearly-destroyed but still-living robots are completely destroyed and recycled off-screen. Bender can't see this happening but is horrified by the sound of it.
  • Bender falls out of the sky and lands on an innocent bystander (who is shown to not be too hurt from the fall since she's able to move just fine despite a robot falling on her from a great height). He is then run over by Beck's tour bus: he claims that he is crippled again, but stands up soon afterward.
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