Bendin' in the Wind
From Futurama Wiki
| Please expand the article as well as you can! |
| Bendin' in the Wind | |
|---|---|
| |
| Episode | 45 |
| Production Code | 3ACV13 |
| Season | 3 |
| Air date | April 22, 2001 |
| Running Time | 30 minutes |
| Directed By | Ron Hughart |
| Written By | Eric Horsted |
| Guests | Beck as Beck's head |
| Opening subtitle | Federal law prohibits changing the channel |
| Preceded by | "The Route of All Evil" |
| Followed by | "Time Keeps on Slippin'" |
- "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!"
- ―Bender, singing
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Bender is asked by Leela to use the giant can opener to open Nibbler's food. After complaining that the can opener killed his father, he is sucked up by the magnet, cut in a spiral and is completely immobilized. Fry brings home a Volkswagen van from the seventies after finding out that fossil fuels haven't been used in decades. 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.
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 and, angry, all the broken robots try to re-break Bender. While on the run, Fry drives the van off a hoverbridge and falls into a chasm. 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!"
[edit] Quotes
- Bender: Hey, yeah! I could write a song! But with real words. But I won't use fake words like Odelay.
- Beck: Odelay is a word; just look it up in the Becktionary.
- Bender: (singing) Froggie went a courtin' he did ride uh-huh, uh-huh. Little froggie went a courtin' he did ride blah,blah,blah, something Bender is great. Froggie went a courtin' Bender is great uh-huh.
- Bender: (singing) I'm tellin' you, my broken friend can do 'most anything!!! YEAH!!! CURSE MY NATURAL SHOWMANSHIP!!
- Bender: Get me the Becktionary! NO, The Rhyming Becktionary!
- Beck: When I'm upset, I write a song about it. Like when I wrote "Devils Haircut". I was really...really...what's that song about?
- Bender: That's why I'll be proud to go on stage tomorrow and say: "Hey, Look at me world, I am a broken robot!"
- Fry: Bender, you can move again! You're cured!
- Bender: Aw, crap! It's a miracle!
[edit] Trivia
- In the shot of the United States map it is shown that some states have been renamed in the future including Nukevada, referencing the nuclear testing that took place in Nevada, and "WyΩing", the electrical symbol for Ohm taking the place of o). California, which contains the San Andreas Gorge rather than a fault line, is split into "HighCal" and "LoCal". The state of Pennsylvania has become the "Penn Republic" and "Sylvania", a parody of Czechoslovakia splitting into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and a reference to the Sylvania electronics company. One state, contiguous with present-day Utah, is named, in Alienese, "Human Farm". XORegon references the XOR (Exclusive Or) logical operator. UserID:aho (Idaho) references Alfred Aho, one of the writers of the Dragon Book.
Other changed names include:
Montana: "Muontana"
Colorado: "24-Bit Colorado"
Kentucky: 'Ucky
New Jersey: New New Jersey
Ohio: eHIO,
Washington: "Washingtron"
Washington D.C.: Washington A.C.
Virginia: East West Virginia
- The title is a play on the Bob Dylan song "Blowin' in the Wind". This is the second episode of a series created by Matt Groening to parody this song, the first one being The Simpsons episode "D'oh-in In The Wind".
- At one point the score of Bender's song is shown. It is actually the theme from Beethoven's 5th Symphony in C minor, although it is shown in the key of D minor.
- While playing "Where It's At", Bender sings a mock-up of the line "I got two turntables and a microphone" by singing "Got a washboard stomach and a microphone." Also, instead of singing "That was a good drum break", Beck sings the line, "That was a washboard break."
- Beck parodies his own songwriting:
- Beck: "When I'm upset I write a song about it. Like when I wrote "Devils Haircut," I was feeling really...really...what's that song about?".
- And again:
- Bender: Hey, yeah, I could write a song! With real words, not phoney ones like "odelay".
- Beck: "Odelay" is a word. Just look it up in the Becktionary.
- [He holds the Webster's Abridged Becktionary (From Bzooty to Whiskeyclone).]
- Beck's Tour Bus closely resembles the Thomas Saf-T-Liner C2.
- The chase scene at the end is inspired by the 1968 movie Bullitt, and the part of the chase in Chinatown could refer to a scene in the video for Beck's Devil's Haircut. The green Volkswagen New Beetle that is seen throughout the chase is a reference to the green Beetle seen throughout the chase scene in Bullitt.
- When Bender discovers that he is no longer broken he says that he can't sing about being broken if he's not and he then says "It's just like Christina Aguilera singing in Spanish" this is a reference to Christina Aguilera singing many songs in Spanish despite her first language being English.
- When the Bus is dug up, Bender asks if it is one of "Those Led Zeppelins I've heard so much about." Leela later asks if it is a Jefferson Starship.
- On the map of the United States in the year 3000, Washington, D.C.'s name has changed to Washington A.C., referencing direct current and alternating current.
- The concert Bend-Aid is a reference to the famine relief effort Band Aid, and, obviously, Bender's name.
- Bender lands at "Fisherman's Worf", renamed after the Star Trek: The Next Generation character Worf.
- The Robot "Patch Cord Adams" is a portmanteau and reference to both Patch Adams and the use of an electrical or optical cable, or patch cord, to 'patch in' two electrical devices.
- When Bender eats the chips dug up by the hole project, he defecates bricks, which is a reference to potato chips made with the fat substitute Olestra. This substance was rumored to severely upset the bowels, hence the phrase "shitting bricks".
- The name of the whale oil used is Mobil Dick, a portmanteau and reference to both Mobil Oil and Moby Dick.
- The robot whose head exploded in the episode A Fishful of Dollars can be seen in the crowd of broken robots.
- Bender holding the microphone upside down, is a reference to the microphone handling styles of various performers including Freddie Mercury of Queen and Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit.
- Cylon and Garfunkel sing the lyrics to "Scarborough Fair", originally performed by Simon and Garfunkel. Cylons are the robotic nemesis in the series "Battlestar Galactica".
[edit] Goofs
Conflicting issues involve the fact that despite the map displayed in this episode, Washington D.C. is referred to as such, rather than Washington A.C. and "New New Jersey" is often referred to as just "New Jersey". Additionally, in the episode The 30% Iron Chef, Bender references Eugene, "Oregon", differing from "XORegon". Presumably these state parodies were only thought up for this episode as they are not used at any other point in the series.
[edit] Alienese
- On the map, the State of Utah now reads "Human Farm" in Alienese.
[edit] Debut Appearances
[edit] Footnotes
