- "Well? How are they? Oh, they're great! They're like sex! Except I'm having them!"
- ―Fry, eating popplers for the first time
"The Problem with Popplers" is episode 15 in Season Two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on May 7, 2000.
Story
Desperate for food after a visit to the Planet of the Moochers, the Planet Express crew land on a planet to look for Roddenberries, and instead find the planet covered in a delectable delicacy, which they decide to sell under the name Popplers. The crew create a catchy jingle and sell Popplers on the street for $1 a dozen, with great success. Fishy Joe makes the crew an offer to sell the treats at his chain of seafood restaurants for $2 a dozen, of which they get half.
Protesters, including "Anti-food activist" Free Waterfall Jr. rally outside the Planet Express building. A Poppler Leela is about to eat opens its eyes and says "Mama" to her; realizing that Popplers are intelligent, she joins the activists in protesting the trade in Popplers. A televised debate between "Fishy Joe" Gilman, Free Waterfall Jr. and Leela is interrupted by the arrival on Earth of the Omicron Persei 8 invasion fleet. The Omicronians demand vengeance for the eating of their young; the initial demand that Earth 'serve' one human for each of the 198 billion Popplers eaten. However, during negotiations with Zapp, there are revealed to be not as much humans so they eventually settle on Leela, as the discoverer of Popplers, to be presented for consumption.
While Lrrr waits to eat Leela on live television, Zapp formulates a brilliant plan to use an orangutan to substituted for Leela, in the hopes that the Omicronians inability to tell humans apart can be exploited. Kif attempts to makeover the ape as best he can. Oblivious to the danger it places Leela in, Free Waterfall Jr. reveals that the ape is an ape; Ndnd confirms it by eating it and Lrrr demands the real Leela. Only the intervention of the Poppler Leela didn't eat saves her. Lrrr eats Free Waterfall Jr. instead, but feels woozy from eating him and the crew retires to a meal of dolphin, which they deem as unintelligent because it blew all its money on lottery tickets.
Quotes
- Fry: "Look, Leela, even if you heard one talk, that doesn't mean it's intelligent. I mean, parrots talk and we eat them, right?"
Bender: "Yeah, it could just be a parlor trick like Fry."
Fry: "Like Fry, Like Fry."
- TV: "And finally, the founder of Popplers, Miss Turanga Leela."
Fry: "Turanga?"
Amy: "That's her first name, Philip."
Bender: "Philip?"
Trivia
- The title references the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", in which it is discovered that the trouble with Tribbles is their astronomical reproductive rate.
- Roddenberries and "Type M Planet" are a reference to Gene Roddenberry and his creation, the "Star Trek" series.
- The "lion fed only with tofu" is a parody of ecologist groups that try to feed carnivore animals tofu.
- The vegetarian group "Mankind for Ethical Animal Treatment" (MEAT) is a parody of the real life "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" (PETA)