Time Keeps on Slippin'

Episode Number: 46

Production Code: 3ACV14

Title: Time Keeps on Slippin'

Original Airdate: May 6, 2001

Starring:

Also Starring:

Special Guests:

Intro Promotion:

Caption: For Proper Viewing, Take Red Pill Now.

Intro Cartoon:

Directed by: Chris Louden

Assistant Director:

Written by: Ken Keeler

Storyboarded by:

Plot

The crew of Planet Express are relaxing near Central Park Lake, suddenly a U.F.O lands in the Park. Members of the Harlem Globe Trotters planet step out of the vessel, and their leader Bubblegum Tate challenges Earth to a basketball tournament "for no reason," and with "nothing at stake, beyond the shame of defeat."

Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth accepts the challenge with his team of mutant atomic supermen, who're unfortunately, currently superboys. In order to speed up their growth he orders the Planet Express crew to pick up chronitons (which destroyed an entire civilization) from the Tempest Nebula.

In the nebula it's obvious the harvest is causing some short of tear in space, but the crew pay no attention to it, and Fry tries get Leela to go on a date by showing her his face can survive decompression multiple times. She simply tells him to cool his jets, literally since his jet pack was melting Bender's face.

Back to Earth, Farnsworth notes they got back "none too soon" since wile they were gone the Trotter held a news confers stating he was a jive socker, and feeds the mutant boys the chronitons (which is apparently liquid in room temperature). The results are immediate, and drastic. They all age into adults, while one grows to nearly double normal human height, another gets three extra arms, another gets a cannon in his chest, another turns into a human/spider hybrid, and finally the last gains the ability to shoot energy beams from his eyes. Farnworth rejoices at his creations.

In Madison Cube Garden, the game begins, with Marv Albert's head as the commentator, who thinks it "promises to be a by the numbers athletic competition with no surprises whatsoever."

By halftime the score is Globe Trotter: 42 Supermen: 48, and Albert again notes how dull this showdown is. Tate claims the Trotters planned to trail in halftime while contradicting himself in the next sentence asking "what game are the refs watching." The game resumes shortly after, but suddenly there's a flash, and everyone is in different places. After another flash occurs, Farnsworth calls a time-out, and realizing time is skipping ahead, assumes his use of chronitions are ripping the seams of time and space.

The mutant with the chest canon panics hearing this and fires in accident, pulverizing his human/spider team member. Fry offers to take the dead mutant's place wanting to of course impress Leela, noting they're 35 points ahead, with 2 minutes left in the game, so there's no way putting him in would cause serious issues anyways. Unfortunately, there's another time skip, and we're at the end where Trotters win 244 to 86. Albert finishes with the comment that it's a dark day for humanity; losing in basketball. The Trotters gloat of course, Leela notes, while she doesn't know what Fry did due to the skip, he screwed up, and thanks to him all the other planets will be cracking wise about their mamas, and Hermes breaks down in tears thankful his "fat ugly mama isn't alive to see this day."

However, despite the apparently severe humiliation, Farnsworth immediately reminds everyone that the time skips are far more serious, and Tate offers his assistance since he's the senior lecturer in physics at Globetrotter U. After some techobabble it is concluded that the universe is doomed unless something is done soon, but they're forced to leave the stadium when a time-skip puts them on the path of a charging elephant, part of the circus that took place the day after the game.

Back in the Express Delivery office time skips are becoming more frequent, and oddly plot/humor relevant. Farnsworth observes that people act normally during the time skips, but end up having no memory of what they did. Bender meanwhile starts sucking up to Tate hoping to become a Globe Trotter.

Fry continues to try and get Leela, stating a romantic bed in a closet is a time proof shelter "cause when we're together in here baby, time will stand still." Time skips, and it's apparent she hit him, and refused to join him in bed. Leela later complains about Fry's many flaws to Zoidberg, but due to a skip it is not shown. Zoidberg guesses it was boring anyways since after the skip he was watching T.V. while Leela talked. Leela then summarizes that while she likes Fry's kindness, and boyish charm, his immaturity is far too annoying. Zoidberg simply states "you don't wanna end up old and lonely like ZOIDBERG," and breaks down in tears, but immediately recovers his composure.

Meanwhile, using the Smell-O-Scope, Farnsworth has located "time leaks" in the Tempest Nebula. He surmises when the crew removed the chronitons, it destabilized the nebula, disrupting time throughout the universe. Tate summarizes that when the nebula bounces time particles on matter (bouncing basketballs on Benders head as a analogy), it causes dents, or time skips. He then realizes diverting a bunch of stars could redirect the time particles to the empty side of the universe via their gravity. Unfortunately, such an undertaking would take all of Earth's money, and months to build and install. Thanks to convenient skips however, it all gets done in seconds of perceived time.

Near the nebula we see Leela moving the last sun into position, surrounding the nebula with a circle of suns, and apparently stopping the skips. Fry congratulates her with moderately priced domestic non vintage champagne, and showers her with compliments in his quest to get a date, she still refuses. With advice from Tate he tries again by showing her he learned how to operate the Planet Express ship, which does impress her, but makes her utterly exasperated, and forces her to state in certain terms that they'll never ever... time skips and the two are married.

An angry Leela accuses Fry of tricking her into marriage, but neither has any idea how this happened of course. Fry denies being capable of such things, and makes a heartfelt speech about giving the marriage a chance... One skip later they're divorced.

A heartbroken Fry first determines to figure out what exactly he did to win Leela's heart, and we get to know it's not because he's great in bed, but breaks down a few seconds later with pessimistic words

Farnworth determines that Tate's math was utter nonsense since chronitions can't be moved. Meanwhile time skips are getting worse with isolated areas moving forwards decades. Luckily, the skips allows him and the best minds to come up with another solution "quickly." They'll implode the nebula into a black hole. Tate hesitates, noting they'll need a doomsday device, but the professor simply responds by pulling out six from his collection musing he could part with one and still be feared. Tate elated makes everyone in the room a honoary Globe Trotter, but Bender isn't there, to his chagrin. In a final act of desperation Bender pleads with Tate before they leave, but forced to admit he's not funky enough to be a Globe Trotter.

Back at the nebula, a heartbroken Bender sets the doomsday device, and a heartbroken Fry apologizes for the possibility that he tricked Leela into a marriage, since he still doesn't know what happened. Leela tries to cheer him, stating they'll always be friends, but it's small comfort, so she tries again by letting Fry move the ship to a safe distance while she preps the doomsday detonator, which seems to work.

At the helm Fry realizes he moved the stars themselves as a ultimate declaration of love, it was the thing that finally won Leela's heart. Unfortunately, the implosion device sucks up all the stars a few seconds later. A frantic Fry asks Leela if she saw "it", but unfortunately she didn't. A depressed Fry simply says, "it" was nothing, and the credits roll.

Quotes

Fry: So, Leela, how about a romantic ride in one of those swan boats? They're kinda dangerous but I finally mastered them.
Leela: Those aren't swan boats, they're swans.
Fry: Oh. That explains these boat eggs.

References

• The title references a line from "Fly Like an Eagle" by the Steve Miller Band: "Time keeps on slippin'...into the future".
• Various elements of the story (a challenge from extra-terrestrial basketball players, growth of mutant basketball players) parody the film Space Jam, in which Billy West voiced Bugs Bunny. The song "Fly Like an Eagle" was featured in the movie.
• The Globetrotters' saucer looks identical to the one Klaatu lands on Earth in the classic 1950s sci-fi movie The Day the Earth Stood Still.
• This episode introduces Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate, who appears in the later episodes The 30% Iron Chef and Less Than Hero, as well as the first DVD movie, Bender's Big Score.
• The Globetrotter named "'Curly' Joe" is a dual reference to real Harlem Globetrotter Fred "Curly" Neal and to Joe DeRita, who was one of The Three Stooges from the late 1950s into the 1970s, and was called "Curly-Joe" to distinguish him from the original "Curly," Jerome Howard.
• In a previous episode, A Fishful of Dollars, Professor Farnsworth states he was called mad because he "dared to dream of my own race of atomic monsters, atomic supermen".
• Farnsworth's nuclear mutant with a chest-mounted cannon backs up his claim made in the episode "Put Your Head on My Shoulder" that he could graft a cannon on Fry's chest, to "crush those who disobey him".
• The game takes place at Madison Cube Garden, a reference to Madison Square Garden; the 30th C venue is also featured in Raging Bender.
• The mutant with the dark skin and yellow hair is modeled after Dennis Rodman, according to the audio commentary. The mutant's glowing eyes...hmm...
• The Professor throws (or, at least, attempts to throw) a folding chair onto the court. This references former Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight throwing a chair in a fit of rage during a 1985 game against Purdue.
• The concept of a peculiar time distortion is the main plot of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “We’ll Always Have Paris”.
• Fry wants to be put in the game to show Leela his skills; Professor Farnsworth replies; "Hmm. Will said skills pay the bills?". This references the song "Skills To Pay The Bills" off of The Beastie Boys 1999 album The Sounds of Science; the album is itself a reference to the Simon and Garfunkel song "The Sounds of Silence". The Beastie Boys appeared in the earlier Hell Is Other Robots.
• The song Bender whistles at the end is Sweet Georgia Brown which is the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters.

External Links

Episode Transcript