Futurama/Fry and the Slurm Factory

Fry and the Slurm Factory
Season 2, Episode 4
Airdate	November 14, 1999
Production Number	1ACV13
Written by	Lewis Morton
Directed by	Ron Hughart
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Futurama — Season Two

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Fry and the Slurm Factory is the fourth episode of the second season of Futurama, and the thirteenth episode overall.

Guest Stars: Dave Herman (Slurms MacKenzie), Byrne Offutt (Utility Player), Pamela Anderson (Dixie)

Notes

Alien Language Sightings

• Contest Disclaimer: "The Following Species Are Ineligible: Space Wasps, Space Beavers, Any Other Animal With The Word "Space" In Front Of It, Space Chickens And The Elusive Yak-Face."
• Eye Chart: "No Squinting, Four Eyes."

Trivia

The Show

• Opening Caption: Live From Omicron Persei 8
• Opening Animation: Before the "Created By" credit in the opening, a short bit of one of the original Simpsons shorts from The Tracey Ullman Show is shown.
• Look Close: While Leela and the Professor are playing 3D Scrabble, the Professor has the letters F-U-T-U-R-A-M in his hand. Also arranged on the board are the words "one eye", "prop only", "donut", and "Matt area".
• Original Version: Glurmo was originally to be named "Slurmy Slonka" but the writer decided against it. Also in the original script, the Grunkalunkas looked more like Oompaloopma charactures, but Matt Groening, since he hasn't seen the movie the episode is based on, rejected the designs and replaced them with something he came up with.

Behind the Scenes

• Real Factory: After this episode, the crew of the show hung a sign on the door of the writers' room that says "Real Writers Room."

Allusions and References

• Willy Wonka: This episode heavily parodies Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (particularly the original film starring Gene Wilder). The idea of winning a contest to get a tour of the factory, the Grunkalunkas, the voice of Glurmo and the singing all came directly from the movie. In fact, while recording the voice for Glurmo, Billy West stared at a picture of Wilder to kind of channel Wilder through his performance.

• Yakface: During the alien language disclaimer, the alien "Yakface" is mentioned. Yakface is an obscure Star Wars character that, inexplicably, had a very short run of action figures made after it. The Yakface figure is now worth absurd amounts of money due to its scarcity.

• 6502: The chip in Bender's head is the same number as the processor that powered the Apple I computer, as well as the original Nintendo 8-bit system and the Commodore system.

• Soilent Cola: The idea that the secret ingredient of the soda is people comes from the Charlton Heston film Soylent Green, where Heston investigates a mysterious government-sanctioned food stuff that can possibly cure the problem of hunger. He later finds out that Soylent Green is made from people.

Fry: My God. What if the secret ingredient... is people?

• Slurm Classic: The Queen reasons that turning Leela into a Slurm Queen would allow them to come out with "Slurm Classic" to drive up sales after "New Slurm" turned so many people off. This is a reference to the same marketting scheme pulled by Coca-Cola in the late 1980s. Pepsi also did a similar thing with "Pepsi Clear," which failed equally.

Slurm Queen: Yes! Which is why we'll market it as New Slurm. Then, when everyone hates it, we'll bring back Slurm Classic, and make billions!

Memorable Moments

• Fry: What's wrong?
  Bender: That's no lady!
  "Fembot": Damn Chico! One more upgrade and I'll be more lady than you can handle! Why you so stupid, stupid?

• Leela: Bender, why did you jump in?
  Bender: Everybody was doing it. I just wanted to be popular.

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