Hell Is Other Robots
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| Futurama episode | |
| "Hell Is Other Robots" | |
 |
|
|---|---|
| Episode no. | 9 |
| Prod. code | 1ACV09 |
| Airdate | May 18, 1999 |
| Where |  United States |
| Writer(s) | Eric Kaplan |
| Director | Rich Moore |
| Opening subtitle | Condemned by the Space Pope |
| Opening cartoon | Max Fleischer Studio's "Betty Boop and Grampy" from 1935. |
| Guest star(s) | Mike Diamond Adam Horovitz Dan Castellaneta |
| List of all Futurama episodes... | |
"Hell Is Other Robots" is episode 9 in season 1 of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on May 18, 1999.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
After a Beastie Boys concert, Bender attends a post-concert party with his old friend Fender where he develops an electricity addiction. Realizing he has a problem, Bender joins the Temple of Robotology, on pain of eternal damnation in Robot Hell. After baptizing him in oil, the Preacherbot welds the symbol of Robotology to Bender's case.
After Bender annoys his coworkers with his new-found religion, Fry and Leela decide to reacquaint him with his old lifestyle. They fake a delivery to Atlantic City, and tempt Bender with alcohol, prostitutes, and easy targets for theft. Bender succumbs, rips off the Robotology symbol, and tosses it away. The symbol beeps ominously as it sinks into a bowl of dip.
Later, Bender is interrupted in the process of seducing three female robots by a knock at his hotel room door. When he opens the door, an orange glow spills into the room, and a pitchfork reaches into the room and knocks him out. He awakens to a greeting from the Robot Devil and finds himself in Robot Hell. Fry and Leela discover that Bender is missing, and attempt to track him down using Nibbler's sense of smell.
While in Robot Hell, the Robot Devil informs Bender that he agreed to be punished for sinning when he joined Robotology. In the meantime, following Bender's scent, Fry and Leela arrive at an abandoned New Jersey amusement park, where they find the entrance to Robot Hell.
A musical number starts as the Robot Devil begins detailing Bender's punishment. As the song ends, Fry and Leela arrive, and try to bargain for Bender's life. The Robot Devil tells them (purusant to the Fairness In Hell Act of 2275) that the only way to win back Bender's soul is to beat him in a playing contest using a solid gold violin (a reference to the song The Devil Went Down to Georgia). When Leela's fiddle playing pales to the Robot Devil's performance (she in fact holds the violin on the wrong side), she beats the Robot Devil with the fiddle.
As the three flee the Robot Devil's clutches, Bender steals the wings off a flying torture robot, attaches them to his back, and airlifts Fry and Leela to safety in a scene similar to an angel rising to heaven, though Leela had to drop the golden fiddle onto the Robot Devil first before they successfully escape.
[edit] Song
[edit] Robot Hell
- Robot Devil: Cigars are evil, you won't miss them
- We'll find ways to simulate that smell
- What a sorry fella'
- Rolled up and smoked like a panatela
- Here on level one of Robot Hell
- Gambling's wrong and so is cheating
- So is forging phoney I.O.U.s
- Let's let Lady Luck decide
- What type of torture's justified
- I'm pit boss here on level two
- (Robot Devil spins Bender on Roulette wheel with various tortures listed on it, as well as "Pleasant Massage") Oooh--deep fried robot
- Bender: Just tell me why
- Robot Devil: Please read this fifty-five page warrant
- Bender: There must be robots worse than I
- Robot Devil: We checked around, there really aren't
- Bender: Then please let me explain
- My crimes were merely boyish pranks
- Robot Devil: You stole from boy scouts, nuns and banks
- Bender: Aw, Don't blame me, blame my upbringing! (Bender tries stealing Robot Devil's wallet)
- Robot Devil: Please stop sinning while I'm singing!
- Selling bootleg tapes is wrong
- Musicians need that income to survive
- Beastie Boys: Hey Bender gonna make some noise
- With the harddrive scratched by the Beastie Boys
- That's whatcha-whatcha-whatcha get on level five
- (Fry and Leela are shown on a slide that leads down to Robot Hell.)
- Fry: I don't feel well
- Leela: It's up to us to rescue him
- Fry: Maybe he likes it here in Hell
- Leela: It's us who tempted him to sin
- Fry: Maybe he's back at the motel
- Leela: Come on, Fry don't be scared.
- I'm sure at least one of us will be spared
- So just sit back; enjoy the ride
- Fry: My ass has blisters from the slide
- Robot Devil: Fencing diamonds, fixing cockfights
- Publishing indecent magazines
- You'll pay for every crime
- Knee-deep in electric slime
- You'll suffer 'till the end of time
- Enduring tortures, most of which rhyme
- Trapped forever here in Robot Hell
[edit] Characters
Characters who first appear in this episode are:
[edit] Cultural references
- The title is a riff on a famous line ("Hell is other people") from Jean Paul Sartre's one act play No Exit.
- The Robot Devil actually performs an excerpt from La Ronde des Lutins ("The Dance of the Goblins") by Antonio Bazzini.
- The fiddle playing duel with the Robot Devil is a reference to the story depicted in "The Devil Went Down to Georgia."
- When Leela says, "Who would have ever thought there was such a place as Robot Hell? And that it would be in New Jersey?" she is perhaps alluding to the famed Jersey Devil, while Fry's response of "Actually..." is a continuation of the running joke that New Jersey is an unpleasant place to live.
- In the Temple of Robotology, prior to Bender's baptism, there are two lines parodying the BASIC programming language on a banner above the altar with code lines:
- 10 SIN
- 20 GOTO HELL
- The symbol of Robotology that is welded onto Bender's stomach is the symbol used in wiring schematics for a resistor.
- The location of Robot Hell is under a ride called the Inferno, which can be slightly linked with the Robot Devil's ironic punishments and Dante's Divine Comedy.
[edit] Trivia
- This episode, along with its animatic version, is one of four featured in the Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection, reflecting its popularity with both fans and the creators of Futurama.
- The title of the episode appears on the front of the pamphlet The Robot Devil hands to Bender, also appearing with a picture of The Robot Devil.
- Voodoo and Oprahism are now main stream religions.
[edit] Goofs
- When Bender picks the Robot Devil's pocket, the Robot Devil disconnects Bender's arm before throwing him down to the next level of Robot Hell. However, as soon as Bender lands in the very next scene, his arm is intact.
| Preceded by: "A Big Piece of Garbage" |
Futurama episodes | Followed by: "A Flight to Remember" |
