Raging Bender

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Futurama episode
"Raging Bender"
Episode no.	21
Prod. code	2ACV08
Airdate	February 27, 2000
Where	United States
Writer(s)	Lewis Morton
Director	Ron Hugart
Opening subtitle	Nominated For Three Glemmys
Opening cartoon	Unknown
Guest star(s)	Rich Little

Season 2 November 1999 – December 2000
I Second That Emotion Brannigan Begin Again A Head in the Polls Xmas Story Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love? Lesser of Two Evils Put Your Head on My Shoulders Raging Bender A Bicyclops Built for Two A Clone of My Own How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back The Deep South Bender Gets Made Mother's Day The Problem with Popplers Anthology of Interest I War is the H-Word The Honking The Cryonic Woman
List of all Futurama episodes...

"Raging Bender" is episode 8 in season 2 of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on February 27, 2000.

1 Plot
2 Ultimate robot fighters
3 Cultural references
4 Trivia
5 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

At the morning Planet Express meeting, the crew discovers Hermes has been assimilated by the brain slugs. To avoid Hermes' slack-jawed stare and being assimilated themselves, the rest of the staff takes off for the movies.

While watching All My Circuits, The Movie, Bender picks a fight with a robot that turns out to be Ultimate Robot Fighting champion The Masked Unit. The Masked Unit trips on Bender's oil-soaked popcorn, and is knocked out by the fall. Coincidentally, the commissioner of Ultimate Robot Fighting is at the movie, and hires Bender on the spot.

After training with Leela, Bender has his first fight against a chainsaw-equipped robot called The Clearcutter. By a stroke of luck, Bender defeats his opponent, causing The Clearcutter to explode into a pile of parts. However, Bender runs into the robot backstage, and the commissioner reveals that Ultimate Robot Fighting is fixed, and that the most popular robot always wins.

Bender spurns further training from Leela, and proceeds to win several fights, but eventually his popularity wanes, and he is told that he can either take a dive in his new role as 'The Gender Bender', or be killed by his giant opponent, Destructor. Bender asks Leela for help, but she initially refuses. When she discovers that Destructor is being trained by Arcturan kung-fu Master Fnog, she changes her mind. The male chauvinist and sexist Master Fnog had ruined Leela's dream of competing in the Arcturan Kung-fu junior championships years ago, and Leela still holds a grudge.

While Bender is being thrashed by Destructor, Leela discovers that Destructor is being controlled remotely by Fnog. They proceed to fight and Leela wins, but when Fnog falls, so does Destructor, crushing Bender. After the fight, Fry and Leela roll up the flattened Bender and carry him home.

[edit] Ultimate robot fighters

The Masked Unit
The Clearcutter
Gorgeous Gorx
Billionaire Bot
The Foreigner
The Chain Smoker
Destructor
Sgt. Feces Processor
Bender the Offender/Gender Bender

[edit] Cultural references

The title is a parody of the 1980 movie Raging Bull.
The Ultimate Robot Fighting is a reference to the UFC, in name, although the actual product is much more similar to Professional Wrestling, given the characters, ring, merchandising, character changes and predetermined outcomes that are shown.
The characters who serve as Benders opponent's are typical of many pro wrestling characters that have appeared over time on WWE. For instance, Billionaire Bot is a parody of The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase, while The Foreigner is a jab at such personified racial stereotypes as The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff.
"RobotMania XXII" is a parody of WrestleMania.
Bender 3:16 is a parody of a popular wrestling catchphrase Austin 3:16.
When the crew goes to the movies they see movie posters and Marquee listings for a variety of movies, mostly parodies of other films:

Planet of the Clams is a reference to Planet of the Apes about "an upside down world where lobster is slave to clam".
Galaxy Wars is a historical documentary, the title is a reference to Star Wars.
Quizblorg, Quizblorg, a foreign film with subtitles.
When a Man Loves a Smizmar, a reference to When a Man Loves a Woman. Also, a Smizmar is a term used in "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch" to describe the person who caused the feelings of love allowing a male of Kif's species to become pregnant.

The television show and movie, All My Circuits is a reference to All My Children.
The opening to All My Circuits, The Movie is a parody of James Bond films.
Rich Little is commentating at the Ultimate Robot Fighting matches and doing an impression of Howard Cosell. George Foreman is the co-host and makes reference to his George Foreman Grill.
Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000 appear in silhouette in the movie theater (as they normally do on their TV show). Crow's harsh demand that Fry not talk during the movie is an ironic statement since the entire crux of their show is to talk during the movie. Neither Joel Robinson nor Mike Nelson can be seen though, and Crow is not voiced by either Trace Beaulieu nor Bill Corbett.
The ad announcing Bender's persona change to "The Gender Bender" starts with Bender standing on the planet Earth with the Earth flag waving behind him. This pose is identical to the George Reeves Superman pose at the start of each episode of the 1950s television series Adventures of Superman.
The Loews theater the crew goes to is called the ( $\aleph_0$ )PLEX, a reference to the first aleph number, the least infinite cardinal number. This is an obvious continuation of a joke in The Simpsons, based on googol, or more specifically googolplex -- the Googleplex.

[edit] Trivia

This is the first reference to smismars.
According to the DVD commentary, Hermes was supposed to have the brain slug for the rest of the season but they decided to scratch the idea and have the later episode How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back instead.