The Farnsworth Parabox
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| Futurama episode | |
| "The Farnsworth Parabox" | |
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|---|---|
| Episode no. | 69 |
| Prod. code | 4ACV15 |
| Airdate | June 8, 2003 |
| Where |  United States |
| Writer(s) | Bill Odenkirk |
| Director | Ron Hughart |
| Opening subtitle | BEATS A HARD KICK TO THE FACE |
| Opening cartoon | unknown |
| Season 4 January 2002 – August 2003 |
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| List of all Futurama episodes... | |
“The Farnsworth Parabox” is the fifteenth episode of the fourth production season of Futurama. It first aired June 8, 2003.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
After nearly dying because of an experiment, Professor Farnsworth decides to destroy the experiment—a yellow box—by dumping it into the Sun. Keeping it overnight in the lab, he orders the Planet Express staff not to open it and assigns Leela as a guard to make sure. However, after her shift is over, Leela is tempted by curiosity, flipping a coin to decide whether to open the box. The coin comes up heads, and as such, she does, discovering the box is in fact larger on the inside. She falls into it ending up in a parallel universe where coin flips come out with the opposite result. Consequently, Bender is painted gold, Fry and Leela dated and then got married after Leela flipped a coin to decide, and Farnsworth performed an experiment wherein he tried to remove his own brain.
At first, the parallel universe staff believe Leela is evil, and the parallel Leela forces the original Leela’s colleagues (except for Hermes) into the parallel universe. The two Farnsworths discover that, just as the original Farnsworth created a box containing the parallel universe, the parallel Farnsworth created a box containing the original universe. The two Farnsworths dub the original universe "Universe A", and the second "Universe 1". The two groups agree to watch their counterparts to determine if the other is evil, but after studying the Scriptures, the Professors decide that nobody is evil after all.
When Universe 1’s Hermes comes in to destroy the Universe A box by throwing it into the Sun, the crew realize that Universe A’s Hermes must be doing the same thing. They decide to go back through the box to stop Hermes-A. However, the Universe A box is missing, stolen by the two Zoidbergs, who are tired of everyone in both universes ignoring and being disrespectful to them. The two Farnsworths try to recreate the Universe A box, but wind up creating a large number of boxes, all connected to different universes.
The two Zoidbergs return, and everyone else tries to get the box from them. The Zoidbergs jump into another box to escape, and in the process bump into the bookshelf containing the boxes, causing all of them to fall. Unable to tell which box the Zoidbergs jumped into, everyone selects a box to jump into and find them, grabbing a length of wire so they can find their way back. Eventually finding the two Zoidbergs, everyone makes their way back to Universe 1, then leaps into the Universe A box.
Meanwhile, in Universe A, Hermes-A, aboard the Planet Express Ship-A, has reached the Sun-A and is about to eject the box. At the last moment, everyone else pops out of the box into the airlock. Farnsworth-A orders Hermes-A not to push the eject button. After several moments of consideration, Hermes shrugs and obeys.
Back on Earth, both Farnsworths exchange their boxes by pulling each box into the other’s universe simultaneously. Farnsworth tells the staff to treat the box very carefully as it contains their own universe. Bender then shakes the box, causing earthquake-like effects. Afterwards, while the rest of the staff are watching television, Fry comes into the room and sits on the box, causing the universe to become short and squat. However, this detail is unnoticed by the characters.
[edit] Parallel universes
- Universe A - The normal Futurama universe. Boxes in this universe are yellow.
- Universe 1 - The first alternate universe seen; coin tosses have opposite outcomes and almost everything is a different color. Boxes in this universe are blue.
- Universe 25 - Nobody has eyes. Boxes in this universe are white.
- Universe 1729 - Everybody is a bobblehead version of themselves. Boxes in this universe are pink. It is possible that 1729 was intentionally chosen to represent this universe by the Futurama writers, because 1729 is the Hardy-Ramanujan number.
- Universe 31 - Everybody is a robot version of themselves. Boxes in this universe are green.
- Universe XVII - It appears to be in the era of the Roman Empire. Boxes in this universe are purple.
- Universe 420 - A hippie universe wherein marijuana smoking is implied both by its smoky haze and its label 420. There appears to be a shortage of boxes in this universe. Boxes in this universe are orange.
- Other universes - One is very cold, another contains nothing but women, and another has octopus residents. Also, the Benders steal treasure from both a leprechaun universe (gold Bender) and a pirate universe (original Bender).
[edit] Cultural references
- According to the audio commentary, it was decided to make Zoidberg in the alternate universe blue because approximately one of every million lobsters are blue.
- The Universe 1 Farnsworth's statement that it is common knowledge that parallel universes are evil is a play on the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror", where Kirk, Uhura, Scotty and McCoy are sent to an evil parallel universe.
- The versions of the crew on Universe 25 say they "didnt see anything" while facing the wall. This is probably a spoof of a similar scene seen in "The blair witch project"
[edit] Goofs
- In the previous episode "I Dated a Robot", Farnsworth tells Fry that there is only one parallel universe. The only apparent difference between that parallel universe and the original Futurama universe is the presence of cowboy-style clothing. In the commentary, the writers claim that the other universe is the one that has many alternative ones.
- When Leela flips a coin to decide if she should look in the box, she hits it on her wrist and then raises her hand, but the coin disappears.
- In the scenes just before and after Leela goes into the box, the background wall is constantly shifting colors from shot to shot.
- The two Benders tie the wires around their "waists" but in Universe XVII, the wires aren't there.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by: "Obsoletely Fabulous" |
Futurama episodes | Followed by: "Three Hundred Big Boys" |
