Xmas Story

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Futurama episode
"Xmas Story"
Episode no.	17
Prod. code	2ACV04
Airdate	December 19, 1999
Writer(s)	David X. Cohen
Director	Peter Avanzino
Opening subtitle	Based On A True Story
Opening cartoon	Elmer Fudd in Fresh Hare
Guest star(s)	John Goodman as Robot Santa Conan O'Brien as himself

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? The 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...

"Xmas Story" is the fourth episode in season two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on December 19, 1999.

1 Plot
2 Characters
3 Cultural references
4 Ties to other episodes
5 Production jokes

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

While on a ski trip, Fry begins to feel nostalgic for 20th century Christmases. To cheer him up, the rest of the Planet Express staff decide to decorate for what is now called Xmas, which includes cutting down an Xmas tree.

Fry decides to venture into the city to buy Leela a present. The others warn him to be back before sundown, or else he will be killed by a murderous robotic Santa Claus. Meanwhile, Bender befriends several homeless robots and they go on a robbery spree.

Fry buys Leela a parrot, which escapes. Leela heads out to rescue Fry before Santa Claus arrives. After pursuing the parrot to the top of a tall building, he is saved from plunging to his death by Leela. Unfortunately, Fry's safety is short-lived, as Santa makes his entrance and opens fire.

Fry, Leela, Bender, and the other robots take refuge in the Planet Express building, but Santa breaks in through the chimney. Thanks to some quick thinking by Doctor Zoidberg, Santa is forced back into the chimney, where an explosion sends him and his mechanical reindeer tumbling into the stratosphere.

Everybody celebrates by singing "Santa Claus Is Gunning You Down".

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Characters

Characters who make their first appearances in this episode are:

[edit] Cultural references

The title is perhaps a riff on the 1983 movie A Christmas Story.
When Conan O'Brien's head attempts to make a Y2K joke, Bender claims, "They fixed that 900 years ago!", implying that Y2K had currently unforseen consequences that won't be repaired until 2100.
Before Bender crashes through the ice skating rink the children ice skating are a parody of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
After Hermes finishes praising the Jamaican Bobsled Team, he immediately turns upside down in his bobsled, referencing their historic crash.
The scene in which Zoidberg, Amy and Hermes buy each other combs and sell their hair is a spoof of O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi".
One of the creatures Fry inspects in the pet store is Bongo, a character from Matt Groening's comic strip Life in Hell.
The sequence of Fry dangling from the bars of the digital clock display is probably an homage to the famous sequence of Harold Lloyd dangling from a clock in the silent film Safety Last!. It could also be a reference to Back to the Future (1985).
The character Tinny Tim is a reference to Tiny Tim from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol.
During this episode 30th century versions of popular Christmas carols are sung including "The Twelve Days of Christmas", "Santa Claus is Coming to Town", and "Here Comes Santa Claus".

[edit] Ties to other episodes

From this episode forward, all characters say "aks" instead of "ask", because, according to Leela], that is the way the word is pronounced in the 31st century.
Bender recalls giving blood, but cannot remember who's blood it was. In the episode "Godfellas", it is revealed to be Fry's blood.
The other Futurama Christmas episode, also dealing with Robot Santa, is "A Tale of Two Santas".
In this episode it is stated that global warming occurred but was canceled out by nuclear winter. In a later episode, this is contradicted when it is told that the effects of global warming are counteracted by dropping a giant ice cube in the ocean each year.
Zoidberg claims to be cold blooded, this fact caused the heat seeking missile to not attack the decapodian oppression palace in the season four episode "A Taste of Freedom".

[edit] Production jokes

Just before the end credits, a panoramic shot of the city includes the digital clock tower seen earlier in the episode. It reads 8:57, which is about the time the scene would have originally aired on the East Coast.