The Luck of the Fryrish

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Futurama episode
"The Luck of the Fryrish"
Fry's lucky charm.
Episode no.	36
Prod. code	3ACV04
Airdate	March 11, 2001
Writer(s)	Ron Weiner
Director	Chris Louden
Opening subtitle	Broadcast Simultaneously One Year In The Future
Opening cartoon	Unknown
Guest star(s)	Tom Kenny as Yancy Fry.
Season 3 January 2001 – December 2002
Amazon Women in the Mood Parasites Lost A Tale of Two Santas The Luck of the Fryrish The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz Bendless Love The Day the Earth Stood Stupid That's Lobstertainment! The Cyber House Rules Where the Buggalo Roam Insane in the Mainframe The Route of All Evil Bendin' in the Wind Time Keeps on Slippin' I Dated a Robot A Leela of Her Own A Pharaoh to Remember Anthology of Interest II Roswell That Ends Well Godfellas Future Stock The 30% Iron Chef
List of all Futurama episodes...

"The Luck of the Fryrish" is the fourth episode in season three of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on March 11, 2001.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Continuity 3 Production 4 Broadcast and reception 5 Characters 6 Cultural references 7 References

[edit] Plot

The episode opens in the mid-1970s, where a young Yancy Fry is jealous of his newborn brother Philip, and copies him in almost anything he can. Meanwhile, back in the year 3000, Fry is getting fed up with his bad luck which consists of losing nearly all of his money at the racecourse, being violently electrocuted trying to hold on to his final dollar and landing in a steel garbage can with leftover Horse d'oeuvres being tipped on him as a final blow. In a flashback, Fry discovers a seven-leaf clover, which grants him extraordinary luck and allows him to beat his brother in any contest, from basketball to breakdancing. Fry sets off, with Leela and Bender, to find his clover in the ruins of Old New York and makes his way to his old house, which looks the same outside back then and now.

Back in the 1980s, a teenage Fry hides the seven-leaf clover inside his Ronco record vault. In the year 3000, Bender opens the record vault, but Fry discovers that the clover is missing, concluding that Yancy must have stolen it. They happen across a statue of Yancy, with the seven-leaf clover in his lapel. The inscription: “Philip J. Fry-First person on Mars” angers Fry because he believes Yancy stole his name and his dream.

Professor Farnsworth pulls up a biographical movie about “Philip J. Fry,” where the crew learns that he was a millionaire rock star astronaut, and is now buried in Orbiting Meadows National Cemetery with the seven-leaf clover. A furious Fry sets off to rob his "brother’s" grave and recover the clover. The story jumps back to the early 21st century, where an adult Yancy is rummaging through his missing brother’s music to find something to play at his upcoming wedding. Yancy discovers the seven-leaf clover in Fry's copy of The Breakfast Club soundtrack, and takes it.

Fry, Leela and Bender reach the grave site, and start digging. But Fry knocks loose some moss that is covering part of the inscription, and begins to read. The story jumps back to Yancy, who is discussing naming his newborn son with his wife. Yancy didn't steal Fry's clover; instead, he had given it to his newborn son, and had named him Philip J. Fry in memory of his brother. The inscription on the tomb reads “Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit”. Fry returns the clover to his nephew’s grave as "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds rolls over the end credits.

[edit] Continuity

When Yancy is being told of the long history of his name, his father doesn't count his own father as a Yancy. This is a reference to the plot of "Roswell That Ends Well", where it is revealed that Fry is his own grandfather. His original grandfather in that episode was named Enos.

Yancy searches through Fry's things and finds a Whitefish flag. This is a reference to the episode Mars University.

During Bender's Big Score when Fry returns to life with his family in the 21st century, there is a shot during a montage of Fry and Yancy playing basketball with Fry wearing his lucky clover.

This episode actually directly contradicts Bender's Big Score in which a time clone of Fry is shown to live with his family later. The error exists in that Mrs. Fry and Yancy clearly establish that Fry has been missing since New Years of 1999. Mrs. Fry claims that she will never forget the day Fry went missing because Wisconsin won the Rose Bowl. In Jurassic Bark she is seen clearly rooting for Wisconsin adorned with a cheese-hat, and the score for the Rose Bowl game is clearly visible. Fry's disappearance is also supported and further contradicted in The Cryonic Woman in which Michelle states that Fry went missing and no official search was conducted. This may be excusable due to the fact that the time travel code in Bender's Big Score was paradox-free.

[edit] Production

According to executive producer David X. Cohen, the storyboards for this particular episode were colored differently to represent the scenes which were based in the 31st century and the 20th century. The episode commentary for this episode notes that the concept of simultaneously telling two stories set in different times was inspired by The Godfather Part II.

[edit] Broadcast and reception

Ron Weiner won an Annie Award for "Outstanding individual achievement for writing in an animated television production" for this episode in 2001.^[1] In 2006 IGN.com ranked this episode as number nine in their list of the top 25 Futurama episodes due to the surprising ending and emotional nature of the plot.^[2] In its original airing, this episode had a 4.9 rating/9 share and was in 73rd place for the week.^[3]

[edit] Characters

Characters making their first appearance in this episode:

• Yancy Fry, Jr.
• Philip J. Fry II
• Hair Robot

[edit] Cultural references

• The quantum finish at the race track is a reference to the observer effect and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.^[4]
• The title of this episode is a riff on the novel/film The Luck of the Irish.
• The song playing in the end credits is “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds, which is also the theme song of the 1985 film The Breakfast Club. Additionally, the film soundtrack itself is featured in the episode, as the clover is hidden in the sleeve of this particular record inside the vault.
• The manhole cover has The PJs Thurgood carved into it. The writers of Futurama are fans of the show and felt they should feature it. As a way of paying them back, The PJs featured Fry as a missing person on a milk carton. The same manhole is seen in the episode "I Second That Emotion".
• Fry’s childhood friend “Noticeably F.A.T.” is a reference to New York rapper The Notorious B.I.G.
• In the graveyard, Fry, Leela and Bender pass the “grave of The Unknown Comic,” a reference to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Unknown Comic himself.
• When Fry is in the ruins of Old New York, one of the things he does is get in the middle of the street and yell, "Howard Stern is overrated!" Billy West (the actor who voices Fry, Professor Farnsworth, and Dr. Zoidberg) was a cast member of Howard Stern's radio show from 1989 to 1995.
• Fry's brother Yancy is a reference to Billy West's old show Doug.
• Fry also mocks Mayor Rudy Giuliani's crackdown on quality-of-life crimes by jaywalking.
• Bender takes Fry and Leela on the ruins of the B subway line to the Newkirk Avenue Station in Midwood, Brooklyn.
• During the documentary, the Icelandic singing star Njörd is a reference to real world singer Björk.
• At the moment of Fry's birth, his mother is listening to a New York Mets baseball game, in which Ed Kranepool strikes out, and then Jerry Grote leans into a pitch and is hit by the pitch, winning the game in the ninth inning. Grote and Kranepool were both Mets players from 1966 to 1976.
• Before Fry attempts to dig up the coffin, he exclaims: "It's clovering time!". This is a reference to the Thing from the Fantastic Four's popular phrase "It's clobberin' time!". Another reference is the name Yancy, which is the name of the street gang The Thing once led.
• Fry's mother mentions that, on the day Fry disappeared, Wisconsin won the Rose Bowl football game 17-9. This was the score by which Wisconsin beat Stanford on January 1, 2000. Ironically, Fox would eventually acquire television rights to the Bowl Championship Series - with the exception of the Rose Bowl.
• When Bender attempts to open the vault in Fry's old basement, there is a statue of Bart Simpson's head on a shelf in the background.
• In the basement, Bender points out the album "Sports" by Huey Lewis and the News, after Fry commented that "everything else held up fine" in the safe. This is a remark about the album's replay value.
• While at the racetrack, the name of the horse that Fry was betting on in the final race is named 'Hairy Trotter'. A possible reference to the then growing popular character, 'Harry Potter'

[edit] References

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