Damnation Macs are still alive in the Future. Damnation again Computers still crash.

Computer verdicts. The future of world justice?

I kept expecting Tom Servo And Crow to pop up.

The planet's name is a pun on/reference to Karel Capek, the playwright credited with inventing the name "robot."

The title is also a reference to "Fear of a Black Planet", an album by the rap group Public Enemy.

Yeah! Macs are still alive in the future! And shame on you, Scott, for making a derogatory remark about an obviously superior product!

Hey hey... Let's take that sort of talk over to the E:FC board! There's a discussion on which rules: Mac/Win/Unix (BTW, the correct answer is Unix), but let's keep Futurama free of that stuff!

Yeah, besides you don't have to search too far on Usenet
to find a long pointless Mac vs PC vs Whatever thread to
join in

I liked the gag with Hermes image being carried away by the pigeon, then we see the real Hermes covered with bandages. If only real pagers worked like that.

Isn't the Hall Of Justice where the SuperFriends were based?

Various scenes and robots just reminded me of 2 60's comics, Magnus, Robot Fighter (Leela kicking the robot, obviously) and The Metal Men (some looked like the Missile Men).

When is Robanukah this year anyway? My lousy Human calendar didn't bother to list it. Why if those Humans didn't eat metal and breathe fire I'd show 'em a thing or two. Lousy fleshpiles...

After Leela was caused a sternutation (def.: the act of sneezing) by the dust, the robotic passerby pointed and emitted a shrill noise. This is reference to the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers in which humans were replaced by extraterrestrial pods who metamorphically developed into whomever they were substituting. Whenever the aliens encountered anyone discovered as being human, the aliens would point and emit a shrill noise. By the way, I nearly expectorated (def.: coughed up) my dinner in the commencement of this particular episode as a small planet collided into the windshield of the spacecraft and was further smeared by the windshield wipers.

And who could forget the robot/alien with a rainbow Afro wig holding up a sign reading "GLORX 3:16"?

Wait, I didn't remember that from my first viewing of this episode. So I guess I am capable of forgetting it :)

And Bender Ogoling circuit diagrams like they're playboy centerfolds.

nit for this epsiode:

After the Mac crashes, one of the robots says to try using crtl-alt-del. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this does nothing on a mac. Mac's dont even have ctrl keys.
BTW, Macs are Evil.

btw, they're not. Prove that they are. And they do have ctrl keys! Where have you been! You can't use ctrl-alt-del, that's what the problem is.

Isn't the mac ctrl-alt-del , something like open apple+something or closed apple+something?

It's command-control-power key. Or, if you insist, apple-control-power key.

And, on iMacs, shift-cmd-power key can sometimes get you out. If the moon is in the third house...

This may not be a nit; who's to say that, in the future, Apple hasn't bought Microsoft and incorporated some Wintel controls into OS 248.5?

A guy can dream, can't he?

I asked becuase I used to have an old apple computer and if I remmeber correctly they are a mac relative. Even though I don't remember it ever crashing.

The main reason the used the ctrl-alt-del is that, since most of use use windblows 9x , the majority of viewers would know what ctrl-alt-delete is used for.

I also wonder though, who created all of these robots? If humans did then shoulden't they show some gratitude?

Mark: quite right! I've also found that it sometimes works with the power key on the machine when the one on the keyboard doesn't work.

Anyone notice the sign that said "Got Milk? If you are you must be human and be killed".
Loved Bender's offer of putting the butter on popcorn - we all know where that was going to come from.
And Leela's line "if only had a few minutes to think about it" before the cut to the ad break.
Is the ship in orbit? If so, how can Leela and Fry be lowered down without some proper sort of space helmet?

I liked how they did that bit for the commercial too. Groening did that once for the simpsons...Homer was telling a story and Bart and Lisa got up to get snacks and maybe go to their bathroom: "Dad, you can't expect a person to sit through a story for 30 minutes straight!" and then Marge goes "And I'll sit here thinking about products or services I might like..." then it fades to commercial. LOL Groening is brilliant...though if they have futurama on tape one day, the joke will be lost.

The act of sneezing causing someone to be identified as a human & not a robot was used years in a SF short story. Does anyone remember which one? I want to read the story again but, I can't recall the author or title. I think it might have been one of Asimov's robot stories.

You might be thinking of the (Campbell?) short story "Parasite Planet." In the story, Martian shapeshifters trying to sneak a ride on a rocket back to Earth are unmasked when they can't properly coordinate the dozen or so face muscles needed for sneezing. I think Campbell wrote the story, possibly under a pseudonym. Parts of the story were similar to another shape-shifter story he wrote, "Who Goes There," (the prototypical "which one of us is the alien" story)which was much better.

Thanks Ivan, for trying but I don't think that's it. In the story I'm thinking of the man is mixed in with a bunch of robots. Each of the robots, when asked to smell and identify a powder, answer "pepper". The man, of course, sneezes. Or am I remembering wrong?

Also, a great reference to the old computer game "Bezerk" when the alert sounds, it's taken from the video game.

Ah... Berzerk...

"Intruder alert! Intruder Alert!"
"Get the humanoid! Kill the humanoid!"

Why would they identify Leela as human when she's not human?

In the episode "The Bird-bot of Icecatraz", Bender's internal program says Leela is human as well.

"though if they have futurama on tape one day, the joke will be lost. "

Well, in the UK the BBC shows a lot of US shows (including the simpsons but not futurama) and it's still very obvious where the US breaks are. I saw this episode without any commercials in and I still got it

I loved the Tetris reference.

The crew aanounced on the DVD reference that the whole idea of Fry and Leela is taken from a short story by some Polish sci-fi comedy writer where a human crash lands on a robot planet.

I can't remember the writers name though, anyone got any idea.

I'm pretty sure it's Stanislaw Lem. Where the heck is my "Star Diaries" book now...

That's the guy. I remember the name being mentioned but some parts of the commentary weren't too clear.

Thanks, I'll have to try and read it sometime.

SPOILER

In a later episode, Leela is revealed to, in fact, be human.

END SPOILER

Pentalarc
Where Five Roads Meet He Stands

These robots have strange programs: when Leela and Fry put helmets on their heads, although Leela's hair is still visible, just as their flesh-coloured faces, they aren't recognized. But once they meet Bender in shack and take off their helmets, the robots immedetialy recognizes them as humans.

When I saw the trap with butter, I wondered what would happen if the robots put a donut in there.. (mmmmmm, donuts!).