The Route of All Evil
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| Season 3 episode Broadcast season 5 episode | |||||
| The Route of All Evil | |||||
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| No. | 44 | ||||
| Production number | 3ACV12 | ||||
| Written by | Dan Vebber | ||||
| Directed by | Brian Sheesley | ||||
| Title caption | Disclaimer: Any resemblance to actual robots would be really cool | ||||
| First air date | 8 December, 2002 | ||||
| Broadcast number | S05E03 | ||||
| Title reference | The saying, "the root of all evil," referring to the love of money | ||||
| Opening cartoon | Heep Hep Injuns | ||||
| Additional | |||||
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| Season 3 | |||||
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"The Route of All Evil" is the forty-fourth episode of Futurama, the twelfth of the third production season and the third of the fifth broadcast season. It aired on 8 December, 2002, on Fox. It is the episode airing furthest from when it was produced. Cubert and Dwight form a competing business to Planet Express.
The Story
Act I: "We can all fight when we're drunk!"
When Fry, Leela and Bender are unable to decide on which beer to buy, Leela suggests that they brew their own. Meanwhile, the Professor, Hermes and LaBarbara are yelling at Cubert and Dwight for being suspended from boarding school for salting a bully. While the crew brew beer in Bender, the kids wander the office. After Cubert and Dwight trick the crew into wasting a week on a fake delivery to Dogdoo 8 (the universe ends after Dogdoo 7), Hermes and the Professor force their sons to get jobs. They start a delivery company, Awesome Express.
Act II: "Those newspapers won'ts delivers themselveses!"
The kids order a pedal-powered space ship from a magazine for use on the deliveries, and start a paper route. Bender is now swollen with beer. Sal drops off the papers for delivery and the boys get to work. A montage later and they are very successful. Awesome Express becomes more profitable than Planet Express, but this fails to impress Hermes or the Professor. Rejected, the boys decide to crush Planet Express instead, and hire away the crew. The fathers hope to fight back with their loyal dregs, namely Scruffy and Zoidberg. Before they get very far, Cubert is able to inherit Planet Express after discovering the Professor had been declared legally dead three years ago. They rename the entire company Awesome Express.
Act III: "You rotten kids!"
Hermes and the Professor leave the building, depressed. Bender "gives birth" to an ale (Benderbrau). Dwight and Cubert's failure to actually deliver the newspapers becomes apparent, they go to their fathers, who had been feeling sorry for themselves, for help. The four gather up the undelivered papers and deliver them. They head to the Blob household to apologise for breaking the window. Hermes and the Professor fight Mr. Blob and take a severe beating, ending up in hospital. Mr. Blob visits them to apologise, Bender shares some of his beer with the men, and Brett learns to be more like his father, by digesting Dwight and Cubert.
Additional Info
Trivia
- The episode's title caption is similar to that of "Forty Percent Leadbelly".
- The commentary for this episode was recorded before it aired on television, due to Bumper Robinson being out of the country. They had to wait for his return to re-record some lines.
- Bender produces 5 gallons, 6 ounces of beer, or 646 liquid ounces (128 ounces to a gallon). Assuming that, in the 31st century, the United States customary fluid ounce is still defined as 29.574 milliliters, that equates to ~19.1 liters of Bendërbrāu.
Allusions
- Bendërbrāu is an allusion to a few things:
- The beer's name comes from an actual beer that the Futurama staff brewed in their offices at the time of production.[1]
- When the Bendërbrāu is growing inside Bender, the process is frequently compared to pregnancy.
- The bottle label for Bendërbrāu says that it is a steam beer, a style of beer which is most popular in California.
- Fry, Leela, and Bender watch an episode of the MTV reality show The Real World, which now has a season on the sun. Leela's line about the apartment on the sun being expensive is based on a common complaint about the show using upscale, highly expensive houses and apartments for the cast to live in, which an actual person with a nine to five job wouldn't be able to afford.
- Hermes sings a parody of the Bob Marley song "Get Up, Stand Up" while sorting his papers before Cubert and Dwight come in and dissemble his office.
- The prince on the small asteroid, who is later knocked out by paper and speaks French is a reference to The Little Prince.
- The dog chasing Dwight and Cubert (Awesome Express) as they fly through an asteroid field is eaten by a giant space slug extending from an asteroid, a parody of a scene in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, in which the Millennium Falcon flies out from inside a similar beast as it tries in vain to re-eat the ship.
- The various brands of alcohol in 7^11 contain references to real-life alcoholic beverages.
- Pabst Blue Robot is a reference to Pabst Blue Ribbon.
- Kleinz is a reference to the Klein Bottle, a "non-orientable" surface with only 1 side in Euclidean space. The bottles the Kleinz comes in are Klein Bottles.
- Olde Fortran is named after Old English 800 and the computer programming "language" Fortran.
- St Pauli Exclusion Principle Girl is named after St. Pauli Girl and the Pauli Exclusion Principle.
- Löbrau is a reference to the Octoberfest Beer Löwenbräu
Goofs
- The periodic table seen on Dwight's lunchbox has been outdated since 1997 when the elements Hassium and Meitnerium were added; whoever was responsible obviously wasn't aware of the additions. Further elements have been added since the episode was made, and at least one of the many scientists on staff would have been aware of the growing nature of the table, so perhaps they chose to omit these elements.
- This can be chalked up to 31st century people's bad perception of the 20th/21st century.
- The Little Prince speaks a few words of French when hit by a newspaper, despite previous claims that French was a dead language (2ACV10).
- A "dead language" is not necessarily a language that is no longer spoken. It could be one that is no longer changing, like Latin. Further, perhaps being an inhabitant of an asteroid immunizes the Little Prince from language changes on Earth.
- Furthermore, commonly used phrases (such as Au Revoir) from dead languages often persist into living ones.
- When pumping the Bendërbrāu out of Bender, Fry proclaims that they've created an ale and earlier, wanted Bender to "birth" a lager so he can take it to a ball game. However, the bottle label says that it's a cold-fusion steam beer, which is neither an ale nor a lager, but a type of beer that has taste characteristics of both.
- When Sal delivers the newspapers, a tall stack of papers appear, only to have no stack visible when the frame changes.
- Cubert puts a sticker on the side of the bicycle ship to avoid "explosive decompression", but the ship doesn't have a pressurized chamber, the top is just open.
- The kids are probably just playing pretend. Just because they have a paper business that put their fathers' delivery company out of business and find Fox's TV shows infantile doesn't mean they can't act like kids.
- The ship is painted over when Awesome Express takes over, but when the Conrads and the Farnsworths deliver the undelivered papers it reverts to its old look.
Quotes
Cubert: [using the device that makes anyone sound like Farnsworth.] Good news, everyone! I'm a horse's butt!
Prof. Farnsworth: I am? That's not good news at all, you little–
Cubert: Plus, they're making bootleg beer inside company property!
Bender: Lies! Lies and slander! [Belches; foam spews from his mouth.]
Prof. Farnsworth: Accusing gentle Bender of a misdeed? That's the last straw!
Zoidberg: What's going on? Is this angry yelling or busted hearing aid yelling?
Hermes: I'm afraid it's both.
Prof. Farnsworth: [Shouting.] What?
Bender: We're making beer. I'm the brewery.
Dwight: I heard alcohol makes you stupid.
Fry: No, I'm...doesn't.
Cubert: Hey, Leela, help me apply these flame decals I got in my cereal; they'll make the ship go faster.
Leela: And what's your scientific basis for thinking that?
Cubert: I'm twelve.
Prof. Farnsworth: Folks, the situation is grim, but we shall prevail, thanks to you, our crack team of loyal dregs!
[Scruffy sits with his feet on the table, Amy puts make up on and Zoidberg sits listening intently. Hermes points at Scruffy.]
Hermes: I don't even know who this guy is!
Scruffy: I'm Scruffy, the janitor.
Prof. Farnsworth: Yes, of course you are. Now we've got to buckle down and save Planet Express.
Scruffy: I'm on break.
Hermes: Sweet guinea pig of Winnipeg! They've taken over our company!
Prof. Farnsworth: Balderdash! I never agreed to that!
Dwight: No. But you did declare yourself dead three years ago as a tax dodge.
Prof. Farnsworth: Tax dodge, nothing! You take one nap in a ditch at the park and they start declaring you this and that.
Characters
- Amy
- Bender
- Debut: Brett Blob
- Calculon
- Cubert
- Debut: Dwight
- Fry
- Hermes
- H. G. Blob
- LaBarbara
- Leela
- Mom (on sticker box)
- Monique
- Debut: Norm (cameo, unknown moment)
- Orphans (mentioned in speech only)
- Debut: The Little Prince
- Professor Farnsworth
- Sal
- Debut: Sam Adams' head (cameo, unknown moment)
- Scruffy
- Zapp (on lunchbox)
- Zoidberg
Episode Credits
- Writer
- Director
- Voice Actors
- DVD Commentary
References
- ^ Commentary for "The Route of All Evil" on Volume 3, disc 2.