Commentary:Bend Her

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Commentary for
Bend Her
Production number	4ACV13
On DVD	Season 4 Disc 3
Additional
Transcript
Participants
Matt Groening Creator David X. Cohen Executive Producer Rich Moore Supervising Director Michael Rowe Writer James Purdum Director John DiMaggio Actor (Bender, miscellaneous) Billy West Actor (Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Zoidberg, miscellaneous) Maurice LaMarche Actor (Calculon, miscellaneous)

Topics of Discussion

• Michael Rowe was not a big sci-fi fan, so it was hard for him to write an episode of Futurama.
• Rowe tells the story of how the story for this episode came about; he was pitching stories to David X. Cohen and Ken Keeler, but they were unexcited. The last story he pitched to them simply said "Bender gets a sex change operation."
  • Cohen joked that they perked up at this suggestion because they heard the word 'sex'.
  • The writers had also wanted to do an episode involving the Olympics, so it was very convenient how everything came together.
• The writers wanted to do an episode centered on Barbados Slim, but they couldn't think of one.
• They had to make some changes to the episode due to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
  • Specifically, Bender had originally claimed he was from Afghanistan when trying to enter the Olympics. This scene was a deleted scene on the DVD.
• Rowe was originally going to be credited as "Mike Rowe", but his wife convinced him otherwise.
• Rowe has kids, who he hopes will become Futurama fans when they're older.