Hell Is Other Robots

"Hell Is Other Robots" is the ninth episode of Futurama and of the first season. It aired on 18 May, 1999 on FOX. It guest starred Mike "Michael D" Diamond and Adam "King Ad-Rock" Horovitz from the Beastie Boys as themselves in jars, as well as Dan Castellaneta as the Robot Devil. In this episode, Bender becomes obsessed with electricity, but after discontent from his friends, Bender joins Robotology, but his new extremes are also by far a discontent to his friends, who decides to make him sin, for which he ends up in Robot Hell and has to be rescued.

Act I: I've been waiting a thousand years to see a Beastie Boys show!
Fry, Leela and Bender go to a Beastie Boys concert at Madison Cube Garden. Bender runs into Fender, an old friend who is now working for the band. After Fender gets Bender and company back-stage, he takes Bender to a party where robots are abusing electricity, or Jacking On. After Bender's addiction leads him to wreck the Planet Express Ship by steering it into an electrical storm in space, nearly killing everyone, they confront him about his problem. After a night of turmoil, he winds up in a Temple of Robotology.



Act II: And as a further cost-cutting measure, I have eliminated the salt water cooler
Bender comes to work whistling a happy tune, and tells his friends about his new-found religion. Everyone is shocked, and suspicious, but gradually they reach the horrific realization that Bender is being sincere. When his new personality starts driving them crazy, Fry and Leela take him the Power Strip in Atlantic City and tempt him with liquor and cheap Hookerbots. While he seduces a group of fembots in a Jacuzzi at the Trump Trapezoid Hotel, the Robot Devil arrives and takes him to Robot Hell.

Act III: What in Hell happened to Bender?
Fry and Leela find Bender missing. Nibbler finds and then follows his trail. It leads to an abandoned amusement park called Reckless Ted's Funland in New Jersey, where a fun house mirror is a doorway into an "actual, factual Robot Hell." Meanwhile, the Robot Devil takes Bender on a musical tour of the different levels of hell. When Fry and Leela find them, they take advantage of the Fairness in Hell Act of 2275 and challenge the Robot Devil to a fiddle contest. Leela bashes him over the head with the golden fiddle and they escape with Bender.

Trivia

 * Atlantic City still has old-fashioned mailboxes.
 * Hookerbot 5000 has a quarter slot.
 * Fender and Jack-In-The-Box are both still in business in 3000.
 * Among the "Beastie Boys" audience members are a blue, humanoid rhinoceros, a man wearing an oxygen mask (or whatever other gas he needs to breathe) and a green, three-eyed alien.
 * During the musical scene, Bender is strapped to a roulette wheel with different methods of cooking on it, intended to simulate the smell of cigars. Various spaces on the wheel say Parboil, Fricassee, Sauté, Pleasant Massage, Deep-Fry, Bake.
 * Preacherbot's cleric bears a strong resemblance to Humorbot 5.0, who appears a couple seasons later.
 * Some viewers claim that the scene in which Bender shreds the wine list and hands it to the waiter was different in the commercials.
 * You can actually see a crate with the label "Replacement Robot Legs" beside the meeting table after Bender was unstuck from the ship.
 * The "Good Book" (ver. 3.0) is on an Iomega Zip Disk. In the present, Zip Disks are obsolete.
 * The rear airlock of the Planet Express Ship has an outer 'suicide door'.
 * The jokes poking fun at New Jersey in the episode are due to the fact that David X. Cohen and John DiMaggio both grew up there.
 * According to the song there are at least 6 levels of hell (though they aren't visited in order), because after the 5th level, they took the elevator down once more. The song was written to include all levels, but was cut down for time, thus skipping several levels. This is likely a reference to the 9 circles of hell in the Divine Comedy.
 * Dan Castellanetta has his own head in a jar in this episode.
 * This episode is one of four featured in the Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection, reflecting its popularity with both fans and the creators of Futurama.

Goofs

 * When we first see the stage, there are three lights at the top: two to the left, one to the right. But after Fry says "these guys rock harder than ever", we see them again and there is one to the left and two to the right. Then the camera angle changes, and again we see two to the left and one to the right.
 * Ad-Rock's 5-o'clock shadow disappears in his close-up.
 * The clock outside Sparky's Den says it's 8:30 (and doesn't have a millennium count) when Bender says "I'll just be a minute"; four seconds later, it says it's 8:00 (and does have a millennium count). Fry also waits till 11:20.
 * When Bender goes back to Sparky's Den that night, the clock says it's 7:25, and doesn't have a millennium count.
 * From the back of the Robotology church, we see a door leading in to where the altar should be, but there is no door behind the altar.
 * There actually is no "Do Not Disturb" sign outside Bender's apartment (image) . Either he's too drunk to realize this or someone outside swiped it off.
 * Right after Bender hugs Fry, Amy doesn't have a hat. Earlier, she did, and she does again when they all cower (after Bender finishes his speech).
 * Hermes is sitting next to Leela and Zoidberg at Elzar's fine cuisine, but when they all cower, he's sitting next to Amy and Fry.
 * When we first see Bender at the Trump Trapezoid, the robot at his right has a towel hanging below her right arm; it disappears while the devil knocks the door. Also between these two shots, a beer can appears on the floor.
 * When the devil knocks the door, there's a little refrigerator next to the door, with his door completely opened; when Bender goes to open the door of the room, the door of the refrigerator is a lot less opened, and its contents are slightly different; and they change again when the trident hits Bender.
 * The Robot Devils wallet pocket is only seen once (when Bender steals from it) even when his backside is shown in before and after scenes.
 * The robot preacher has to weld the Robotology symbol onto Bender's chest, but Bender later peels it off with no effort. This may be due to Bender's 'bending' skills.
 * When Bender is putting the fish in the ship, he's on the fourth rung of the stair when Leela, Fry and Farnsworth approach him; but after a close-up of Leela, he's on the third.
 * When the black-dressed guys take the heads and they start singing, we see two small speakers on the stage's floor that don't appear when the heads are getting carried to or out the stage.
 * During the musical number, the Robot Devil pulls Bender's arm off and promptly kicks him down a hole. However when Bender lands his arm is still attached.
 * Despite the battering it takes in the nebula, the ship is back in perfect shape in time for the trip to Atlantic City.
 * Where did the diamond, cock and "indecent magazine" go? We see the elevator's floor when Bender is tossed out of it, and there's nothing there.
 * The piece of land on which Leela and the Robot Devil perform their fiddle contest changes from a small platform to a huge valley.
 * Hermes' electric bill graphic isn't exactly the same when we first see it and when he points to Zoidberg.
 * The box with robot legs and arms is no longer there when Benders exits after saying "I'm a lost cause."
 * Bender shows traits of which are uncharacteristic of a robot:
 * He is ticklish.
 * He crouches in the corner of the ship's cockpit biting his 'nails'.
 * He also seems to have a 'scent' which Nibbler tracks.
 * This 'scent' could be the alcohol and cigars that Bender uses. This would have been extinguished when he joined the Temple of Robotology, though probably gained back when he went to Atlantic City and the Trump Trapezoid.
 * When Bender was rolled into a cigar, the animators didn't account for his body (image) . The width of Bender's body versus his head is larger. But when in the cigar paper, his body (in the paper) was the same width as his head. This is mentioned in the second commentary.
 * Bender gets a symbol welded on to his body. When he welds something on to the spaceship, the symbol disappears, but reappears in the next scene.
 * When the Planet Express crew are talking to Bender about almost killing Fry and Leela, Fry isn't there in the room. A few seconds later, Fry has suddenly appeared to talk about how he found out his friend was taking drugs.
 * When Fry, Bender and Leela are "assigned" to deliver a piece of wrapper to a mailbox, Leela takes Nibbler with her. A few seconds later, when Fry, Bender and Leela are in front of the robot strip joint, Nibbler is gone. Not even his leash is there.
 * When Fry is outside waiting for Bender, the clock changes from 8.30 to 8.00. The "Millennium" ticker is not there at first, and then suddenly appears. Millennium is spelt wrong, with just one "n".
 * When Bender quit drinking in he developed a five o'clock rust, but here it has little effect on him. Though in "I, Roommate", Bender stopped drinking altogether, but in this episode, he had simply switched to mineral oil. Thus his alcohol level was maintained, just not in a 'sinful' way.
 * The Robot Devil says Bender has a soul, but in, we learn robots have no souls.
 * When Leela and Fry are in Trump Trapezoid, the controls have swapped sides and there is one less button (image).
 * In it is revealed that robots must keep their alcohol above a certain level, as they get arrested for not drinking enough. But here, Bender states he is quitting drinking. Isn't he worried he will malfunction and get arrested?
 * After Fry and Leela slide down the slide there is one frame where Fry's eyes aren't colored in.
 * For some reason, after Bender is deep-fried, he actually moves from Level 2 to Level 5, even though he had progressed from Level 1 to Level 2 initially.
 * Nibbler was left in Robot Hell when Fry, Bender and Leela escape. They don't go back for him either.
 * Near the end of the song, and while describing various tortures, the Robot Devil mentions electric slime. This really wouldn't work as a torture seeing as how Bender enjoys electricity.

Real-World References

 * Above the alter in Bender's baptism ceremony there is a sign that reads: '10 SIN, 20 GOTO HELL' (image) . This is very similar to the syntax used in the programming language BASIC, where you put a line number on the left and a statement on the right. In other words, it's a very basic script that says if you sin you go to hell. SIN is often used to indicate the Sine function in trigonometry.
 * Bender screaming at the universe is like a scene from Star Trek Generations.
 * The hornets that shoot rings of lasers at the escaping Bender, Fry, and Leela are very similar to the robotic hornets located in the Asteroid Belt of Star Fox 64.
 * The "Hallelujah" chorus is played during the crew's escape from Robot Hell.
 * The Robotology preacher is modelled after the reverend Jesse Jackson.
 * Hookerbot 5000 is a reference to Late Night with Conan O'Brien's Pimpbot5000. Pimpbot5000 is described as "combining the classic styling of a 1950's robot with the dynamic flair of a 1970's street pimp".
 * Robot Hell looks a lot like Phyrexia from the popular fantasy card game Magic: The Gathering. Phyrexia is a hellish plane of existence filled with mechanical and undead creations and run by demons that often are partly mechanical themselves.  Phyrexia, like Robot Hell, is ruled by a powerful mechanical demon and its denizens torture mechanical constructs.
 * The Robot Hell is somehow reminiscent of the robot holding area in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope when C-3PO and R2-D2 are captured by the Jawas and see several Droids/Robots being tortured.
 * The Divine Comedy is referenced when victims are sent to varying levels/degrees of hell.
 * When the crew travel to Sicily 8, the mob planet, and Fry receives the kiss of death. This is a reference to The Godfather
 * The golden fiddle contest is a reference to the country song "The Devil Went Down To Georgia." In it, the song's subject must beat the devil in a golden fiddle contest, or lose his soul.
 * The punishments in Robot Hell are similar to the levels and rationale which are portrayed in Dante's The Divine Comedy, specifically the Inferno.
 * The style of the song and the visuals accompanying it reflect the old Betty Boop cartoons that featured swing numbers by Cab Calloway, with demonic imagery flying behind him.
 * When Fry and Leela open the door to Robot Hell, in the bottom right side of the screen there is a heart with an arrow through etched on the wall, reading "H.S 4 M.B", meaning Homer Simpson 4 Marge Bouvier, from "The Simpsons" (image).
 * The part where Bender is forced to sit in the Comfy Chair and take pleasant massages is a play off the Spanish Inquisition skit from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
 * Professor Farnsworth refers to Oprahism as a current mainstream religion. This is a clear allusion to Oprah Winfrey, the TV superstar and richest woman in the world.
 * In Atlantic City, Bender stays in a hotel called Trump Trapezoid (image) . This is an allusion to the Trump Organization and its famous hotels.
 * Fry's line "Tonight, we're gonna party like its 1999" is from the Prince song 1999.
 * When Fry talks about seeing an "actual, factual" Hell. In the Berenstain Bears books and series there is an Actual Factual Bear who dispenses educational titbits
 * In an homage to Red Dwarf the robots (or mechanoids) are programmed to believe in silicon heaven because if it didn't exist "where would all the little calculators go?"

Quotes

 * Bender: Oh, they're tormenting me with up-tempo singing and dancing!
 * Robot Devil: Sorry, but I hold all the cards here. There's nothing you can do. Now if you'll just sign this fiddle contest waiver...
 * Bender: Well, we're boned!
 * Bender: From now on, I'll just be me. Leela: Umm, do you think you could be a little less evil than that? Bender: I don't know. Do you think you could survive a seven hundred foot fall? Fry: He he, good ol' Bender.

Characters
(In alphabetical order)
 * Amy
 * Debut: Beastie Boys' Heads
 * Bender
 * Dr. Zoidberg
 * Debut: Fender
 * Fry
 * Hermes
 * Debut: Hookerbot 5000
 * Leela
 * Nibbler
 * Debut: Preacherbot
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Debut: Robot Devil
 * Debut: Robot Demons
 * Scruffy

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Eric Kaplan
 * Director
 * Rich Moore
 * Voice Actors
 * Dan Castellaneta
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * Special Guest
 * Mike "Michael D" Diamond
 * Adam "King Ad-Rock" Horovitz