The Bots and the Bees

"The Bots and the Bees" is the one hundred and fifteenth episode of Futurama and the first of the seventh production season and the ninth broadcast season. It is scheduled to air on 20 June 2012 on Comedy Central. Planet Express gets a new soda machine and Bender impregnates it.

Plot
Bender's son Ben is born - however, due to his mother not having arms, he lacks his father's talent in bending. After drinking too much Slurm Loco, Fry starts glowing. The Planet Express crew rush to register Ben at Bending State University, but extremely thick fog gets in their way.

Production
On 20 December 2011, Volume 6 was released and, with it, a part of the animatic for the "The Bots and the Bees" was also released, hinting that "The Bots and the Bees" was 7ACV01. In 2012, a few revelations concerning the episode were made. On 25 January, Eric Rogers revealed that the episode would air in June. On the next day, he revealed that the production team had just seen the first full-color animation for the episode, calling it, "Un. Be. Lievable." On the day after that, Aimee Steinberger revealed that the full-color animation had been screened on the Fox lot, that it received "lots of yays", that she could not go due to her work on "7ACV14", that she watched it nonetheless and that she found it "lovely". On 18 February, Eric Rogers revealed that the episode "Probably" was titled "The Bots and the Bees". On 29 February, CGEF confirmed that it was and revealed its writer to be Eric Horsted and its director to be Stephen Sandoval. On 25 April, revealed the episode's air date. On 3 May, Aimee Steinberger revealed that the episode was one of those which she had worked on.

In May, Countdown to Futurama began releasing promotional material for the episode. It has so far released ten items: A version of the part of the animatic for the episode released with Volume 6 in color, but smaller and with different music, on 1 May, two character designs for the new character Bev on 2 May, a character design for an alien pet on 3 May, two promotional pictures on 4 May, two more character designs, the first for an aging Ben and the second for both Bender and Ben, on 5 May, part of the storyboard showing the portion of the part of the animatic for the episode released with Volume 6 where Bender helps Ben rob the Bank of NNY on 6 May and part of the storyboard showing Fry and Bender cheer up Ben on 7 May.

Comedy Central's website released two other promotional pictures, the first showing Bender and Ben in a scene from the animatic and the second showing Bev, Bender and Ben in the Planet Express employee lounge.

South Coast Today published an article about the Futurama season premiere on 16 June, revealing certain details about the episode.  released another preview clip of the episode on 18 June.

Reception
In 2012, the episode was praised twice. On 30 January, Eric Rogers revealed that his favourite episode from the ninth broadcast season was either this one, "A Farewell to Arms" or "31st Century Fox". On 3 May, Aimee Steinberger said that Wanda Sykes - who Countdown to Futurama, on the previous day, revealed would voice Bev - "[had done] a great job on Bev's voice". Talking about the casting of Sykes, David X. Cohen stated: "We needed somebody who had kind of a, uh, forceful personality, who is very funny but also kind of forceful to stand up to Bender in their love scenes." Brittany Frederick of Starpulse gave the episode a positive review, writing: "This may be one of Futurama's best episodes, because it's another episode that is as moving as it is funny. The show has the ability to be both hilarious and genuinely affecting, such as in the tear-jerking story of Seymour, Fry's dog, in "Jurassic Bark". Likewise, your eyes won't be dry at the end of 'The Bots and the Bees.' If you don't get choked up by what happens to Ben, you should check yourself for a pulse."

Trivia

 * BoozMart, the market which Bender and Ben rob, was originally called "Liquors" - according to the animatic. Its final name was first seen in the video released by Countdown to Futurama.

Allusions

 * The episode's title is a reference to the phrase "".
 * Slurm Loco may be a parody on the real drink.

Characters

 * Debut: Alien pet
 * Debut: Ben
 * Bender
 * Bender's mother (mentioned only)
 * Debut: Bev
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Fry
 * Debut: Giant space spider
 * Leela
 * Queen of Yonkers
 * Randy Munchnik
 * Ruth and Esther
 * Sal
 * Zoidberg