Godfellas

Production Number: 3ACV20

Title Caption: PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES AND TRICORDERS

First Aired: March 17, 2002 Title Reference: The mafia movies Goodfellas and The Godfather

Act I: You know, pirates, but in space!
Just after the start to a new delivery, the Planet Express Ship is attacked by Space Pirates. Bender is trying to get some much-needed sleep and is disturbed by the impacting cannonballs, so he searches some peace and quiet in #3 torpedo tube. Unfortunately, Leela fires just this tube to get rid of the pirates, and Bender is hurled into deep space, puncturing and destroying the last remaining pirate ship in the process. Leela tries to catch up with him, but the ship is too slow and they have to give up the chase. Meanwhile, Bender tries to find a way to spend his time in his new role, and drifts through an asteroid field where he aquires a little asteroid inhabited by the Shrimpkins, a race of tiny humanoids, that recognize him as their god.

Act II: Those peewees think I'm God, huh? Hard to blame them.
Bender surveys his new worshippers, a people of humble farmers for the most part, and chooses one of the Shrimpkins, a certain Malachi, to be his prophet. He lays down his commandments, or rather his commandment: GOD NEEDS BOOZE. Meanwhile, the Planet Express crew has returned to New New York and stages a search for Bender by means of the Smell-O-Scope. Unfortunately, Bender's odour is not strong enough to picked up over this distance, especially since local sources overshadow it. In the mean time, the Shrimpkins have constructed a destillery to obey their god's wish, but have encountered several problems because of it: many were maimed in the building of the brewery, the fumes from the destillery processes has accounted for many deaths, and the liquor industry attracted organized crime. Bender is moved by his worshippers plight and sheds a tear, which causes a giant tidal wave. Malachi Jr. is engulfed in it, and Bender saves him - but now everyone is praying for their own miracles, and Bender causes more and more problems as he is trying to fulfill their wishes: a village is crushed by a quarter (they wanted riches), a field is burned down by intense sunlight (the farmers prayed for sun), and in an attempt to extinguish the field by blowing on it, shrimpkins are swept into space. On Earth, Fry is desperately looking for a way to find Bender in deep space, and he finally manages to find the Monks of the Shubah who search for God in the depths of space by means of a giant radio telescope in the Himalaya. In deep space, the Shrimpkin society is growing, and infidels are rising up because from their position on Bender's back he cannot hear their prayers. Malachi begs Bender to do something about the infidels, as they plan war against the faithful, but Bender refuses as everytime he interferes he only makes things worse. Fry and Leela mount an expedition to the monastery of the Shubah monks, while on Bender's body things seem to go well with him not interfering in the dealings of the Shrimpkins, until the unbelievers and the faithful exterminate each other in a holy nuclear war, powered by the fissionable elements from Bender's nuclear pile.

Act III: Who would have known playing God could have such terrible consequences?
The Shrimpkins and their world are destroyed, and Bender laments their extinction. As he drifts through space weeping, he notices a galaxy signaling in binary code, and he signals back. The Galaxy picks up contact with him, and it turns out that it is some kind of huge galactic computer, it may possibly even be God. Meanwhile, Fry and Leela are on their way and reach the monastery. They try to persuade the monks to let them use the telescope, which also acts as a strong transmitter, to search for Bender. The monks refuse, but as they are at a strict non-violence policy, Leela locks them up and they use the telescope anyway. Bender and Galaxy have a deep exchange about being God, and the Galaxy teaches Bender that being God is not easy at all, as he could plainly see during his time with the Shrimpkins. If you do too much, people depend on you, and if you do nothing, they lose hope. The right approach is a light touch, so that people won't even know you have done anything at all. Bender asks to be sent back to Earth, but the God cannot do this as he does not know where it is, and neither does Bender. Fry and Leela searched the skies for three days and found nothing, and Fry decides to give up. In his last futile turn of the telescope, it locks into a position so God can pick up its signals, and he accellerates Bender so he lands near the source of the signal - right before Fry and Leela's feet as they tramp back from the monastery. Just then, they realize that they left the monks locked in, and Fry wonders if they have to let them out, after all, their god might do it for them. Bender tells them that you can't rely on God to manage everything, that God himself told him that, and that they will have to do it themselves if they want it done.

Trivia

 * An early draft of this episode featured a story that had Bender land on Omicron Persei 8 and solve Lrrr and Ndnd's marriage problems. This story was later used in the fourth season episode Spanish Fry.
 * Coolio, who guest starred in the early third season episode A Tale of Two Santas, appears on the 30th century quarter. This was seen as a tribute to Coolio for being a great guest star.
 * Billy West states on the audio commentary that the voice of "God" was based off the opening announcer from The Outer Limits.
 * God was voiced by Maurice LaMarche.
 * Malachi is reading The Bible, by BENDER with Malachi.
 * The Shrimpkin porno theatre is named Ezekiel's Nasty House.

Quotes

 * Fry: You mean we can never catch up with him? Not even if we rub the engine with cheetah blood?!
 * Leela: Fry! If I drop dead from exhaustion, make sure my body freezes in a dignified position! None of that "huddled over for warmth" crap.
 * God: You were doing well until everybody died.
 * Leela: This is by a wide margin the least likely thing that has ever happened!
 * Fry: You can't give up hope just because it's hopeless!
 * God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
 * Bender: Are you kidding? You can't count on God for jack. He practically told me so himself.
 * Bender: If even a pea-sized pebble were to whiz through my skull it could (rock goes through his head) Ow! Hurt slightly...
 * God: Possible. I am user-friendly, my good chum.
 * Monk: You see, the telescope is also a powerful transmitter. Leela: Sort of like a giant karaoke machine? Monk: Not really. Do you want to see our giant karaoke machine? Leela: Not really.
 * Leela: Your order may be famous for its martial arts, but I have never met a holy man I couldn't clobber.

Outside References

 * Bender floating in space to Strauss' Also sprach Zarathustra and to An der schönen blauen Donau is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The theme to the movie is also used in this episode.
 * Much of the plot is similar to Theodore Sturgeon's 1940 short story The Microcosmic God.
 * The symbols that Bender carves into himself are similar to those on The Pioneer Plaque, except with Bender shown threatening the Human figures.
 * The beer brewed by the Shrimpkins for their god Bender is Lordweiser, a reference to Budweiser and to the Metal Lord, a.k.a. Bender.

Characters

 * Fry
 * Leela
 * Bender
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Amy
 * Robot Gypsy
 * Lrrr (voice only)
 * Debut: God
 * Debut: Space Pirate
 * Debut: Helper
 * Debut: Malachi
 * Debut: Mrs. Malachi
 * Debut: Malachi Jr.
 * Debut: Monks of the Shubah

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Ken Keeler
 * Director
 * Susan Dietter
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * David Herman
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Ken Keeler
 * Susan Dietter
 * John DiMaggio
 * Billy West