The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings

Production Number: 4ACV18

Title Caption: SEE YOU ON SOME OTHER CHANNEL

First Aired: August 10, 2003 Title reference: The proverb "Idle hands are the Devil's playthings".

Trivia

 * On the spinning wheel that the Robot Devil uses to select what robot hands Fry shall switch his hands for. The names that it runs through are actual names of robots that have been on previous episodes (and/or this episode).
 * The grumpy snail is in every holophonor piece Fry plays, apart from the opera. It is also featured on the advert for Fry's record.
 * During the advertisement for Fry’s record he switches between having normal and robot hands.
 * The final line in the episode took a while to record due to Katey Sagal's involvement with 8 Simple Rules.
 * Dan Castellaneta returns as Robot Devil and also plays the slug advertising for Fry's album.
 * When the show went on hiatus in April 2002, the Futurama crew made this episode to work as both a season and a series finale, as it was a 50/50 chance that they would get renewed.
 * Fry, Leela, Bender, Professor Farnsworth and Richard Nixon are the only characters to appear in both this episode and Space Pilot 3000.
 * Writer Ken Keeler was nominated for an Emmy in 2004 (for Outstanding Music and Lyrics) for this episode (specifically, for the song "I Want My Hands Back").
 * Preacherbot mentions the power vested in him "by the state of New New York." Up until this point, it had never been mentioned if the state's name had changed along with that of the city's, although it was marked as such in Bendin' in the Wind.

Quotes

 * Fry: No I'm... doesn't.

Inside References
This episode takes up the storyline of Parasites Lost.

Outside References

 * Two people in the holophoner image jump over barrels as they walk upstairs, which is similar to the gameplay in Donkey Kong. This links the first episode (Space Pilot 3000) and what was at the time of production the final episode of the series in that they both have a Donkey Kong reference.
 * The idea of someone selling something to the devil for an artistic talent is similar to The Devil and Daniel Webster.
 * The name of the opera hall where Fry's opera debuts is MHOp (Metropolitan House of Opera), a reference to both IHOP (International House of Pancakes) restaurants and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City

Characters

 * Fry
 * Leela
 * Bender
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Hermes
 * Zoidberg
 * Amy
 * Robot Devil
 * Calculon
 * Morbo
 * Linda
 * Preacherbot
 * Hedonism Bot
 * Debut: Holophonor Teacher

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Ken Keeler
 * Director
 * Rich Moore
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore


 * Special Guest
 * Dan Castellaneta