Future Stock

"Future Stock" is the fifty-third episode of Futurama, the twenty-first of the third production season and the ninth of the fourth broadcast season. It aired 31 march, 2002 on FOX. Planet Express is taken over by "that guy", who improves the company's image, but he decides to sell the company to Mom's Friendly Delivery Company instead.

Act I: Awesome! Awesome to the max!
Planet Express' stockholder meeting is taking place at the Lodgatorium Comfort Dome Inn, and Fry and Zoidberg get hungry and visit the Bot-Mizwah next door to get some free food. Zoidberg must stay out (no shellfish). Hermes tells the stockholders of Planet Express that the company is on the verge of bancrupcy, while Fry and Zoidberg move on to a Cryogenic Support Group which also offers free food. There Fry meets That Guy, a 1980's stockbroker who had himself frozen until a cure to his terminal disease, boneitis, could be found. Feeling compassion for a fellow person from the 20th century, Fry invites him to work for Planet Express, and they return to the stockholder meeting where Hattie McDoogal is demanding to nominate a new CEO because the Professor has insulted her cat. Leela, Bender, Amy, Hermes and the Professor (10,000 shares each) vote for Farnsworth, while Fry (10,000 shares) and Scruffy (40,000 shares) vote for That Guy. Now Hattie (1 share) demands the floor and votes for That Guy, making him the new CEO of Planet Express.

Act II: Miss Johnson, have I changed? - No Sir, Mr. Fry!
That Guy is turning Planet Express upside down and blaming everything on the old management, that is, the Professor. He makes Fry his vice-chairman and intends to bring Planet Express right to the top of the delivery business, which means that they have to attack Mom's Friendly Delivery Company. Of course, Mom is not amused to learn this. That Guy follows his secret of success, which is that everything is about appearances, and gives Planet Express a completely new look and a completely new image. Zoidberg is not happy about the company's development, and sells all his shares to That Guy for a sandwich. Mom is getting agitated about the new "Delivery Kings" that business magazines write about so much (even if PlanEx hasn't made even one single delivery since the takeover), and has a private meeting with That Guy after they have a talk at Elzar's Fine Cuisine. As the crew is voicing their concerns about the way That Guy is handling business, and Fry is defending him, That Guy tells them they are all fired and that Mom is going to take over Planet Express.

Act III: My only regret is... that I have... boneitis.
Fry insists that he is innocent of the selling of the company, but no one listens to him. He decides to block the takeover, and goes to the Intergalactic Stock Exchange in Earths orbit where the takeover is to take place in the Business Centre. All of PlanEx's stockholders are there, plus Mom, her three sons and That Guy. Both companies have to agree to the takeover, and even though all of the Planet Express crew vote against it, it turns out that the shares Zoidberg sold to That Guy gave him majority control. The takeover is approved, and MomCorp now wants to buy all the shares it doesn't own at the price of 107 $ per share, which makes every remaining stockholder a millionaire. Fry asks That Guy if he will not stop the takeover, but he refuses because he's an 80's guy. Just then, every bone in That Guy's body starts to snap in half, as it turns out that he was being so busy being an 80's guy that he forget to get a cure for his bone-itis, and his body rapidly contorts itself through several bone-breaking poses before he dies. After his death, Fry now has control of his shares and makes a speech about how what really counts is friendship, which is more important than money - and as he makes the speech the value of the shares gradually crashes down until it reaches $0.02 per share. The crew tries to stop him doing the right thing, but it is too late - the shares of Planet Express are, once again, worthless and Fry rejects the takeover, as they have nothing left to gain from it. The crew grudgingly goes back to work.

Trivia

 * That Guy had a Miami Vice lunchbox.
 * At the Bot-Mitzvah, the banner reads "היום אתה רובוט" (hayom attah robot) with two misspellings, which translates to "today, you are a robot".
 * That Guy and Fry get their new suits at Giorgio Amonster.
 * Jackie Anderson and the Pawnbroker are at the ape fight.
 * The man from the 80's is listed in the script as "Steve Castle", but is only ever referred to in dialog as "that guy".
 * Had the sale of Planet Express gone ahead as planned, That Guy would have made around $11.16m, Scruffy would have made $4.28m, Fry, Leela, Bender, Hermes, Amy and the Professor would each earn $1.07m, Hattie would get $107, and Zoidberg would be left with the rotting sandwich he swapped his shares for.

Quotes

 * Scruffy: Now hold on there. Scruffy votes his forty thousand shares for the mysterious stranger. Leela: Forty thousand? How come you have four times as much stock as the rest of us? Scruffy: Scruffy believes in this company. *sniffles*
 * Leela: Oh my god! I'm a millionare! Suddenly I have an opinion on the capital gains tax!
 * That Guy: There are two kinds of people. Sheep and sharks. Anyone who is a sheep is fired. Who is a sheep? Zoidberg: Errr, excuse me... which is the one people like to hug? That Guy: Gutsy question, you're a shark.
 * Hermes: We can't compete with Mom! Her company is big and evil! Ours is small and neutral! That Guy: Switzerland is small and neutral! We are more like Germany, ambitious and misunderstood! Amy: Look, everyone wants to be like Germany, but do we really have the pure strength of will?
 * Professor: I'll ruin you like I ruined this company!
 * That Guy: (checking his new business suit) That's what I call a hostile makeover!
 * Professor: This isn't a business! I've always thought of it as a source of cheap labour, like a family.
 * Leela: Zoidberg owned 51% of the company? Hermes: The shares were worthless, and he kept asking for toilet paper!

Allusions

 * The PlanEx logo in the commercial looks a lot like the FedEx logo.
 * The PlanEx commercial is a parody of that of Apple Computers in 1984. And the fact that the crew hates the commercial is a reference to Apple Computers' own opinion of the commercial which only aired once; during the Super Bowl.
 * During the voting for the future of Planet Express--with the option of two buttons, one in favour, the other opposed--Mom's son Igner is confused and inexplicably registers a vote for "Pat Buchanan", in reference to the infamous Florida voting controversy of the 2000 U.S. Presidential election. With everyone staring angrily at Igner, he says in his defence "the ballot was confusing," thus making fun of the Election even more.
 * In the scene where "That Guy" and Fry are watching an ape fight, Calculon is struck by an oversize tricycle hurled from the ring. His angry "Get your stinkin' trike off me, you damn dirty ape!" is an obvious parody of George Taylor's line "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" from the 1968 film Planet of the Apes.
 * The stock exchange space station shows stock abbreviations including RUN and DMC (in reference to hip-hop group Run-D.M.C.), KIRK, GORN, and Q (Star Trek references), and FOX (20th Century Fox, the producer of Futurama), the last showing a loss of 61 points. OSX and WIN also appears (references to Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows respectively, interestingly, OSX have gone up, while WIN have gone down).
 * The station's appearance, as well as a waltz playing on the soundtrack, is a reference to a similar scene in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The exchange's giant-image holographic public-address system ("I am Jor-El, Master of Scheduling!") is a reference to a scene in the 1978 Superman film, featuring a character named Jor-El and a tribunal of larger-than-life projected faces.
 * "That Guy" had a Miami Vice lunchbox.
 * A stock broker robot orders to "Sell one hundred soylent beans!", referring to the movie Soylent Green.
 * That Guy says that this company (Planet Express) is gonna get up and stay up like Cyndi Lauper which is a reference to Lauper's great popularity in the 80's, That Guy's time span, and decline after the 90's.
 * When That Guy is about to sell Planet Express he says "It's Hammertime" a catchphrase inspired by another popular 80's musician, MC Hammer.
 * Amy asks "Look, everyone wants to be like Germany, but do we really have the pure strength of will?", a reference to the 1934 Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will.
 * The shop where Fry and That Guy buy their tuxeedos is called Giorgio Armonster, a reference to fine clothes and perfume shop Giorgio Armani.
 * Scruffy reads the National Pornographic which looks a lot like a National Geographic publication.
 * The businessman from the 1980s is loosely based on the character of Gordon Gekko from the movie Wall Street. In turn, Gekko was modelled after real world corporate raider Ivan Boesky. That Guy's real name in the scripts was Steve Castle.
 * That Guy's plan to boost PlanEx's "image" in order to sell the worthless company that does nothing's stocks off at exorbitant prices is a direct satire of the Enron scandal.

Goofs

 * The banner written in Hebrew at the Bot-Mitzvah is spelled incorrectly. It reads "היומ אתה רובות", when it should be "היום אתה רובוט" (hayom attah robot, "today you are a robot").

Characters

 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Calculon
 * Fry
 * Hattie
 * Hermes
 * Horrible Gelatinous Blob
 * Debut: Joe
 * Leela
 * Mom
 * Pig
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Scruffy
 * Debut: That Guy
 * Thog
 * Walt, Larry and Igner
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Aaron Ehasz
 * Director
 * Brian Sheesley
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * David Herman
 * Frank Welker
 * Tom Kenny
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Jeff Westbrook
 * Brian Sheesley
 * John DiMaggio
 * Billy West
 * Tress MacNeille