Fry and the Slurm Factory

"Fry and the Slurm Factory" is the thirteenth episode of Futurama and the last episode of the first production season, and the fourth episode of the second broadcast season. It aired 14 November, 1999 on FOX. It guest stars Pamela Anderson as Dixie. Fry is obsessed with Slurm, and when a competition comes out for him to see the Slurm Factory, he cannot resist. However, at the Slurm Factory, the Planet Express crew discovers the horrible truth about Slurm.

Act I: "Whimmy wham wham wozzle... let's party!"
Fry, drinking a lot of cans of Slurm, and Bender are watching All My Circuits, when a commercial for Slurm comes on. The commercial advertises a new contest; the grand prize is a chance to party with Slurms MacKenzie at the Slurm Factory on Wormulon. Then one of Fry's teeth falls out and he discards it in a pile of his other teeth.

Act II: "I've never seen anyone so addicted to Slurm."
Fry starts guzzling Slurm like crazy looking for the winning bottle cap, hoping to win the contest, but to no avail. Bender doesn't feel so well, with a fever of 900 degrees and, after Zoidberg fails to find anything, the Professor takes the opportunity to test his new invention, the F-Ray, to see inside Bender and find the problem. After finding Amy's missing watch inside, he leaves the F-Ray with Fry and Bender "to be kept out of the wrong hands." They immediately start using it to see inside of things, including Fry's interior and the interior of a beautiful Fembot (though it's no lady). At the 711 Fry gets an idea and they start to use the ray to search for the Slurm can with the winning bottle cap. They look inside a lot of cans throughout the city. Back at Planet Express, where Leela and Farnsworth are playing 3-D Scrabble, Fry and Bender decide to give up, but then Fry almost chokes on the cap, found in a can of Slurm in the fridge and wins the contest.

Act III: "Something's rotten on planet Wormulon!"
Fry and all of his friends arrive on Wormulon, and are greeted by Glurmo, who will lead them on the tour, and Slurms MacKenzie. Glurmo takes them inside the factory to a garden with Slurm cans plants, where they encounter the Grunka Lunkas, little people mixing the ingredients and singing across the Slurm river. Everyone gets on a boat and they see a mysterious door at the middle of the tour, which leads them to begin asking questions about the secret ingredient of Slurm. Fry notices the river they are navigating in is made of Slurm so he wants to drink it, he falls in and Leela jumps in to save him; Bender jumps as well, just to fit in. Sucked down the drain, they wind up lost in an underground part of the factory with the Slurm of the river pouring into a sewer. Fry tastes Slurm from the river, only to discover it's not Slurm at all, and they begin nosing around inside a tunnel where they see two doors marked "Real Factory" and "Fake Factory", which is the factory they had come from. Fry finally sees Slurm cans in a conveyor belt and immediately drinks it, but stops when they discover the disgusting secret - Slurm is a fluid squirted out by a giant worm: the Slurm Queen! Meanwhile Zoidberg, Amy, Hermes and the Professor finish the tour at the gift shop, and Glurmo notices that the others are missing so he decides to look for them, suspecting they had found the "Real Factory".

Act IV: "That's the secret ingredient of Slurm? Ewwwwww!"
Despite knowing the secret, Fry continues drinking Slurm and Leela knocks the can out of his hand, which makes the Slurm Queen see them. They try to escape, only to run in a circle and wind up back in the room with the Slurm Queen, where Glurmo captures them. The Slurm Queen wants them destroyed so they can't tell anybody about the secret ingredient. Bender is to be made into Slurm cans, Leela is to be dipped into a vat of Royal Slurm, transforming her into a new Slurm Queen. Fry is allowed to go free after being force-fed a taste of concentrated Super-Slurm, which is so addictive he can't stop eating it, even to save his friends. Still eating, Fry doesn't know weather continue or saving his friends. He drags the vat over until he can release Leela. She saves Bender, and then dumps the Super-Slurm down a sewer grate, to Fry's horror, so much so he tries to bite his arms off to fit through the grate. They make their escape, and run into Slurms MacKenzie, who wants to escape with them, saying he is tired of partying all the time. When the Slurm Queen finds them, Slurms sacrifices himself to allow the crew to escape with the babes he had partied with for 40 years. It ends with them all drinking Slurm and partying on the ship.

Trivia

 * According to audio commentary, Glurmo's name was originally to have been "Slurmy Slonka" - furthering the references to Willy Wonka.
 * This episode is named #3 on IGN's list of Top 25 Futurama Episodes.
 * Mixing Hydrogen molecules, with Oxygen atoms to create water as the Grunka Lunkas supposedly do would cause a massive fire and blow up the tanks. Whether this was a hint to observant viewers of the upcoming plot twist, or a goof is unknown.
 * During the scene where Leela and the Professor, are playing 3D Scrabble, the Professor's current letters are F, U, U, T, A, M, and R (FUTURAMA) in that order.
 * Also the words on the other boards are One, Eye, Matt, Area, Prop, Only, Donut, One, and Emu.

Continuity

 * Fry's sperm production is healed.
 * It was damaged when Bender used the F-Ray on Fry and he exclaimed, " Ow! My sperm. " When Bender used the F-Ray in the same place it doesn't hurt Fry.
 * It was damaged when Bender used the F-Ray on Fry and he exclaimed, " Ow! My sperm. " When Bender used the F-Ray in the same place it doesn't hurt Fry.

Allusions

 * The Factory, Grunka Lunkas, and Glurmo are references to "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"
 * The Slurm Queen's plan to use Leela to market "New Slurm" is a reference to "New Coke."
 * Slurms MacKenzie's name is a reference to "Spuds McKenzie", a former Budweiser advertising mascot.
 * The episode's plot is a parody between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Soylent Green.
 * The Soylent Cola is the first of many references to the film "Soylent Green" in the show.
 * 3D Scrabble, the game played by Leela and the Professor, is a reference to Star Trek's 3D Chess.
 * The translation says "...and the elusive yak-face.". Yak face is a rare Star Wars figure of Saelt-Marae not released in the USA. Mint figures have sold for thousands of dollars. It was added because David X. Cohen owns one.
 * When the Professor uses the F-Ray on Bender, his brain is shown to be powered by a 6502 CPU (a common CPU from the 1980's used in the Apple II, Nintendo Famicom/NES, and Commodore 64 computers).

Quotes
for the lyrics of the Grunka Lunka songs.


 * Slurm Queen: Oh, and congratulations on winning the contest. [Evil Laughter]

Goofs

 * Fry says he can't swim, but he is treading water, once Leela jumps in to save him. Additionally, in Bender's Big Score, he is seen swimming with Leelu.
 * Fry, Leela and Bender went down the drain in the Slurm river, yet when they open the door to the fake factory, it is revealed they are level with the river.
 * The Slurm Queen says that milk comes from a cow's behind but we learn in A Fishful of Dollars that cows are extinct. Milk came from cows but no longer comes from them.

Alien Language Sightings
Time:01:19

Location: Rules of the contest

Language: AL1

Translation: The following species are ineligible: space wasps, space beavers, any other animal with the word 'space' in front of it, space chickens, and the elusive yak-face.

Time:03:25

Location: Eye Chart

Language: AL1

Translation: n o s q u i n t i n g f o u r e y e s

Characters

 * Amy
 * Debut: Trixie
 * Bender
 * Boxy Robot
 * Calculon
 * Debut: Dixie
 * Monique
 * Fry
 * Debut: Glurmo
 * Debut: Grunka Lunkas
 * Debut: Hermaphrobot
 * Hermes
 * Leela
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Debut: Slurms MacKenzie
 * Debut: Slurm Queen
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Lewis Morton
 * Director
 * Ron Hughart
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Dave Herman
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * Special Guest
 * Pamela Anderson
 * DVD Commentatary
 * David X. Cohen
 * John DiMaggio
 * Lewis Morton
 * Matt Groening
 * Rich Moore
 * Ron Hughart