FUTURAMA 7/20/'03: "Bend Her" (1 Viewer)

[Rex Bachmann]

"Bend Her" (episode #69)

summary:

I missed parts of this episode, especially the beginning.

The title is partially a take-off of the Roman-era arena charioteer and(?) gladiator of the movies, Ben Hur, since Bender's feminine alter ego, Coilette, is created to compete in the robot Olympiad. [I missed the very beginning of the show, so I don't know why Bender wants to compete as a "fembot".]

The title also looks like a back-formation from Bender's name, which is homophonous with---"sounds exactly like"---the phrase bend her, where the [h] gets lost in fast speech to give a clitic form of the pronoun, hence "bend 'er" for "bend her!", an interesting linguistic trick.

Tell me now, what's the difference between a male and a female robot, anatomically speaking (except for the cast-iron boobs)? I thought I saw Professor Farnsworth "fiddling" with something down on Bender's lower front parts in the gender-reversal operation, but I don't see what it could've been. (There's usually nothing there.)

I liked the fact that the wedding with Calculon becomes a soap opera where Hermes plays the standard organ music of daytime "soaps".

"African hydraulic fever" as a fatal illness for robots. [Hmmmmm], I find that an interesting choice of labelling, from a Western cultural perspective.

Finally, they could've called this episode "Gender Bender". What a long way we've come since Bender rode the space rails with the hobos in "30% Iron Chef" (episode #55), no?


hobo: "You're a robo."
Bender (curt and fightin' mad): "What did you call me?!?"
hobo: "A robo. You know, a robot-hobo."
Bender: "Oh, I thought you called me a romo."

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Rex, Bender saw that the male robots in the bendign competition were bending i-beams, but the females were doign coat hangars and he figured he could beat them.

The main difference between manbots and fembots is that manbots use testoroil where fembots use fembot lubricants. Also, males have antennae.

 

[TheLongshot]

The main difference between manbots and fembots is that manbots use testoroil where fembots use fembot lubricants.

Which was called femmoil (a play on pennsoil), if I remember correctly. The joke was ok, but the episode got old after a while...

Jason

 

[Brent Hutto]

Actually...

It was Femmzoil, a play on Pennzoil (if anyone is keeping score).

 

[TonyD]

i thought it was a good ep but did get tired after a little while.

rex, those very light color letterings you use in your posts are very hard to see, at least for my eye sight. could you consider using darker colors?

 

[Rob Speicher]

rex, those very light color letterings you use in your posts are very hard to see, at least for my eye sight. could you consider using darker colors?

Or just not color it at all? There's absolutely no reason.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Dan Rudolph wrote (post #2):

Well, I guess a "rod" is a "rod" is a "rod". Thanks for the informative reply.