Leela's Homeworld

Production Code: 4ACV02
Original Airdate : Sunday Februrary 17, 2002
Written by :

Note: This capsule is still a work in progress. Send additional comments or missing information to tomg at io dot com or post to alt.tv.futurama for possible inclusion in the next revision. Thanks for helping out!

Synposis

When Leela returns to the orphanarium in which she was raised, she is recognized for her success as a starship captain. Bender and Professor Farnsworth decipher something far more rewarding for Leela, as Fry helps her discover some long-lost secrets about her background, including what happened to her parents.

Title sequence

Opening theme promotion :
IT'S LIKE "HEE HAW" WITH LASERS.

Opening theme cartoon :
"In a Cartoon Studio" Van Beuren Studio, 1931. AKA "Making 'Em Move"

Did You Notice?

... The eagle on Hermes's Federal badge is holding a folder labeled "To Be Filed"?

... The orphanage offers espresso to the orphans?

... The pedestrian crossing sign in the sewers had an image of a person with two heads and three legs?

... The leg sewer mutant was wearing a Boston Red Socks baseball hat?

... Fry was lifting his shirt at Space Mardi Gra?

... Leela's father's mouth was rotated 90 degrees so that it opened horizontally instead of vertically?

References (movies, books, etc.)

+ Free Willy 3
Bender dumping the film's star

+ Bob's Big Boy
-Big Mutant Boy's

+ Starbucks
-The coffee chain has it's own branch in the underground world.

+ Bed Bath & Beyond

+ Big & Tall Men's Store

+ Skin Deep
The glow-in-the-dark noses. (see comments)

Freeze Frame Fun

>> Buildings/Signs

Cookieville
Minimum Security Orphanarium

Wall of Fame Induction
No Really Loud Snoring

Hall of Fame award plaques:
Often Seen in the Background of News Spots
Diligent Flosser
Has Tasted Every McDonalds Sandwich
Successfully Switched from Heroin to Methadone

Shop signs in sewers:
Big & Strange Men's Store
Bed Bath & Beneath
Bob's Big Mutant Boy
Starbucks

billboard in sewers:
Head Reduction Surgery

Animation, continuity, and other goofs

Previous Episode References

Other Comments

The Truman Show is a 1998 Peter Weir film starring Jim Carrey. The film tells the tale of a man (played by Carrey) who has no idea that he's the star of a 24-hour television show and that his whole life (with the exception of him) is completely scripted. However, as some strange events happen (from a "star" falling from the sky to his "dad" (who supposedly died) appearing on a bus), the guy gets closer to realizing his fake life and tries to escape it, despite the matters of show's director (played by Oscar nominee Ed Harris).

Kinda obscure, but that glow-in-the-dark nose gag references a really bad 80's Blake Edwards movie called "Skin Deep." It was John Ritter's (Jack from Three's Company) brief shining moment. The movie was totally unremarkable except for a duelling glow-in-the-dark condom scene. I could be wrong, "Skin Deep" probably wasn't the first flick with glow-in-the-dark gags...but I sure do feel unclean for remembering it.

Insight into the meaning of Leela's first name, Turanga, can be found here.

First, Leela's parents have had no problem getting to the surface repeatedly to help her out. Leela, Bender, Fry and Nibbler all got out somehow in "I Second That Emotion". In the First XMas show, the mutant catches the tossed slipper. In luck of the Fryish, Fry chats with a mutant in the ruins of old New York. And so on. Yet when the mutants decide to release Leela, Fry and Bender, they need to find some way to get to the surface. I think this may be a reference to "Alien From LA". Kathy Ireland goes to an underground civilization to find her father. She was not an "orphan", but she is trying to get to know her father. She turns out not to be an alien, but her voice is so annoying, she may be a mutant. During the dramatic, final escape scene, a scientist reveals his top secret machine designed to reach the surface, a cobbled together balloon. They are likewise told they can never come back tot he underground world.

The song at the end of the episode was "Baby Love Child" by Pizzicato Five.

Contributors

Capsule authored by Tom Georgoulias, using postings from alt.tv.futurama

Joe Klemm
Tom Georgoulias
Alan Hamilton
Larry Finkelstein
Saturn Padua
Matthew Miller