How About That Thing?

I’d thought about using Futurama as material for the YouTube version of this project… Except much like King of the Hill and South Park, I found several other YouTubers who do this already, and probably do it better: Johnny Two Chellos, Kitty Monk, etc. So I discarded it.

But out of all the ideas for scripts I had that I ended up dismissing due to the fact other people already did them, and did them better, there’s one episode a lot of people haven’t covered. Probably because it’s not quite as impactful or attention grabbing as Jurassic Bark or Game of Tones or whatever, but this episode stands out to me.

For those unfamiliar with Futurama, there’s four eras.

• The Fox era
• the movie era
• The Comedy Central Era
• The Hulu era (AKA, the current era)

In my humble little opinion, the FOX era of Futurama was probably the best. The movie era had its moments, the Comedy Central era had a good start but ultimately bellyflopped after a few episodes, and… Well, I know it’s still going, but for the most part, the Hulu era just feels unnecessary more than anything else. But the FOX era was probably the best era of Futurama. It’s hard to find an episode from that era that could be considered bad… But I managed to find one anyway.

That episode is “Less than Hero”. AKA, the episode where Fry, Leela, and Bender became superheroes.

I won’t lie to you, dear reader, I fucking hate this episode with a passion. It is the single solitary smear of bird shit on an otherwise pristine era of programming. Maybe I’m in a minority, or maybe the entirety of the fanbase agrees. All I know is I’m going to talk about it here, and hopefully entertain some people in the process.

BACKSTORY: At this point in Futurama, we’ve recently discovered that Leela is NOT an alien, but rather, the offspring of sewer mutants. Also at this point in the episode, sewer mutants are mostly forbidden from climbing up to the surface. Surface dwellers can get day passes on behalf of mutants, but once those passes expire, it’s back into the sewer for you, ugly.

The episode begins with Leela working on getting one such pass for her parents. Also, something about Professor Farnsworth getting a supercollider from Ikea or something. It’s not their best joke ever, but it’s far from the worst joke ever.

After that whole incident with the supercollider goes askew, Zoidberg offers Fry and Leela some sort of cream that makes their aches go away. Shortly after applying it, they get mugged, only to realize that they’re suddenly laser proof and super strong!

Not going to lie, I’m both amazed an thankful the mugger character and his robot companion, Andrew, didn’t get used more often after this point. Amazed, because it seemed like something they’d use more than once. Thankful, because in this day and age where everything from one-liners from Bender to locations like The Near-Death Star are recycled to the point of not being funny anymore, they probably would’ve run these two into the ground.

Fry and Leela begin reading about the side effects on the cream, and find they have ALMOST all the powers listed. No command over ocean life, though. Fry convinces Leela, and eventually Bender, to become a trio of crime fighting superheros.

The New Justice Team! It begs the question of what happened to the OLD Justice Team… But knowing this show, those poor sons of… Anyway!

From left to right, we have:

• Captain Yesterday: the hero from the past. Kind of like Booster Gold, but in reverse. And somehow stupider.
• Super King: a name that sounds like something you’d find in Adventure Time, or some other animated show from the 2010s that feels compelled to cram as much stupid shit into the time slot as humanly possible with no regard for whether or not it’s actually funny. Looking at you, King Star King.
• Clobberella: the one that beats you up. Also, while I’m not really into cyclopses, that leotard is pretty fine.

They go around the streets of New New York, beating up criminals and saving the day. Until they encounter their most dangerous enemy of all.

Meet The Zookeeper. He and his villainous assortment of animals, including but not limited to a seldomly used crab known simply as Citizen Snips. They really wanted that one to be the funniest one, but for some reason, I laughed harder at “The elephant who never forgets. To KILL!” for some reason.

The New Justice Team is put in charge of guarding the quantom gemerald. Basically some magic shiny rock thing that could pay off any individuals debt the moment they sell it, no matter how deep they’re in. The Zookeeper shows up late, but he still shows up, and we has fight. And I think I’m starting to remember why I hate this episode.

I think I’ve made it clear where I stand on Batman 1967. IE, the source material for that TV Funhouse cartoon, The Ambiguously Gay Duo. Maybe I got spoiled by the likes of Bruce Tim, Tim Burton, and Frank Miller (before he forgot how to write anything besides Sin City and ended up becoming a hardcore fascist), but 1967 Batman is the worst Batman ever. Hell, even LEGO Batman has more credibility than 1967 Batman. Batman Forever was less painful to watch than 1967 Batman. Really, I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.

The fight scene that takes place is basically an homage to this era of Batman. Something that, in my opinion, doesn’t deserve to be remembered so fondly. Iagree with Kevin Murphy when he basically said that bad things don’t deserve to be remembered or celebrated, and site this as a good example. Even the usage of Citizen Snips didn’t even get a chuckle out of me.

The Zookeeper makes a hasty retreat, the gemerald is saved, and it’s net value ends up being enough to pay for the copious amount of damage the superhero fight ended up causing. Unfortunately, in the process, Leela’s parents head back to the sewer believing that Leela stood them up.

Feeling guilty about it, Leela confesses to them that she’s Clobberella. She swears them to secrecy… But as is often th case in shows like this, that secrecy is out the window within minutes.

The Zookeeper gets wind of it, and takes her parents as hostages. He then contacts Fry, Leela, and Bender at Planet Express.

“Remember me, Justice fools?” he asks.

“I don’t remember much, pal, and you’re no looker,” says Professor Farnsworth.

Okay, that was actually kind of funny. Hell, I found myself using that line way more than I should in my day-to-day life nowadays. So I guess SOME good came from this episode.

The bargon is made: the gemerald for Leela’s parents. The New Justice Team turn their backs on justice, steal the gemerald, and hand it to the zookeeper. And… Once again, I’ll admit, the sequence where he makes his bird fetch the gemerald, only for the camera to zoom out and realize he was within arm’s reach of them the whole time was actually kind of funny. Of course, Fry had to be the guy who states the obvious, point out how unnecessary it seemed, and killed the joke on arrival.

The Zookeeper makes off with the gemerald, Leela’s parents are free, and The New Justice Team goes on a crime spree. The end.

Yeah, like I said before, I fucking hate this episode. Partly because this, and the one where Fry ends up in the robot insane asylum used to get played into the pavement when the show was running on Comedy Central, but mostly, because it just wasn’t funny. Like, nothing outside of The Professor’s comment towards The ZooKeeper made me laugh at any point. And superheroes? Really?

In Futurama’s defense, though, Superheroes hadn’t quite oversaturated the market in the early 2000s like they have currently. True, there were superhero movies, and a few of them were actually pretty good (IE, Sam Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy), but they were only just STARTING to flood the market, and had yet to wear out their welcome. For me, it wasn’t until somewhere around Captain Marvel and The Snyderverse’s attempt at a Justice League movie when I began experiencing legit burnout.

That being said, this entire episode felt like The Zookeeper using a bird to retrieve something at arm’s reach: completely unnecessary.