Futurama: Bender's Big Score
Encyclopedia
Futurama: Bender's Big Score (or Bender's Big Score) is an Annie Award
-winning direct-to-video
film
based on the animated series Futurama
. It was released in the United States
on November 27, 2007. Bender's Big Score, along with the three follow-up films, comprise season five
of Futurama, with each film being separated into four episodes of the broadcast season. Bender's Big Score made its broadcast premiere on Comedy Central
on March 23, 2008. The movie was written by Ken Keeler
, based on a story by Keeler and David X. Cohen
, and directed
by Dwayne Carey-Hill
.
Special appearances include Coolio
as Kwanzaa
-bot, Al Gore
as himself, Mark Hamill
as the Chanukah Zombie, Tom Kenny
as Fry's older brother Yancy, and Sarah Silverman
as Fry's ex-girlfriend Michelle (reprising her role from "The Cryonic Woman
").
is decapitated
and his body crushed during a limbo
accident, prompting LaBarbara to leave him. His head is placed in a jar while his body is repaired. The man who performs the procedure, Lars, takes a liking to Leela. Leela reciprocates, much to Fry
's annoyance.
During a delivery to a nude beach
planet, Bender discovers a tattoo
of himself on Fry's buttocks
. A trio of scammer aliens dupe the crew into signing petitions and providing their e-mail addresses. When the crew returns to Earth, the scammers begin spamming them. After they respond, Bender is infected with an obedience virus and Professor Farnsworth
is tricked into signing over his business. By a process known as "sprunjing," the scammers detect Fry's tattoo, which contains the code for paradox
-correcting time travel
. Nibbler
reveals himself and explains that using the code could destroy the universe, but the scammers ignore him.
Since the code only allows travel into the past, the scammers have Bender steal valuable objects from Earth's past and pass the time in a cave beneath Planet Express. Hermes has Bender obtain an earlier version of his body in order to save his marriage. The Professor discovers that duplicates created via time-travel paradoxes, including Hermes' new body, are doomed. Meanwhile, Leela and Lars date, depressing Fry.
After Bender steals all of history's treasures, the scammers decide to destroy the time code by erasing it from Bender's memory and killing Fry. Fry uses the code to escape to January 1, 2000, the day he was frozen. Bender is sent to kill him, arrives in the cryogenics lab and creates a duplicate of himself when he needs to use the bathroom. Another duplicate appears and claims he is from "the very end". He opens the tube that the frozen Fry is in and puts a rub-on tattoo with the time-travel code on his butt. The duplicate, not wanting to kill Fry, fights his programming, initiating a self-destruct sequence. Fry shoves the Bender duplicate in a cryo-tube and sets it for 1,000,000 years. The original Bender spends the next twelve years hunting Fry, then destroys Fry's apartment when Fry walks inside.
Bender reports his success, and the scammers erase the time code and the obedience virus. During a memorial in his honor, Fry shows up. He explains that he created a duplicate of himself; his duplicate confronted the Bender duplicate and remained in the past while he accidentally fell into his own cryo-tube. When Fry (plus the Fry that has already been frozen) awoke in the tube 1,000 years later, the present Fry froze himself until the current year. Flashbacks show the duplicate Fry staying in the 21st Century, spending the twelve years before Bender's attack working at an aquarium, caring for an orphaned narwhal
named Leelu.
Nibbler destroys the time code tattoo to keep the scammers from further abusing it. Everyone lives in poverty thanks to the scammers, while Leela and Lars decide to marry. A chain reaction at the wedding leads to Hermes being decapitated again and his body being crushed by a chandelier
. Farnsworth explains that Hermes's duplicate body was doomed; Lars becomes agitated and cancels the wedding.
The scammers trick Earth President Richard Nixon into selling Earth to them, and everyone leaves the planet. To reclaim Earth the population assembles a fleet with the aid of Robot Santa, Kwanzaabot, and the Chanukah Zombie. With his bureaucratic brain wired into the battle computer, Hermes leads Earth to victory over the scammers' fleet after both Leela and Zapp fail, and wins back his wife. The scammers threaten the crew with a doomsday device
Bender stole for them earlier, but do not realize that Bender had previously stolen the device back for himself. Leela fires the device at the scammers' ship, destroying it. Everyone returns to Earth to celebrate the New Year
. Bender is commended for his deeds and Hermes is returned to his original body.
After failing to entice a heartbroken Leela, Fry decides to do what he feels is best for her and arranges a reunion with Lars at the cryogenic lab. Having survived the doomsday blast, Nudar, the lead scammer, ambushes them. Nudar claims that the time-travel code still exists on Lars. Lars tricks Nudar into approaching the cryo-tube with the Bender duplicate on overload and holds Nudar against the Bender time–duplicate, who explodes, killing the three of them. The explosion singes off some of Lars' clothing, revealing the time code tattoo. A flashback reveals that Lars was Fry's time-travel duplicate; after releasing Leelu into the Arctic wild, he returned to his apartment and survived Bender's attack in 2012; the fire and smoke changed his appearance and voice. Realizing he was Lars, the duplicate Fry froze himself to return to the future and be with Leela. Learning that time travel duplicates were doomed, he canceled the wedding to spare Leela the pain of his death. Leela forgives “Lars” and kisses Fry.
Bender removes Lars's tattoo and travels into the past to place it on the frozen Fry to make sense of everything that transpired. He then meets many of his duplicates from his stealing sprees, and invites them to emerge with him all at once instead of when they were supposed to give their artifacts to the scammers, causing them to explode. Terrified of the paradoxical consequences, Nibbler urges everyone to evacuate the universe before swallowing himself. The Bender duplicates explode and cause a tear in the fabric of space.
addressed speculation as to whether Futurama had been revived in episodic or feature-film form, explaining that the crew is "writing them as movies and then we're going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes". A preview of the film was shown at Comic-Con
2007. It was also reported at Comic-Con that once the movie is "chopped up" it will be reconfigured into four episodes that will be broadcast on Comedy Central
on March 23, 2008. The same will be done with the succeeding three movies, creating a sixteen-episode fifth season. The voice recording finished on July 3, 2007. An official trailer was released on October 10, 2007.
provided two original "movie musical" style songs for the characters to sing in context in Bender's Big Score. The song "I May As Well Jump" (also referred to as "Street Song") exposited the dissatisfaction of most of the characters with the ways their lives were progressing at that point in the plotline, except for Lars and Leela, who were contrastingly delighted to announce their happiness and their upcoming marriage. The song "This Trinity's Goin' To War" (also referred to as "This Toyshop's Goin' To War") exposited the plans of Robot Santa, Chanukah Zombie, and Kwanzaa-bot to provide military support to assist in the liberation of Earth. The movie also contains a cover of Scott Walker
's "30 Century Man" performed by The Jigsaw Seen.
on Sky1, which started airing Bender's Big Score on the 26 October 2008. After being aired in four separate episodes, the next three movies were aired, with each of them being broken up into four episodes; creating a fifth season comprising 16 episodes overall. Bender's Big Score aired in Canada on October 12, 2008 on the Global Television Network
.
In the broadcast premiere, the extended opening from the film is placed before the scene where Hermes is decapitated as opposed to after it. The first two scenes in the montage of Leela and Lars' dates were cut. The original opening subtitle "IT JUST WON'T STAY DEAD!" is kept as the opening subtitle of the first part. The three additional opening captions are: "Watch, Rinse, Repeat", "Apply directly to the foreclaw" (a reference to HeadOn
), and "Last Known Transmission of the Hubble Telescope." The billboard scene in all four is identical to the single scene in the film, a snippet from "Space Pilot 3000
" where Fry gets frozen.
, as well as an 82% when filtered to members of the RT community. It won the 2007 Annie Award for Best Home Entertainment Production. The movie received an "A" rating in a review at UGO
, calling its two musical numbers "hilarious," and the overall quality on par with that of the show's original run. Dan Iverson of IGN
gave the movie an 8 out of 10, stating that "it is easy to recommend Bender's Big Score to fans of the series and those new to the show alike." They also gave the DVD a 7 out of 10, praising the extras but lamenting the quality of the video transfer. It has been given a 9/10 by Movie Power magazine and a 'B' by The Washington Post
.
DVD to be released by 20th Century Fox. The studio worked to reduce the carbon impact of DVD manufacture and distribution. It also features "A Terrifying Message From Al Gore", an animated short produced to promote guest star Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth
, a discussion on the use of mathematics in Futurama, full length audio commentary by cast and crew members. There is also a 22-minute full length episode of "Everybody Loves Hypnotoad". It was released in 16:9 widescreen format; the first 16:9 presentation of any Futurama media.
throughout the film in retaliation against the Fox Network
for its alleged mishandling and eventual cancellation of Futurama. The product is said to have "a million and one uses" and consists of ground-up executives, including those of the film's thinly veiled Fox Network parody (the Box Network), and makes repeated appearances due to its miraculous utility in such diverse tasks as seasoning
, surgery
, delousing, feeding heads in jars, cosmetics, bomb disposal
, artillery
, and the care of head transplant
patients. In the "Everybody Loves Hypnotoad" episode released with the film, Torgo's Powder is advertised as a parody of HeadOn
, stating "Torgo's Powder: apply directly to the buttocks" three times in the same fashion. When the film was aired on Comedy Central, a fake commercial was shown preceding the first break in which a woman dumps some of the powder in a toilet. It appears once in Bender's Game
on Fry and Bender's kitchen counter, when Bender is washing a pot and is about to jump out of the window.
Annie Award
The Annie Awards have been presented by the Los Angeles, California branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972...
-winning direct-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
based on the animated series Futurama
Futurama
Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J...
. It was released in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on November 27, 2007. Bender's Big Score, along with the three follow-up films, comprise season five
Futurama (season 5)
Futurama fifth production season began airing in March 2008 and concluded after 16 episodes on August 30, 2009. The episodes were TV versions and edits of the four DVD movies. This list is for the TV versions.-Production:...
of Futurama, with each film being separated into four episodes of the broadcast season. Bender's Big Score made its broadcast premiere on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
on March 23, 2008. The movie was written by Ken Keeler
Ken Keeler
Kenneth "Ken" Keeler is an American television producer and writer. He has written for numerous television series, most notably The Simpsons and Futurama. According to an interview with David X. Cohen, he proved a theorem which appears in the Futurama episode "The Prisoner of Benda".-Career:After...
, based on a story by Keeler and David X. Cohen
David X. Cohen
David Samuel Cohen , primarily known as David X. Cohen, is an American television writer. He has written for The Simpsons and he is the head writer and executive producer of Futurama.-Early life:...
, and directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Dwayne Carey-Hill
Dwayne Carey-Hill
Dwayne Carey-Hill is an American animation director, currently working on the Comedy Central series Drawn Together. Prior to Drawn Together, he worked on Futurama, as Susie Dietter's assistant director and then promoted to a director and directed the episode "Obsoletely Fabulous"...
.
Special appearances include Coolio
Coolio
Artis Leon Ivey Jr. , better known by the stage name Coolio, is an American musician, rapper, actor and record producer.-Late 80s:He recorded two singles in the late 80s, titled "Watcha Gonna Do" and "You're Gonna Miss Me"...
as Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa
Kwanzaa is a week long celebration held in the United States honoring universal African-American heritage and culture, observed from December 26 to January 1 each year. It features activities such as lighting a candle holder with seven candles and culminates in a feast and gift giving...
-bot, Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
as himself, Mark Hamill
Mark Hamill
Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord...
as the Chanukah Zombie, Tom Kenny
Tom Kenny
Thomas James "Tom" Kenny is an American actor, voice actor and comedian. He is especially known for his long-running-role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the television series of the same name, as well as the live-action character Patchy the Pirate, Gary the Snail and the French narrator based on...
as Fry's older brother Yancy, and Sarah Silverman
Sarah Silverman
Sarah Kate Silverman is a Jewish American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician. Her satirical comedy addresses social taboos and controversial topics such as racism, sexism, and religion....
as Fry's ex-girlfriend Michelle (reprising her role from "The Cryonic Woman
The Cryonic Woman
"The Cryonic Woman" is the nineteenth and final episode of production season two of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on December 3, 2000, as the third episode of the third broadcast season with a plot incorporating a cryonics theme...
").
Plot
Two years ago, Box Network executives canceled Planet Express's contract. Those executives have been fired, so Planet Express is back "on the air". They throw a party to celebrate, during which HermesHermes Conrad
Hermes Conrad is a fictional character in the Futurama animated series. He is voiced by Phil LaMarr.- Appearance and personality :Born in 2959, Hermes is a grade 36 bureaucrat from Jamaica. He manages the Planet Express delivery business with responsibilities that include paying bills, giving out...
is decapitated
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
and his body crushed during a limbo
Limbo (dance)
Limbo is a popular form of dance that originated on the island of Trinidad. The dancer moves to a Caribbean rhythm, then leans backward and dances under a horizontal pole without touching it. Upon touching it or falling backwards, the dancer is "out"...
accident, prompting LaBarbara to leave him. His head is placed in a jar while his body is repaired. The man who performs the procedure, Lars, takes a liking to Leela. Leela reciprocates, much to Fry
Philip J. Fry
Philip J. Fry, known simply as Fry, is a fictional character, the main protagonist of the animated science fiction sitcom Futurama. He is voiced by Billy West using a version of his own voice as he sounded when he was 25.-Character overview:...
's annoyance.
During a delivery to a nude beach
Nude beach
A nude beach is a beach where users are legally at liberty to be nude. Sometimes the terms clothing-optional beach or free beach are used. Nude bathing is one of the most common forms of nudity in public. As beaches are usually on public lands, any member of the public is entitled to use the...
planet, Bender discovers a tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
of himself on Fry's buttocks
Buttocks
The buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
. A trio of scammer aliens dupe the crew into signing petitions and providing their e-mail addresses. When the crew returns to Earth, the scammers begin spamming them. After they respond, Bender is infected with an obedience virus and Professor Farnsworth
Hubert J. Farnsworth
Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, or simply The Professor, is a fictional character in the American animated television series Futurama. He is voiced by Billy West using a combination of impressions of Burgess Meredith and Frank Morgan. Farnsworth is the proprietor of the Planet Express delivery...
is tricked into signing over his business. By a process known as "sprunjing," the scammers detect Fry's tattoo, which contains the code for paradox
Physical paradox
A physical paradox is an apparent contradiction in physical descriptions of the universe. While many physical paradoxes have accepted resolutions, others defy resolution and may indicate flaws in theory...
-correcting time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
. Nibbler
Nibbler (Futurama)
Lord Nibbler is a fictional character from the animated television series Futurama. He is voiced by Frank Welker, who provides not only his speaking lines but also the various noises he makes when not speaking English....
reveals himself and explains that using the code could destroy the universe, but the scammers ignore him.
After Bender steals all of history's treasures, the scammers decide to destroy the time code by erasing it from Bender's memory and killing Fry. Fry uses the code to escape to January 1, 2000, the day he was frozen. Bender is sent to kill him, arrives in the cryogenics lab and creates a duplicate of himself when he needs to use the bathroom. Another duplicate appears and claims he is from "the very end". He opens the tube that the frozen Fry is in and puts a rub-on tattoo with the time-travel code on his butt. The duplicate, not wanting to kill Fry, fights his programming, initiating a self-destruct sequence. Fry shoves the Bender duplicate in a cryo-tube and sets it for 1,000,000 years. The original Bender spends the next twelve years hunting Fry, then destroys Fry's apartment when Fry walks inside.
Bender reports his success, and the scammers erase the time code and the obedience virus. During a memorial in his honor, Fry shows up. He explains that he created a duplicate of himself; his duplicate confronted the Bender duplicate and remained in the past while he accidentally fell into his own cryo-tube. When Fry (plus the Fry that has already been frozen) awoke in the tube 1,000 years later, the present Fry froze himself until the current year. Flashbacks show the duplicate Fry staying in the 21st Century, spending the twelve years before Bender's attack working at an aquarium, caring for an orphaned narwhal
Narwhal
The narwhal, Monodon monoceros, is a medium-sized toothed whale that lives year-round in the Arctic. One of two living species of whale in the Monodontidae family, along with the beluga whale, the narwhal males are distinguished by a characteristic long, straight, helical tusk extending from their...
named Leelu.
Nibbler destroys the time code tattoo to keep the scammers from further abusing it. Everyone lives in poverty thanks to the scammers, while Leela and Lars decide to marry. A chain reaction at the wedding leads to Hermes being decapitated again and his body being crushed by a chandelier
Chandelier
A chandelier is a branched decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. Chandeliers are often ornate, containing dozens of lamps and complex arrays of glass or crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light...
. Farnsworth explains that Hermes's duplicate body was doomed; Lars becomes agitated and cancels the wedding.
The scammers trick Earth President Richard Nixon into selling Earth to them, and everyone leaves the planet. To reclaim Earth the population assembles a fleet with the aid of Robot Santa, Kwanzaabot, and the Chanukah Zombie. With his bureaucratic brain wired into the battle computer, Hermes leads Earth to victory over the scammers' fleet after both Leela and Zapp fail, and wins back his wife. The scammers threaten the crew with a doomsday device
Doomsday device
A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon, or collection of weapons — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth...
Bender stole for them earlier, but do not realize that Bender had previously stolen the device back for himself. Leela fires the device at the scammers' ship, destroying it. Everyone returns to Earth to celebrate the New Year
New Year
The New Year is the day that marks the time of the beginning of a new calendar year, and is the day on which the year count of the specific calendar used is incremented. For many cultures, the event is celebrated in some manner....
. Bender is commended for his deeds and Hermes is returned to his original body.
After failing to entice a heartbroken Leela, Fry decides to do what he feels is best for her and arranges a reunion with Lars at the cryogenic lab. Having survived the doomsday blast, Nudar, the lead scammer, ambushes them. Nudar claims that the time-travel code still exists on Lars. Lars tricks Nudar into approaching the cryo-tube with the Bender duplicate on overload and holds Nudar against the Bender time–duplicate, who explodes, killing the three of them. The explosion singes off some of Lars' clothing, revealing the time code tattoo. A flashback reveals that Lars was Fry's time-travel duplicate; after releasing Leelu into the Arctic wild, he returned to his apartment and survived Bender's attack in 2012; the fire and smoke changed his appearance and voice. Realizing he was Lars, the duplicate Fry froze himself to return to the future and be with Leela. Learning that time travel duplicates were doomed, he canceled the wedding to spare Leela the pain of his death. Leela forgives “Lars” and kisses Fry.
Bender removes Lars's tattoo and travels into the past to place it on the frozen Fry to make sense of everything that transpired. He then meets many of his duplicates from his stealing sprees, and invites them to emerge with him all at once instead of when they were supposed to give their artifacts to the scammers, causing them to explode. Terrified of the paradoxical consequences, Nibbler urges everyone to evacuate the universe before swallowing himself. The Bender duplicates explode and cause a tear in the fabric of space.
Cast
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Billy West Billy West William Richard "Billy" West is an American voice actor. Born in Detroit but raised in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Billy launched his career in the early 1980s performing daily comedic routines on Boston's WBCN. He left the radio station to work on the short-lived revival... |
Philip J. Fry Philip J. Fry Philip J. Fry, known simply as Fry, is a fictional character, the main protagonist of the animated science fiction sitcom Futurama. He is voiced by Billy West using a version of his own voice as he sounded when he was 25.-Character overview:... Professor Farnsworth Hubert J. Farnsworth Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, or simply The Professor, is a fictional character in the American animated television series Futurama. He is voiced by Billy West using a combination of impressions of Burgess Meredith and Frank Morgan. Farnsworth is the proprietor of the Planet Express delivery... Dr. Zoidberg Lars Fillmore Additional voices |
| Katey Sagal Katey Sagal Catherine Louise "Katey" Sagal is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She first achieved widespread fame as Peggy Bundy on the long-running Fox comedy series Married..... |
Leela |
| John DiMaggio John DiMaggio John William DiMaggio is an American voice actor. A native of North Plainfield, New Jersey, he is known for his gruff, deep voice and New Jersey accent, which he uses to voice mainly villains and anti-heroes.-Filmography:... |
Bender Rodríguez Bender Bending Rodríguez Bender Bending Rodríguez, designated Bending Unit 22, is a fictional robot character in the animated television series Futurama. He was created by series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen and is voiced by John DiMaggio. In the series, Bender plays the role of a comic anti-hero, and is... Robot Santa Barbados Slim Additional voices |
| Tress MacNeille Tress MacNeille Tress MacNeille is an American voice actress best known for providing various voices on the animated series The Simpsons, Futurama, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Disney's House of Mouse, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Rugrats, All Grown Up!, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Dave the... |
Additional voices |
| Maurice LaMarche Maurice LaMarche Maurice LaMarche is an Emmy Award winning Canadian-American voice actor and former stand up comedian. He is best known for his voicework in Futurama as Kif Kroker, as Egon Spengler in The Real Ghostbusters, Verminous Skumm and Duke Nukem in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Big Bob Pataki in Hey... |
Schlump Additional voices |
| Phil LaMarr Phil LaMarr Phillip "Phil" LaMarr is an American actor, comedian and voice actor. One of the original cast members on the sketch comedy series MADtv, he is also known for his small, but memorable role as Marvin in Pulp Fiction... |
Hermes Conrad Hermes Conrad Hermes Conrad is a fictional character in the Futurama animated series. He is voiced by Phil LaMarr.- Appearance and personality :Born in 2959, Hermes is a grade 36 bureaucrat from Jamaica. He manages the Planet Express delivery business with responsibilities that include paying bills, giving out... Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate Time Keeps on Slippin' "Time Keeps On Slippin" is the 14th episode in season 3 of Futurama. It originally aired May 6, 2001. The title is from a lyric in Fly Like an Eagle by Steve Miller Band which was featured in the basketball film Space Jam... Additional voices |
| Lauren Tom Lauren Tom Lauren Tom is an American actress and voice actress perhaps best known for her roles as Lena St Clair in The Joy Luck Club, Julie in the TV series Friends, and for providing the voices for both mother and daughter characters on two animated TV comedy series: on Futurama she voices Amy Wong and her... |
Amy Wong Amy Wong Amy Wong, voiced by Lauren Tom, is a fictional character, one of the main characters from the Fox and Comedy Central television animated series Futurama. She works as an intern at Planet Express... Additional voices |
| David Herman David Herman David Herman is an American actor, comedian and voice actor best known as an original cast member of MADtv and for his role as Michael Bolton in Office Space. He is also known for his voice roles on television programs such as Futurama and King of the Hill.- Biography :David Herman was born in New... |
Nudar Additional voices |
| Dawnn Lewis Dawnn Lewis Dawnn Lewis is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her roles on sitcoms such as A Different World and in the first season of Hangin' with Mr. Cooper.-Career:... |
LaBarbara Conrad |
| Kath Soucie Kath Soucie Katherine Elaine Soucie is an American voice actress. She is sometimes credited as Kath Soucie, Katherine Soucie, Kath Souci, Kath E... |
Cubert Farnsworth Cubert Farnsworth Cubert Farnsworth is a fictional character, Professor Farnsworth's clone from the animated television series Futurama. He was created from a growth on Professor Farnsworth's back in 2989. Cubert differs from the Professor in appearance due to his nose being squashed up against the wall of his... |
| Frank Welker Frank Welker Franklin Wendell "Frank" Welker is an American actor who specializes in voice acting and has contributed character voices and other vocal effects to American television and motion pictures.-Acting career:... |
Nibbler Nibbler (Futurama) Lord Nibbler is a fictional character from the animated television series Futurama. He is voiced by Frank Welker, who provides not only his speaking lines but also the various noises he makes when not speaking English.... Fleb Additional voices |
| Coolio Coolio Artis Leon Ivey Jr. , better known by the stage name Coolio, is an American musician, rapper, actor and record producer.-Late 80s:He recorded two singles in the late 80s, titled "Watcha Gonna Do" and "You're Gonna Miss Me"... |
Kwanzaa-bot |
| Al Gore Al Gore Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.... |
Himself |
| Mark Hamill Mark Hamill Mark Richard Hamill is an American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his role as Luke Skywalker in the original trilogy of Star Wars. More recently, he has received acclaim for his voice work, in such roles as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, Firelord... |
Chanukah Zombie |
| Tom Kenny Tom Kenny Thomas James "Tom" Kenny is an American actor, voice actor and comedian. He is especially known for his long-running-role as SpongeBob SquarePants in the television series of the same name, as well as the live-action character Patchy the Pirate, Gary the Snail and the French narrator based on... |
Yancy Fry, Jr. The Why of Fry "The Why of Fry" is the tenth episode in the fourth season of the animated television series Futurama. It originally aired in North America on April 6, 2003. The episode was written by David X. Cohen and directed by Wes Archer... |
| Sarah Silverman Sarah Silverman Sarah Kate Silverman is a Jewish American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician. Her satirical comedy addresses social taboos and controversial topics such as racism, sexism, and religion.... |
Michelle |
Production
In February 2007, Futurama co-creator Matt GroeningMatt Groening
Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama....
addressed speculation as to whether Futurama had been revived in episodic or feature-film form, explaining that the crew is "writing them as movies and then we're going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes". A preview of the film was shown at Comic-Con
Comic-Con International
San Diego Comic-Con International, also known as Comic-Con International: San Diego , and commonly known as Comic-Con or the San Diego Comic-Con, was founded as the Golden State Comic Book Convention and later the San Diego Comic Book Convention in 1970 by Shel Dorf and a group of San Diegans...
2007. It was also reported at Comic-Con that once the movie is "chopped up" it will be reconfigured into four episodes that will be broadcast on Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
on March 23, 2008. The same will be done with the succeeding three movies, creating a sixteen-episode fifth season. The voice recording finished on July 3, 2007. An official trailer was released on October 10, 2007.
Music
In addition to background musical scoring for the movie, Christopher TyngChristopher Tyng
Christopher Tyng is an American composer. He composed the music for several television series including Futurama, The O.C., The Job, The Baby-Sitters Club, Knight Rider, High Incident, and Rescue Me....
provided two original "movie musical" style songs for the characters to sing in context in Bender's Big Score. The song "I May As Well Jump" (also referred to as "Street Song") exposited the dissatisfaction of most of the characters with the ways their lives were progressing at that point in the plotline, except for Lars and Leela, who were contrastingly delighted to announce their happiness and their upcoming marriage. The song "This Trinity's Goin' To War" (also referred to as "This Toyshop's Goin' To War") exposited the plans of Robot Santa, Chanukah Zombie, and Kwanzaa-bot to provide military support to assist in the liberation of Earth. The movie also contains a cover of Scott Walker
Scott Walker (singer)
Scott Walker, born Noel Scott Engel on January 9, 1943 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, and the former lead singer of The Walker Brothers. Despite being American born, Walker's chart success has largely come in the United Kingdom, where his first four solo albums...
's "30 Century Man" performed by The Jigsaw Seen.
Release
Bender's Big Score made its broadcast premiere on Comedy Central on March 23, 2008. The film was broken into four separate episodes which served as the first part of Futuramas fifth season, followed by The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game and Into the Wild Green Yonder. The TV movie was screened in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on Sky1, which started airing Bender's Big Score on the 26 October 2008. After being aired in four separate episodes, the next three movies were aired, with each of them being broken up into four episodes; creating a fifth season comprising 16 episodes overall. Bender's Big Score aired in Canada on October 12, 2008 on the Global Television Network
Global Television Network
Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
.
In the broadcast premiere, the extended opening from the film is placed before the scene where Hermes is decapitated as opposed to after it. The first two scenes in the montage of Leela and Lars' dates were cut. The original opening subtitle "IT JUST WON'T STAY DEAD!" is kept as the opening subtitle of the first part. The three additional opening captions are: "Watch, Rinse, Repeat", "Apply directly to the foreclaw" (a reference to HeadOn
HeadOn
HeadOn is the brand name of a topical product claimed to relieve headaches. It achieved widespread notoriety in 2006 as a result of a repetitive commercial, consisting only of the tagline "HeadOn. Apply directly to the forehead," stated three times in succession. Originally sold as a homeopathic...
), and "Last Known Transmission of the Hubble Telescope." The billboard scene in all four is identical to the single scene in the film, a snippet from "Space Pilot 3000
Space Pilot 3000
"Space Pilot 3000" is the pilot episode of Futurama, which originally aired in North America on March 28, 1999 on Fox. The episode focuses on the cryogenic freezing of the series protagonist, Philip J. Fry, and the events when he awakens 1,000 years in the future...
" where Fry gets frozen.
Reviews
The film currently holds a 100% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, as well as an 82% when filtered to members of the RT community. It won the 2007 Annie Award for Best Home Entertainment Production. The movie received an "A" rating in a review at UGO
UGO
UGO Entertainment, Inc. is a website providing coverage of online media in entertainment targeting males age 18–34. The company is currently based in New York, New York, United States. On July 24, 2007 it was announced that Hearst Corporation would acquire UGO Entertainment...
, calling its two musical numbers "hilarious," and the overall quality on par with that of the show's original run. Dan Iverson of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
gave the movie an 8 out of 10, stating that "it is easy to recommend Bender's Big Score to fans of the series and those new to the show alike." They also gave the DVD a 7 out of 10, praising the extras but lamenting the quality of the video transfer. It has been given a 9/10 by Movie Power magazine and a 'B' by The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
.
Sales
In its first week, the DVD sold 222,036 units, for a total of $3,994,428. As of July 24, 2008, www.the-numbers.com reports DVD sales stand at 920,023, for a total of $16,662,212.Home media
Futurama: Bender's Big Score is the first carbon-neutralCarbon neutral
Carbon neutrality, or having a net zero carbon footprint, refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset, or buying enough carbon credits to make up the difference...
DVD to be released by 20th Century Fox. The studio worked to reduce the carbon impact of DVD manufacture and distribution. It also features "A Terrifying Message From Al Gore", an animated short produced to promote guest star Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
, a discussion on the use of mathematics in Futurama, full length audio commentary by cast and crew members. There is also a 22-minute full length episode of "Everybody Loves Hypnotoad". It was released in 16:9 widescreen format; the first 16:9 presentation of any Futurama media.
Torgo's Executive Powder
Torgo's Executive Powder is an elaborate running gagRunning gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
throughout the film in retaliation against the Fox Network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
for its alleged mishandling and eventual cancellation of Futurama. The product is said to have "a million and one uses" and consists of ground-up executives, including those of the film's thinly veiled Fox Network parody (the Box Network), and makes repeated appearances due to its miraculous utility in such diverse tasks as seasoning
Seasoning
Seasoning is the process of imparting flavor to, or improving the flavor of, food.- General meaning :Seasonings include herbs and spices, which are themselves frequently referred to as "seasonings"...
, surgery
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
, delousing, feeding heads in jars, cosmetics, bomb disposal
Bomb disposal
Bomb disposal is the process by which hazardous explosive devices are rendered safe. Bomb disposal is an all encompassing term to describe the separate, but interrelated functions in the following fields:*Military:...
, artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, and the care of head transplant
Head transplant
A head transplant is a surgical operation involving the grafting of an organism's head onto the body of another. It should not be confused with another, hypothetical, surgical operation, the brain transplant. Head transplantation involves decapitating the patient...
patients. In the "Everybody Loves Hypnotoad" episode released with the film, Torgo's Powder is advertised as a parody of HeadOn
HeadOn
HeadOn is the brand name of a topical product claimed to relieve headaches. It achieved widespread notoriety in 2006 as a result of a repetitive commercial, consisting only of the tagline "HeadOn. Apply directly to the forehead," stated three times in succession. Originally sold as a homeopathic...
, stating "Torgo's Powder: apply directly to the buttocks" three times in the same fashion. When the film was aired on Comedy Central, a fake commercial was shown preceding the first break in which a woman dumps some of the powder in a toilet. It appears once in Bender's Game
Futurama: Bender's Game
Futurama: Bender's Game is the third of the four direct-to-DVD Futurama films that make up the show's fifth season. It was released on November 4, 2008 on DVD and Blu-ray....
on Fry and Bender's kitchen counter, when Bender is washing a pot and is about to jump out of the window.
External links
- Press Release
- Bender's Big Score at The Infosphere.