Saturday Morning Fun Pit

"Saturday Morning Fun Pit" is the nineteeth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 17, 2013. The episode was written by Patric M. Verrone and directed by Crystal Chesney-Thompson.

Amid angry protests from anti-TV violence groups on the White House lawn, the head of Richard Nixon and the headless clone of Spiro Agnew try to watch a Saturday morning cartoon block, featuring the Futurama gang in parodies of Saturday morning favorites from the late 1960s into the early-to-mid 1980s: A Scooby-Doo parody called Bendee Boo and the Mystery Crew featuring appearances by Larry Bird, George Takei, and the Harlem Globetrotters; a Strawberry Shortcake-meets-The Smurfs parody called Purpleberry Pond that was only made to advertise an excessively sugary cereal; and a violent G.I. Joe parody called G.I. Zapp that Nixon tries to edit for violence and offensive language.

Plot

Richard Nixon's head and Headless Clone of Agnew are sitting together in front of the television in their pajamas, and a sergeant comes in and gives them the T.V. remote. Nixon awards him a Purple Heart, then shoots him and drops him down a trap-door.

Bendee-Boo and the Mystery Crew

Agnew turns the TV on to the show Bendee-Boo and the Mystery Crew in which the crew are on their way to visit Fry/Shaggy's nephew at his cloning lab, when a scary floating dragon ghost appears, tells them to turn around, and disappears. The crew are scared, but soon Fry/Shaggy and Bendee-Boo (Bender parody of Scooby-Doo) get hungry, so the crew stops at a kabuki theater for the concessions stand. While there, Fry/Shaggy and Bendee-Boo eat yakitori that is over a year old while Amy/Velma asks the owner George Takei why his theater is so neglected. He explains that since the nearby basketball arena opened, everyone wanted to see basketball instead of kabuki, and his business suffered. Soon the crew leaves and they are back on their way to the Professor's cloning lab.

Upon arrival they are greeted by the Professor's butler Zoidberg who openly states that he believes cloning is a sin. While there, the Professor introduces the crew to the Harlem Globetrotters. Ethan “Bubblegum” Tate explains that they are there to help the Professor with his cloning machine, and to clone a team of Larry Birds to practice against for the big game. The only problem is that they are being haunted by a mysterious dragon ghost. That night, Fry/Shaggy can't sleep, and goes to the window for some fresh air. Outside the window is the dragon ghost he saw earlier. In his panic, he wakes up the rest of the crew who agree on a plan to capture the ghost. While most of the crew stays behind with a trap the Professor built, Fry/Shaggy and Bendee-Boo will look for the dragon ghost. While both refuse at first, Bendee-Boo agrees when given a Bendee-Brew, and Fry/Shaggy follows.

Soon, Fry/Shaggy and Bendee-Boo are being chased by the ghost throughout the cloning lab, and finally return to the main room where the rest of the crew is. There, Amy/Velma says that they believe the dragon ghost must be Zoidberg because he is the only one with access to the laboratory who has a problem with cloning. Leela/Daphne tries to remove Zoidberg's mask, only to accidentally remove his whole head. Meanwhile, the real culprit has been captured by the Professor's trap, and after removing his makeup, they realize that it is George Takei. Amy/Velma suggests that he did it because he figured if the Globetrotters couldn't play, people would come to his kabuki theater instead, but Takei says that he did it because he is mentally ill. Later the Globetrotters are at their big game. They feel ready for anything because they practiced against five Larry Birds, but then the opposing team is revealed to be six Larry Birds. The crew and Globetrotters laugh light-heartedly, and the episode ends.

Purpleberry Pond

There are protesters outside the White House, Nixon and Agnew go to the window to see what they want. The protesters demand that he regulate children's programming and force the writers to “shoehorn in helpful messages”. Agnew calls Hollywood, grunts into the phone, and violently hangs up. They go back to the couch to watch the next cartoon, Purpleberry Pond (a parody of Strawberry Shortcake with elements from The Smurfs). It opens in a purple land with small children (portrayed by Leela, Bender, Hermes, and Amy) singing about Purpleberries, and the Berry Burglar (Professor Farnsworth) and his assistant Zoidberg watching them, plotting to get Purpleberries. Princess Purpleberry (Leela) then walks through the town greeting the other children, and the Marquis of Mulberry (Bender) muses about how they never get sick of the color purple. Princess Purpleberry explains that this is because of the healthy Purpleberries they eat, and then waters a nearby Purpleberry bush with maple syrup.

A commercial comes on for a cereal called sugar blasted Purpleberry Puffs. In it, a sad young boy is offered a bowl of the cereal, and he eagerly accepts it. Princess Purpleberry materializes off of the box and explains that the cereal is triple-coated in maple-flavored syrup to “start your day with purple power!”

The show returns with the children of Purpleberry Pond singing about Purpleberries. They are interrupted when a carriage pulls into town carrying their new neighbor Lord Loquat (Fry). They all go to meet him, but most are horrified when he steps out of the carriage and is orange. The Marquis of Mulberry tells Lord Loquat he doesn't like him because he's different, but Princess Purpleberry defends him, saying that it takes two colors to make a rainbow. The Marquis of Mulberry apologizes to Lord Loquat, and they sing together. Meanwhile the Berry Burglar and Zoidberg still watch plotting.

A new commercial comes on for sugar blasted purple and orange berry puffs. A young girl sits wondering about why there are two colors instead of one, her mother reads the box, and Princess Purpleberry once again jumps off of it and explains that the cereal now contains two flavors of cereal. The girl starts eating it, and the commercial flashes forward, to the same girl — but slightly fatter — eating the cereal. She burps, and a bubble comes out containing Zoidberg. The bubble pops, and the girl and her mother laugh as Zoidberg falls into the milk.

The show then returns, showing the Berry Burglar explaining to Zoidberg that he has a plan to steal the purple and orange berries. He fires a cannon at the town, and out comes a puffy white ball. It pops above the town, raining onto the purple and orange berries. The villagers come out, and Princess Purpleberry is horrified because she thinks that it is snow and will ruin the Purple and Orange berry crop. Lord Loquat tastes and says that it isn't snow, it's sugar. The villagers rejoice.

Commercials come on again, and Princess Purpleberry once again comes off of the box, explaining to the girl and her mother that now they have sugar frosted sugar blasted purple and orange berry puffs, and the girl happily says that she doesn't know which she likes better, "regular or type two."

The show returns, and the Berry Burglar laments that he didn't get his hands on the purple and orange berries. Then, it cuts to the villagers eating sugar coated sugar blasted Purple and Orange berry puffs, and saying that they have learned that they all learned that it doesn't matter what color you are, so long as you eat the cereal. The villagers sing a jingle, and the episode ends.

G.I. Zapp

A new show comes on called G.I. Zapp (a parody of G.I. Joe) starring Zapp Brannigan. In the opening, tanks are shown shooting at each other, destroying buildings as they go. Suddenly, a rock breaks through the window and hits Agnew on the shoulder. Nixon and Agnew go to the window to see what the protestors want this time. They say that the G.I. Zapp cartoon is too violent and want him to censor it. He agrees, saying he is a servant of the people, and goes back inside.

He then activates a device that will allow him to manually censor the show. The opening credits come back on, almost over, and he rewinds the tape, voicing over that the soldiers are rebuilding the town using bullet sucking vacuum tanks. The mission screen comes up, saying that the episode is Operation: Throat Slit which Nixon promptly changes to Operation: Banana Split. The G.I.s are in an odd looking plane, heading to the base of the enemy A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. (short for A Criminal Regiment Of Nasty Young Men). The leader of A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Profestro (the Professor parody of Destro), sees the helicopter and fires a surface-to-air missile, censored to say a surface-to-air warning shot and surface-to-air telegram. Each of the soldiers jumps off of the helicopter with their parachutes. Zapp leaves last, taking the pilot Kif's parachute pack because he forgot his. Kif crashes into the side of a mountain in a huge fire ball. Nixon voices over explaining that he safely landed the helicopter in a naturally occurring fireball at Disneyland.

The G.I.s start exchanging fire with A.C.R.O.N.Y.M., with constant censorship from Nixon. Then, Freezer Burn (Fry) gets shot, and when they land he's dead, though Nixon voices over that he's sleeping. The G.I.s rush at A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. with new violent enthusiasm to avenge Freezer Burn. During hand to hand combat, the violence escalates and Nixon is forced to be more and more creative about his voice overs. Then it shows Orphan Crippler (Bender) open his chest to reveal a weapon with robotic arms controlling a chainsaw, a drill, and a machine gun. Extreme gore follows and Nixon gives up on censoring the show and pulls the plug.

Finale

As part of the finale, Nixon cuts instead to an anti-violence PSA. It shows Cubert and Dwight fighting over a football, and then Nixon and Agnew pull up in a motorcycle with a sidecar. Nixon says violence isn't the answer, and Agnew rips the ball in half. Nixon leaves the kids crying, cackling evilly.

The cartoon block ends and Agnew turns the TV off when it's announced that the next program will be "...six hours of golf."

Reception

The A.V. Club gave this episode a D.^[1]

Nominated for a Writers Guild Award.

References

External links

• "Saturday Morning Fun Pit" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Saturday Morning Fun Pit" at the Infosphere, the Futurama Wiki.