Fry and the Slurm Factory
Encyclopedia
"Fry and the Slurm Factory" is the thirteenth episode
of the first production season of Futurama
. It originally aired in North America
on November 14, 1999 as the fourth episode of the second broadcast season. The episode was directed by Ron Hughart
and written by Lewis Morton
. Pamela Anderson
guest stars as the voice of one of the Slurm party girls.
resolves to find the bottlecap by drinking massive quantities of Slurm.
Bender is sick with a high fever
(900°F); Professor Farnsworth
uses this as an excuse to test his experimental "F-ray", a flashlight-like device that enables the user to look through anything, even metal. The Professor is able to find out what is causing Bender's high fever; he reveals a watch that belongs to Amy Wong
caught in one of Bender's cogs. After repairing Bender, the Professor leaves the F-ray in the custody of Fry and Bender. Fry realizes that they could use the F-ray to scan Slurm cans for the golden bottlecap. After checking "90,000" cans, they give up on finding the winning can. Fry settles in to relax with a Slurm and chokes on the winning bottle cap. He faints, but regains consciousness later.
The Planet Express crew arrives at Slurm Centralized Industrial Fabrication Unit on Wormulon. After meeting Slurms McKenzie, who is required by contract to party all night, every night, the crew takes a tour down a river of Slurm through the factory, and see the Grunka-Lunkas manufacture Slurm step by step and sing their songs. Fry tries to drink the Slurm from the river due to devastating thirst
, but when he dives, he forgets he does not know how to swim. Leela dives in to save him, and Bender joins them because "Everybody else was doing it. I just wanted to be popular!". The three are sucked into a whirlpool and deposited in a cave under the factory.
They discover that the factory they toured was a fake. Making their way through the tunnels, they enter the real factory and discover Slurm's true nature: it is a secretion
from a giant worm
, the Slurm Queen. They are discovered and captured by the worms. Bender is placed into a machine that would turn him into 174 metal Slurm cans. Leela is lowered by crane into a vat of royal Slurm which will turn her into a Slurm Queen, which leads to a conclusion of making billions (This is arrived at because Leela, as a commoner, will produce bad-tasting Slurm, which can be marketed as "New Slurm"
. When it is universally hated, the original Slurm can be brought back). Fry is fed ultra-addictive "super-slurm", so that he cannot resist "eating until he explodes". Fortunately, Fry manages to drag the tub of super-slurm to the crane controls, so he can save Leela while continuing to drink the super-slurm, then Leela saves Bender slightly too late, leaving Bender with a hole through the side of his waist. Leela then saves Fry by dumping the super-slurm down a drainage grate
. However, she must drag Fry with her, since he has become so addicted to the "super-slurm" that he attempts to gnaw his own arms off in order to fit through the grate. They manage to escape, but are pursued by the Slurm Queen. Slurms McKenzie, exhausted from his years of partying, arrives and sacrifices himself to save Fry, Leela, his two super models, and Bender.
When they escape, the Slurm Queen bemoans that the company is ruined for the discovery of the secret; however, Fry is so addicted to Slurm that he keeps the nature of Slurm a secret, telling the government agent Professor Farnsworth contacted that "grampa's making up crazy stories again," so that it can continue to be produced. In the end, the entire Planet Express crew holds a toast to Slurms McKenzie and Slurm itself.
In 2006 IGN listed this episode as number three in their list of the top 25 Futurama episodes, also stating that this episode was the "most memorable" of the series.
, a movie adaptation of the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
by Roald Dahl
. The characters whom the factory paid to pretend to be workers, the Grunka Lunkas, resemble the Oompa Loompas from the film version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and the tour guide, Glurmo, also wears a Willy Wonka
-like attire, and speaks in a Gene Wilder
-like voice. Slurms McKenzie, the Slurm party slug, is a parody of Spuds MacKenzie
, the Bud Light spokesdog.
The Slurm Queen is a reference to the Queen from Aliens
. The Alien Queen laid eggs from her tail, just like the Slurm Queen spits out slurm from her rear. Both also chase the protagonists from their lair back to the surface.
Professor Farnsworth's F-Ray reveals a 6502 microprocessor in Bender's head, a widely used CPU in home computers of the 1970s and early 1980s.
There is also a reference to Soylent Green
, when Leela talks about Soylent Cola, a soft drink made out of people.
The conspiracy theory surrounding New Coke
is parodied when the Queen talks about releasing "New Slurm" for the sole reason of knowing that people will hate it so they can release "Slurm Classic" to great fanfare.
for dedicated fans.
Slurm is also referenced in the Marvel Comics
title Young Avengers
written by Allan Heinberg
. In the Young Avengers Special, the character Hulkling
is shown attacking the Shocker
using a Slurm vending machine
.
Slurm's stylized logo is the first menu item seen in a KFC
restaurant in the Academy Award winning animated short film Logorama
.
Episode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...
of the first production season of 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 originally aired in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on November 14, 1999 as the fourth episode of the second broadcast season. The episode was directed by Ron Hughart
Ron Hughart
Ron Hughart is an American animation director. He has worked on several shows, including The Ren & Stimpy Show, Family Dog, Futurama and American Dad!.He also worked on Ren & Stimpy as a layout supervisor and timing director...
and written by Lewis Morton
Lewis Morton
Lewis Morton is an American television writer. He has written for several shows, including Saturday Night Live , NewsRadio and Futurama. He worked as a producer for Undeclared, but never authored any episodes...
. Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch, and V.I.P. She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in February 1990...
guest stars as the voice of one of the Slurm party girls.
Plot
The episode opens with an advertisement for Slurm, announcing a contest: whoever finds a golden bottlecap inside a marked can of Slurm wins a free trip to the Slurm plant on Wormulon, a tour of the Slurm Factory, as well as a party with the popular Slurm mascot, "the Original Party Worm" Slurms McKenzie. FryPhilip 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:...
resolves to find the bottlecap by drinking massive quantities of Slurm.
Bender is sick with a high fever
Fever
Fever is a common medical sign characterized by an elevation of temperature above the normal range of due to an increase in the body temperature regulatory set-point. This increase in set-point triggers increased muscle tone and shivering.As a person's temperature increases, there is, in...
(900°F); 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...
uses this as an excuse to test his experimental "F-ray", a flashlight-like device that enables the user to look through anything, even metal. The Professor is able to find out what is causing Bender's high fever; he reveals a watch that belongs to 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...
caught in one of Bender's cogs. After repairing Bender, the Professor leaves the F-ray in the custody of Fry and Bender. Fry realizes that they could use the F-ray to scan Slurm cans for the golden bottlecap. After checking "90,000" cans, they give up on finding the winning can. Fry settles in to relax with a Slurm and chokes on the winning bottle cap. He faints, but regains consciousness later.
The Planet Express crew arrives at Slurm Centralized Industrial Fabrication Unit on Wormulon. After meeting Slurms McKenzie, who is required by contract to party all night, every night, the crew takes a tour down a river of Slurm through the factory, and see the Grunka-Lunkas manufacture Slurm step by step and sing their songs. Fry tries to drink the Slurm from the river due to devastating thirst
Thirst
Thirst is the craving for fluids, resulting in the basic instinct of animals to drink. It is an essential mechanism involved in fluid balance. It arises from a lack of fluids and/or an increase in the concentration of certain osmolites, such as salt...
, but when he dives, he forgets he does not know how to swim. Leela dives in to save him, and Bender joins them because "Everybody else was doing it. I just wanted to be popular!". The three are sucked into a whirlpool and deposited in a cave under the factory.
They discover that the factory they toured was a fake. Making their way through the tunnels, they enter the real factory and discover Slurm's true nature: it is a secretion
Secretion
Secretion is the process of elaborating, releasing, and oozing chemicals, or a secreted chemical substance from a cell or gland. In contrast to excretion, the substance may have a certain function, rather than being a waste product...
from a giant worm
Worm
The term worm refers to an obsolete taxon used by Carolus Linnaeus and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck for all non-arthropod invertebrate animals, and stems from the Old English word wyrm. Currently it is used to describe many different distantly-related animals that typically have a long cylindrical...
, the Slurm Queen. They are discovered and captured by the worms. Bender is placed into a machine that would turn him into 174 metal Slurm cans. Leela is lowered by crane into a vat of royal Slurm which will turn her into a Slurm Queen, which leads to a conclusion of making billions (This is arrived at because Leela, as a commoner, will produce bad-tasting Slurm, which can be marketed as "New Slurm"
New Coke
New Coke was the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola...
. When it is universally hated, the original Slurm can be brought back). Fry is fed ultra-addictive "super-slurm", so that he cannot resist "eating until he explodes". Fortunately, Fry manages to drag the tub of super-slurm to the crane controls, so he can save Leela while continuing to drink the super-slurm, then Leela saves Bender slightly too late, leaving Bender with a hole through the side of his waist. Leela then saves Fry by dumping the super-slurm down a drainage grate
Storm drain
A storm drain, storm sewer , stormwater drain or drainage well system or simply a drain or drain system is designed to drain excess rain and ground water from paved streets, parking lots, sidewalks, and roofs. Storm drains vary in design from small residential dry wells to large municipal systems...
. However, she must drag Fry with her, since he has become so addicted to the "super-slurm" that he attempts to gnaw his own arms off in order to fit through the grate. They manage to escape, but are pursued by the Slurm Queen. Slurms McKenzie, exhausted from his years of partying, arrives and sacrifices himself to save Fry, Leela, his two super models, and Bender.
When they escape, the Slurm Queen bemoans that the company is ruined for the discovery of the secret; however, Fry is so addicted to Slurm that he keeps the nature of Slurm a secret, telling the government agent Professor Farnsworth contacted that "grampa's making up crazy stories again," so that it can continue to be produced. In the end, the entire Planet Express crew holds a toast to Slurms McKenzie and Slurm itself.
Broadcast and reception
In its initial airing, the episode placed 45th in the Nielsen ratings for primetime shows for the week of November 8–14, 1999.In 2006 IGN listed this episode as number three in their list of the top 25 Futurama episodes, also stating that this episode was the "most memorable" of the series.
Cultural references
The episode, including its title, is a parody of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate FactoryWilly Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is a 1971 musical film adaptation of the 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, directed by Mel Stuart, and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka. The film tells the story of Charlie Bucket as he receives a golden ticket and visits Willy...
, a movie adaptation of the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's book by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of the eccentric chocolatier, Willy Wonka....
by Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...
. The characters whom the factory paid to pretend to be workers, the Grunka Lunkas, resemble the Oompa Loompas from the film version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and the tour guide, Glurmo, also wears a Willy Wonka
Willy Wonka
This article is about the fictional character. For the candy company, see, The Willy Wonka Candy Company.Willy Wonka is a fictional character in the 1964 Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the film adaptations that followed. The book and the 1971 film adaption both vividly...
-like attire, and speaks in a Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder is an American stage and screen actor, director, screenwriter, and author.Wilder began his career on stage, making his screen debut in the film Bonnie and Clyde in 1967. His first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1968 film The Producers...
-like voice. Slurms McKenzie, the Slurm party slug, is a parody of Spuds MacKenzie
Spuds MacKenzie
Spuds MacKenzie was a fictional dog character created for use in an advertising campaign marketing Bud Light beer in the late 1980s. The dog first showed up in a Bud Light Super Bowl XXI ad in 1987...
, the Bud Light spokesdog.
The Slurm Queen is a reference to the Queen from Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
. The Alien Queen laid eggs from her tail, just like the Slurm Queen spits out slurm from her rear. Both also chase the protagonists from their lair back to the surface.
Professor Farnsworth's F-Ray reveals a 6502 microprocessor in Bender's head, a widely used CPU in home computers of the 1970s and early 1980s.
There is also a reference to Soylent Green
Soylent Green
Soylent Green is a 1973 American science fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer. Starring Charlton Heston, the film overlays the police procedural and science fiction genres as it depicts the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman in a dystopian future suffering from pollution,...
, when Leela talks about Soylent Cola, a soft drink made out of people.
The conspiracy theory surrounding New Coke
New Coke
New Coke was the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola...
is parodied when the Queen talks about releasing "New Slurm" for the sole reason of knowing that people will hate it so they can release "Slurm Classic" to great fanfare.
Slurm
Slurm posters were one of the first clues to deciphering the alien languages in the series and were meant to act in a manner similar to the Rosetta StoneRosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
for dedicated fans.
Slurm is also referenced in the Marvel Comics
Marvel Comics
Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...
title Young Avengers
Young Avengers
Young Avengers is an American comic book series written by Allan Heinberg and published by Marvel Comics. It follows a group of young superheroes, each of whom patterns themselves after a member of the long-established Marvel superhero team the Avengers....
written by Allan Heinberg
Allan Heinberg
Allan Heinberg is an American film screenwriter, who wrote Young Avengers for Marvel Comics, and has been a writer and producer on The Naked Truth, Party of Five, Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls, The O.C., and Grey's Anatomy.Heinberg's Young Avengers was a sales success for Marvel, though faced...
. In the Young Avengers Special, the character Hulkling
Hulkling
Hulkling is a fictional comic book superhero and a member of the Young Avengers, a team of superheroes in the Marvel Comics universe. Hulkling's character is patterned on the Hulk...
is shown attacking the Shocker
Shocker (comics)
The Shocker or just Shocker is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #46 and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist John Romita, Sr.-Fictional character biography:Herman Schultz was born in New York...
using a Slurm vending machine
Vending machine
A vending machine is a machine which dispenses items such as snacks, beverages, alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, consumer products and even gold and gems to customers automatically, after the customer inserts currency or credit into the machine....
.
Slurm's stylized logo is the first menu item seen in a KFC
KFC
KFC, founded and also known as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is a chain of fast food restaurants based in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States. KFC has been a brand and operating segment, termed a concept of Yum! Brands since 1997 when that company was spun off from PepsiCo as Tricon Global...
restaurant in the Academy Award winning animated short film Logorama
Logorama
Logorama is a 16-minute French animated film written and directed by H5/ François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain, and produced by Autour de Minuit. The film depicts events in a stylized Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2,500 contemporary and historical...
.
External links
- Fry and the Slurm Factory at TVSquad.com
- Fry and the Slurm Factory at The Infosphere.