History Recap / FuturamaS3E20Godfellas

** Don't expect recognition from others when you do the right thing. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

** If you do too much for others, they become overly reliant on you, and if you do too little people lose hope. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

-->'''Galactic Entity:''' Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

* DressedToPlunder: The SpacePirate captain dresses like a stereotypical sea pirate from the olden days: bicorne hat, ruffled shirt, eye patches over two of his three eyes, wooden pegs replacing three of his four legs, and parrots on three of his four shoulders.

'''Malachi:''' ''To radioactive vapor!;;

* AnAesop: If you do too much for others, they become overly reliant on you, and if you do too little people lose hope. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
* AstronomicZoom: The episode ends with one zooming out from Earth to the god-like entity in outer space.

--> '''Entity''': Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

-->'''Leela''': This is, by a ''wide'' margin, [[LampshadeHanging the least likely thing that has ever happened]].

--> '''Entity''': You were doing very well until everyone died.

-->'''Bender''': It was awful. I tried helping them. I tried not helping them but in the end, I couldn't do them any good.

%%* IgnoringBySinging:%%Quotes are not context.
%%-->'''Fry:''' You can't give up hope just because it's hopeless. You gotta hope even more and cover your ears and go, "Blah blah blah blah!"

-->'''Bender:''' ...Or a guy who burns down the bar for the insurance money!\\
'''Entity:''' Yes, if he makes it look like an electrical thing. If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

%%* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: This is how the God-entity Bender meets operates.

* NukeEm: The Shrimpkins gain access to Bender's nuclear stockpile. Their society goes downhill really quickly after that.
-->'''Malachi''': The time has come to convert the unbelievers!\\
'''Bender''': Convert them?\\
'''Malachi''': To radioactive vapor!

* ShootTheShaggyDog: Bender ultimately fails to provide proper guidance to the Shrimpkins, and they die out in a nuclear war.

** Bender drifting through space while the soundtrack plays Music/AlsoSprachZarathustra is a nod to Kubrick's ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''.

** The monks who search the universe for signs of a creator from a facility in a remote mountain calls to mind [[Literature/{{Discworld}} The Listeners]].

* KindnessBall: This is easily the most sympathetic Bender has been in any episode. He takes no malicious action, regrets even things that ''accidentally'' harm others, and at the end goes out of his way to help some people he never even met.

%%* KilledMidSentence: Malachi's son.%%Quotes are not context.
%%-->'''Son:''' Look, daddy! I'm hugging God! Maybe if I hug him ''real'' hard he'll save us from-[''radioactive shockwave vaporizes them'']

-->'''Leela''': This is, by a ''wide'' margin, [[LampshadeHanging the least likely thing that has ever happened.]]

* GeniusLoci: God is a sentient galaxy.
* AGodAmI: Bender gets to have this experience.

* GodlySidestep: ''Godfellas'' is this trope in compact-episode form. Bender becomes a god, fails horribly, meets something that ''might'' be (or have been) God, and then proceeds to learn the ultimate godly lesson:

* HiddenDepths[=/=]PetTheDog: Bender tries very hard to be compassionate and merciful towards his Shrimpkin followers, in stark contrast to how he usually treats people. Unfortunately his thoughtlessness in attempting to perform miracles leads to the Shrimpkin getting wiped out.
* IgnoringBySinging:
-->'''Fry:''' You can't give up hope just because it's hopeless. You gotta hope even more and cover your ears and go, "Blah blah blah blah!"
* KillEmAll: Those poor Shrimpkins.
* KilledMidSentence: Malachi's son.
-->'''Son:''' Look, daddy! I'm hugging God! Maybe if I hug him ''real'' hard he'll save us from-[''radioactive shockwave vaporizes them'']
* KindnessBall: This is easily the most sympathetic Bender has been in any episode. He takes no malicious action, regrets even thing that ''accidentally'' harm others, and at the end goes out of his way to help some people he never even met.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: This is how the God-entity Bender meets operates.

-->'''Malachi''': The time has come to convert the unbelievers!
-->'''Bender''': Convert them?
-->'''Malachi''': To radioactive vapor!

* PhysicalGod: Bender is this to the Shrimpkins.

* PstandardPsychicPstance: The Gypsy FortuneTeller does this at one point.

* SpacePirates. They're pirates, but, you know, in space.

** The idea that "God" might have been "the remains of a space probe that collided with God" is very likely a callout to the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "The Changeling", which focused on a space probe that collided with an alien craft and became a near-godlike entity.

* LampshadeHanging: Leela's line under ContrivedCoincidence, which the DVDCommentary admits was their way of side-stepping the unlikeliness of it (and Matt Groening calls "hanging a lantern").

!!Tropes

* AnAesop: If you do too much for others, they become overly relient on you, and if you do too little people lose hope. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

--> '''Entity''': Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

* ParodyNames: The episode title is a pun on ''Film/GoodFellas''.

** [[Film/{{Goodfellas}} The episode title]].