History Recap / FuturamaS3E5TheBirdBotOfIceCatraz

* CallBack: Free Waterfall Jr. was the smelly hippy who got eaten by Lrrr in "The Problem with Popplers".

** As Free Waterfall, Sr. dies, his father Old Man Waterfall appears swearing to avenge his death.

* ContrivedCoincidence: The first "penguin" Leela shoots happens to be Bender, which reboots him back to human.

-->'''Leela:''' ''(witnessing the penguins maul Free Waterfall Sr. to death)'' They used to be such peaceful birds. I suppose this was your doing.

* DebateAndSwitch: See AnimalWrongsGroup above. Through outside forces, the penguin population explodes, which will eventually lead to their collective starvation. Hunting is then proposed by the activists to curb their population and save them from a miserable slow death. ''This'' can actually be TruthInTelevision, and there are many different beneficial [[note]]as well as detrimental[[/note]] outcomes to saving an animal population via selective killings. ''That said'', the activists inexplicably turn into bloodthirsty hunters the moment they get their hands on some guns, and get excited about the idea of murdering the very penguins they came to save. Naturally, Leela takes offense, not at the hard truth solution, but their ecstatic ''attitudes''. Leela delivers the episode’s Aesop outright ("[a tough decision like this] shouldn’t be in the hands of people who want to kill for fun."), and the hunters never get the chance to kill; nature works itself out and killer whales take care of the job by eating them.

* EpicFail: Somehow Fry and Zoidberg wind up getting attacked by a giant squid, not to mention "leaving space as [they] know it", looking for a robot who never left the planet they started on. Also the protesters' effort to stop the ''Juan Valdez''.

--->'''Leela:''' They used to be such peaceful birds. I suppose this was your doing.\\

* PolarPenguins: The icy planet Pluto became a preserve for penguins.
* PoliceAreUseless: URL and Smitty are Bender's assigned parole officers, but are too busy having a hug-fest to notice Bender's sneaking off.

** The killer whale beaching itself on the ice flow to devour the penguins is from the ending to ''Film/OrcaTheKillerWhale''.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Bender, surprising no-one, goes completely power-mad on being put in charge of the ship, and acts like he's some great military hero adorned with medals, despite Fry pointing out that they're just bottle-caps and pieces of pepperoni.

Bender crashes a tanker of dark matter into a penguin preserve on Pluto, and a concussion (brought about by his escape from community service) causes his software to change to penguin mode. Meanwhile, the dark matter has a serious effect on the penguins...

* ShownTheirWork: The episode depicts orcas hunting as in real life, by thrashing their prey around in water and throwing themselves onto ice floes to eat penguins.

** After Bender crashes the Tanker, we're led to believe that he is put in the jail cell, with Hyper-Chicken speaking to him about his community service. Before the camera zooms out to show that Hyper-Chicken is the one in the jail cell, after he mentions he is awaiting his trial for incompetence. While Bender then leaves the jail room.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Bender reboots in Leela's presence, he does so as human, despite Leela's long-standing belief that she's an alien. [[spoiler: Anyone who watches this again after ''[[Recap/FuturamaS4E2LeelasHomeworld Leela's Homeworld]]'' would know exactly why this happened.]]

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: The tanker crash is, naturally, based on the ''[=Exxon Valdez=]'' oil spill, the "go to" oil spill in fiction in TheNineties and early 2000s.

** The killer whale beaching itself on the ice flow to devour the penguins is from the ending to ''Orca''.

* PolarPenguins: The icy planet Pluto becomes a preserve for penguins.

* ProfessionalButtKisser: Zoidberg.

* BaitAndSwitch: While trying to run from the penguins, Leela and Bender reach a cliff edge with no easy way down. Cursing their lack of a toboggan, Leela is then seen eyeing up Bender as if contemplating riding him down the cliff. Cut to the next scene, showing Bender riding Leela like a sled.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Bender reboots in Leela's presence, he does so as human, despite Leela's long-standing belief that she's an alien.

* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: It's an entire episode devoted to penguins.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: Leela says that, with the windchill, "it's 20 below absolute zero" outside on Pluto. Absolute zero is the point at which all motion stops, so there'd be no way for wind to exist at that point. But since it's going [[UpToEleven below that point]], it's RuleOfFunny at work.

* {{Gasp}}: The environmentalist group gasps after each problem that Free Waterfall, Sr. says dark matter has caused. [[UpToEleven One man even becomes injured from "over-gasping"]].

* AbsenteeActor: Hermes and Amy are not in this episode.

'''Free Waterfall, Sr.:''' [[DidntThinkThisThrough No, I did not.]]

** Also, Free Waterfall Sr. didn't expect the Planet Express ship to fly ''over'' the peace ring that he and other protesters were in.

* GoingNative: After landing on his head, Bender reboots and adopts the language and eventually, the lifestyle of penguins.

* WhatAnIdiot:

* DidntThinkThisThrough: Bender corrupts the penguins into attacking anything that isn't also black and white... and then takes off his tuxedo, causing them to attack ''him''.

* TwoDSpace: Averted when the Penguins Unlimited protesters form a ring around the tanker to keep it from leaving, only for it to fly up over their heads. {{Lampshaded}} immediately afterwards.

* TwoDSpace: Averted when protesters form a ring around the tanker to keep it from leaving, only for it to fly up over their heads. {{Lampshaded}} immediately afterwards.

* AlcoholInducedIdiocy: Inverted: Bender, after going too long without a drink in depression from Fry's rejection of his captaincy, stupidly crashes the tanker on Pluto.

* AssShove: Free Waterfall, Sr. seems too obsessed with using "Nature's pocket" to keep things in.

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Free Waterfall, Sr. is a complete kook, who enjoys rubbing permafrost into his crotch, and holding his hands over his butt.

* DrunkWithPower: Unsurprisingly, Bender as Leela's substitute doesn't take too long to take his new position too far.

* TheEndOrIsIt: Two penguins find some abandoned rifles, and clumsily pick them up. We see them eyeing one another suspiciously, hear a gun cocking, cut to black.
* EpicFail: Somehow Fry and Zoidberg wind up getting attacked by a giant squid, not to mention "leaving space as [they] know it", looking for a robot who never left the planet they started on.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When Bender reboots by Leela, he does so as human, despite Leela's long-standing belief she's an alien.

* IdentityAmnesia: Bender, after hitting his head, starts thinking he's a penguin.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Waterfall may be a gun-toting redneck, but he is right in saying that overpopulation will eventually result in the penguins starving themselves to death.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: It's quite possible most of this would have been avoided if Leela had stayed in command of the ship, as she would have certainly taken more care while piloting it and may have avoided the whole accident.

-->'''Leela:''' (''witnessing the penguins maul Free Waterfall Sr. to death'') And they were such peaceful creatures...I suppose this was ''your'' doing.
-->'''Bender:''' You got it. Just like I taught them: "If it ain't black and white; Peck, scratch and bite."

-->'''Leela:''' They used to be such peaceful birds. I suppose this was your doing.\\

* FantasticRacism: Penguins look down on puffins. Bender is able to rally the penguins into running away by declaring standing still is "puffin talk".

* TheCorrupter: Bender manages to turn the penguins from innocent, harmless and docile, to violent, aggressive and xenophobic in mere moments:
-->'''Leela:''' (''witnessing the penguins maul Free Waterfall Sr. to death'') And they were such peaceful creatures...I suppose this was ''your'' doing.
-->'''Bender:''' You got it. Just like I taught them: "If it ain't black and white; Peck, scratch and bite."

* DebateAndSwitch: See AnimalWrongsGroup above. Through outside forces, the penguin population explodes, which will eventually lead to their collective starvation. Hunting is then proposed by the activists to curb their population and save them from a miserable slow death. ''This'' can actually be TruthInTelevision, and there are many different beneficial [[note]]as well as detrimental[[/note]] outcomes to saving an animal population via selective killings. ''That said'', the activists inexplicably turn into bloodthirsty hunters the moment they get their hands on some guns, and get excited about the idea of murdering the very penguins they came to save. Naturally, Leela takes offense, not at the hard truth solution, but their ecstatic ''attitudes''. Leela delivers the episode’s Aesop outright (“[a tough decision like this] shouldn’t be in the hands of people who want to kill for fun.”), and the hunters never get the chance to kill; nature works itself out and killer whales take care of the job by eating them.