Recap / Futurama S 3 E 11 Insane In The Mainframe

Bender's Humor by Microsoft Joke

Fry and Bender are accused of robbing a bank. Unwilling to rat out the real criminal and get shanked, the two plead insanity and are sentenced to three months in an insane asylum for robots.^note Fry would have gone to an insane asylum for humans, but an amendment was created that ruled poverty as a mental illness, which led to all the human insane asylums becoming overpopulated While Bender enjoys himself, Fry is "cured" of his delusions of being human.

Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: Assuming Roberto's Freak Out is any indication, his "mother" welded him to the wall frequently. However, we find out later in Bender's Game that he was designed to be insane and probably had the memories of his abuse pre-installed.
• Affably Evil: Roberto is always either this, Laughably Evil or both at once.
• Alone with the Psycho: Fry is forced to share a cramped space with Roberto, the insane robot who got him stuck in the asylum to begin with.
• Asshole Victim: Dr. Perceptron, who falsely diagnosed Fry as an insane robot and refused to heed his insistence that he's human, is later killed by Roberto.^note He does appear in "Bender's Game", though, so he may have been uploaded into a new body via a typical robot backup unit.
• Bait-and-Switch: As Fry pleads with the Planet Express crew to free him, the Professor responds that he once spent a nightmarish time in a robot asylum... but now it's nearly over.
• Bank Robbery: The plot starts when Roberto robs a bank and frames Fry and Bender for it. What makes it funny is that he robs the same bank three times.
• Barrier-Busting Blow: Roberto bursts the laser-proof pane at the bank with his fist and tries to stab the police officers behind it.
• Beautiful Dreamer: The group watches Fry sleeping after his binge.
  Amy: Awww, he looks like a little insane drunken angel.
• Bedlam House: The HAL Institute is this for Fry, but it is an aversion otherwise. It is clear from Bender's reluctance to leave and Malfunctioning Eddy's recovery that when the patients are supposed to be there it is a great facility.
• Big "WHAT?!": Saying one is what usually gets Malfunctioning Eddie to explode.
• Call a Human a "Meatbag": During his robotic delusion, Fry calls Leela a "bossy meat creature".
• Cassandra Truth: Fry just can't get anyone at the asylum to believe he's a human.
• Caught Up in a Robbery: Fry and Bender get caught up in a bank robbery being committed by Roberto. The interactions between the three kicks off the main plot.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Fry-the-"robot" throws Leela's wrench away and tries to work on the ship himself, he puts oil under his armpits and then tucks the oil can into his jacket's inner pocket. This later saves his life when Roberto tries to stab him in the heart and the oil can absorbs the blow, with the benefit of making him appear to have oil instead of blood, convincing Roberto that Fry is a robot.
• Circling Birdies: Invoked with the birds flying around the sculpture in front of the HAL Institute.
• Convenient Escape Boat: During their escape, Roberto and Bender come across a boat parked by the river. They board it and it immediately sinks.
• Conveniently Cellmates: At the asylum, Fry ends up in a cell with Roberto.
• Defensive "What?": Said by Bender when the rest of Planet Express reacts in disgust after he reveals he carries a human heart inside him.
• Destination Defenestration: Roberto throws himself out of a window when attacked by "battle-droid" Fry.
• Didn't Think This Through: Roberto keeps trying to rob the same bank; while he got away the first time due to successfully framing Fry and Bender, he's caught when he tries again, and has to run from the police after trying a third time.
• Dope Slap:
  Leela: I'm going to remind Fry of his humanity the way only a woman can.
  Farnsworth: You're going to do his laundry?
  [Amy slaps him.]
• Dressed to Heal: In response to Fry's robotic delusion, Zoidberg notes that imagining being a doctor doesn't make him one. His white lab coat does.
• Electric Torture: Dr. Perceptron administers electroshocks to Fry at his office in order to "relax" him. It may actually work on robots, but for Fry it's a painful experience.
• Epic Fail:
  • Fry tries to assist Hermes with his work. He immediately asks Hermes what a plus sign is.
  • Bender and Roberto go into a barn, steal a plane, fly the plane out the barn, make a loop, and crash it into the same barn.
  • Smitty and URL try to stop Roberto from robbing the bank a third time while standing behind a pane of laser-proof glass. Roberto easily smashes through it with his knife, after which they shoot at him with their laser rifles. Naturally, the lasers bounce right off and nearly kill them.
• Failed a Spot Check: The HAL Institute's physical examination somehow isn't able to tell Fry is human.
• First Injury Reaction: Fry's broken-in delusions of being a robot give him the will to fend off Roberto, but the robot manages to cut his arm. As a result, it is seeing the blood coming out of it which convinces Fry that he's human all along, since robots aren't able to bleed that way.
• Funny X-Ray: The gamma-ray scan at the asylum shows a bat flying around in Bender's torso and gastric acid building up in Fry's stomach; the latter gurgles up into a burp, which Bender finds offensive.
• Gaslighting: Fry starts to think he's a robot after weeks of being convinced he was one in the asylum.
• Go Among Mad People: Fry and Bender are still sane when they get institutionalized and meet all the mad robots.
• Gone Horribly Right: The robot asylum wanted to make Fry stop thinking he was a human. They succeeded.
• Hanging Judge: Judge Whitey, who presides over Bender and Fry's trial, at one point ruled that poverty was a mental illness (causing every human asylum on the planet to be filled to capacity) and wanted to pronounce the pair guilty simply because he had a ham and mayonnaise sandwich waiting for him in his mansion.
• Hope Spot:
  • Leela attempts to cure Fry of his robot delusions "the way only a woman can": by giving him a long kiss on the lips. As Fry slowly smiles, Leela smiles back, clearly thinking it worked... and then Fry just says "Beep", to her exasperation.
  • When Dr. Perceptron opens the cell door and announces, "You are released", Fry is overjoyed but then it turns out it was his cellmate Malfunctioning Eddie who got released.
• Horrifying the Horror: Fry defeats Roberto because his attacks don't phase him, which ultimately starts to freak him out.
• Hostage Situation: Roberto takes the heroes hostage. Fry comes to their rescue.
• Improvised Weapon: Roberto uses the laser-proof glass pane from the bank to shield himself against incoming police fire.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • Judge Whitey's amendment that poverty is a mental illness.
  • Why the doctor at the robot asylum refuses to listen to Fry's insistence that he's human — if he was a human, why is he in an asylum for robots?
• Insanity Defense: The Hyper-Chicken uses it for Fry and Bender, using the fact that they hired an incompetent lawyer like him to defend them.
• Intimate Healing: Defied. Leela kisses him on the lips to try and heal him of his delusions. It at first seems to work, until...
  Fry: Beep.
  Leela: Oh come on!
• I Want My Mommy!: Roberto calls out for his mommy when "battle-droid" Fry prepares to wipe the floor with him (or so he thinks).
• Karma Houdini Warranty:
  • While Roberto managed to get away with robbery the first time by framing Fry and Bender, he is later forced to go the asylum since he didn't have anyone to hide behind during the second robbery. That didn't make Fry's situation any less comforting though. He later gets his comeuppance again when Fry scares him and gets Roberto arrested again.
  • It seems as if Dr. Perceptron will get no comeuppance for how poorly he runs the asylum along with what he did to Fry. Later in the episode, Roberto kills and skins him to disguise himself.
• Kill It with Fire: Fry, in an effort to be helpful, throws Hermes' calculator, a gift from his wife, into the incinerator, as well as a wrench Leela was using.
• Kissed Keepsake: Parodied at the end. After Leela kisses Fry's cheek, he declares, "I'm gonna continue never washing this cheek again."
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When Fry comes to believe he is a battle-droid and goes after Roberto, who's taken his friends hostage.
• Madness Makeover: To go with his Sanity Slippage, Fry becomes much paler, messes up his hair, grows stubble and becomes extremely jittery and sweaty.
• Manipulative Editing: The surveillance camera footage from the bank presented at court only shows Roberto sharing his loot with Bender and Fry and ignores all that came before.
• Marshmallow Hell: At one point, Leela presses Fry's face into her chest which makes his "robotic" heart pound faster.
• Mistaken for Insane: Bender and Fry's lawyer pleads insanity after they're framed for a murder case, so Bender and Fry are sent to a robot institution. Fry tries to convince everybody that he's not actually a robot, but they assume he's just delusional. Eventually, his spirit is so broken down that he actually becomes delusional, believing he's a robot.
• Mood-Swinger: Roberto, being as he is completely insane, can go from calm and genial to psychotically mad at the drop of a hat.
• Mugged for Disguise: Roberto presumably kills Dr. Perceptron in order to escape the asylum in his outfit.
• Napoleon Delusion: One of the things Bender does while in the Robot Asylum. According to him, there's a ratio of two Lincolns for every Napoleon.
• No Sympathy:
  • Only one person shows any real regard for Fry's well-being in the asylum as well as after he is released, and that's Leela. To a lesser extent, Amy shows some sympathy by making it clear that Bender should be more ashamed of himself than usual for not helping Fry.
  • The worst offender is of course Bender, who never once tries to help Fry when they're both stuck in the asylum even though it's clear that the facility is incredibly dangerous for the latter and he is close to starvation.
• Not Helping Your Case: The Hyper-Chicken accidentally presents evidence against his own clients. He even explicitly notes it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Even Zoidberg won't eat sandwiches from Fry's... "compartment".
• Ow, My Body Part!: Fry and Bender are sent away to the asylum in a cardboard box that's rolled vertically out of the room.
  Fry: Ow, my head! Ow, my feet! Ow, my head! Ow, my feet!
  Prof. Farnsworth: Keep your chin up.
  Fry: Ow, my chin!
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Roberto is among the audience at court, disguised only with a fake beard.
• Pocket Protector: Fry survives being stabbed because the knife hit an oil can inside his jacket. The oil leaking out makes Roberto think that Fry really is a robot.
• Police Are Useless: Zigzagged. The police don't manage to catch Roberto the first time he robs the bank, but they do the second time. Then, the third time, they fail to catch him despite knowing he was going to rob it and waiting for him.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Roberto, who can't seem to go more than a few seconds without trying to stab someone or something.
• Robotic Psychopath: Roberto is a dangerously insane robotic serial killer, although he insists that he's just not user-friendly.
• Rule of Three: Roberto tries to rob the same bank three times.
• Sanity Slippage: Fry, due to his time in the asylum. This is in part due to him essentially being given electroshock therapy^note Electrical charges are used in the asylum to help robots relax, but since Fry is human... and him being forced to share a cramped room first with Malfunctioning Eddie, and then with Roberto. He eventually snaps completely and becomes convinced that he is a robot after all.
• Ship Tease: Leela is quite touchy with Fry when he's suffering a breakdown at the institution, and when he's deluded himself into being a robot, she attempts to snap him out of it by kissing him passionately on the lips. Granted, she also admits elsewhere in the episode that there are many reasons human women wouldn't want to date Fry.
• Shout-Out:
  • The HAL Institute is named after HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  • One of the insane robots is based on the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. Another is housemaid Rosie from The Jetsons.
  • The scenes inside the asylum spoof One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. There is even a Nurse Ratched look-alike as well as some of the patients look like the characters from the movie like Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd.
• Smooch of Victory: Leela kisses Fry on the cheek as thanks for him saving the rest of the crew from Roberto. He regards said cheek as a Kissed Keepsake.
• Split Personality: A robot Abraham Lincoln is in the HAL Institute because he has multiple personalities... all of them Lincoln.
  Lincoln Robot: I was born in 200 log cabins.
• Stock Money Bag: During the first Bank Robbery, the clerks hand out money to Roberto in medium-sized sacks.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Malfunctioning Eddie has developed an exploding problem. And he's Fry's roommate.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Bender and Roberto escape the asylum, they jump into a wooden rowboat and break through it because robots are heavy.
• Take Me Instead: Averted for laughs, and currently provides the page quote.
  Leela: Take me first!
  Bender: Yes! Take her first!
• Toilet Humour: During the bank robbery, Roberto finds Fry hiding behind a potted plant, and tells him to stop watering it.
• Unexplained Recovery: Malfunctioning Eddie explodes several times in this episode. Of course, he is a robot, so it's likely he just gets rebuilt each time.
• Unrobotic Reveal: Fry comes to his senses from his robotic delusion after seeing the blood on his arm.
• Upper-Class Twit: Judge Whitey is so ludicrously upper class and out of touch that he needed to have the concept of a bank explained to him by his caddy-chauffeur.
• Varying Competency Alibi: Hyper-Chicken, asks that Fry and Bender be declared innocent by reason of insanity... and presents the fact that they hired him to represent them as proof and therefore aren't capable of robbing a bank. This actually works, getting them sent to a robot insane asylum.
• Villain Ball: Roberto robs the same bank three times. The first time was apparently just to case the joint and rob it a little.
• Villainous Breakdown: Roberto undergoes one when he's attacked by Fry.
• Wrongfully Committed: A more extreme example. After pleading insane, Fry is sentenced to the human mental asylum. But after hearing they're full, the judge sends Fry to the robot mental asylum.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Fry, when he believes he's a robot, keeps saying "ye". Hermes calls him on it.
  Hermes: Robots don't say "ye". Quit thinking you're a robot!
  Fry: I'll show ye...

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