Recap / Futurama S 4 E 8 Crimes Of The Hot

Known to cause insanity in laboratory mice

Global warming is getting worse,^note While "Xmas Story" revealed that nuclear winter had neutralized global warming, that was probably temporary. and when the usual solution of getting ice from Haley's Comet fails, a science conference is held. There it's discovered that the greenhouse effect was increased by a robot design of Professor Farnsworth!

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Tropes:

• Accidental Public Confession: As Bender says goodbye to his turtle, he tells it that Nixon is about to destroy all the robots, while a boom-mike robot is dangling over him. All the robots hear, causing a panic.
• Adorably Precocious Child: Parodied with the little girl in the Professor's video on global warming.
  Video Guy: You're probably wondering why your ice cream melted. It's because of global warming.
  Litle Girl: Globu Wobu?
  Guy: Uh... right.
  
  Guy: We cool the Earth using giant ice cubes.
  Little Girl: Just like daddy puts in his drink for breakfast! And then he gets mad.
• Animate Inanimate Object: At the robot party, Bender decides to have a drink to cheer himself up before the robots are deactivated, only to find no alcohol will come out of the keg, thinking it's been tapped out...until he discovers it's actually a robot. The kegbot asks Bender to keep pushing on his pump, invokedmuch to Bender's disgust.
• Artistic License – Chemistry: The metals in Bender's body would react with chlorine, but not until they're heated red hot.
• Artistic License – Geology: The ice cube "solution" to global warming actually worsens one major effect of global warming: the ice cube melts, increasing sea levels, which cause the flooding of coastal areas.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Bait-and-Switch Suicide: Professor Farnsworth putting a raygun to his head after lamenting over being the cause of global warming. Fry thinks Farnsworth is going to shoot himself in the head, but it turns out the gun is a memory ray that he needs in order to jog his memories of how he caused global warming.
  • As Bender is heading off to the doomed robot party, he tells everyone not to touch his stuff after he's dead. After he leaves the room, he calls out "It's booby-trapped!".
• Berserk Button:
  • Morbo loses his shit when Linda suggests the windmills will cool down the turtles.
    Linda: I'm sure those windmills will keep them cool.
    Morbo: WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!
  • Quoth Bender, no one insults the turtles.
• Big "WHAT?!": The boom-mike's reaction to overhearing Bender say that all the robots were about to be deactivated.
• Blatant Lies: When the crew is trying to coax Bender out of his chest with a beer and grab his arm to pull him out, Bender claims he doesn't even want the beer... except his other hand has grabbed a hold of the bottle and is pulling harder.
• The Cameo: Pretty much every robot throughout the show's history appears at the party. Roberto appears, trying to stab the robot shot by the Robot Mafia for not paying his loans, Bender stands on Boxy to address the other robots on the island, even the Robot Devil is there.
• Compressed Vice: Bender can't get up if he falls on his back, even though he fell in previous episodes and easily got back up. It's Hand Waved as Bender being slightly on his side every other time.
• Dance Party Ending: Robot Party Week! Except the robots are still polluting everything, meaning the crew start choking up.
• Death Seeker: For the sake of the turtles, Bender was willing to allow himself to be destroyed in order to stop global warming.
• A Degree in Useless: When scientists are being called to the global warming conference, this exchange occurs.
  Homeopathic Doctor: I have a degree in homeopathic medicine.
  Civil Defense Van: You've got a degree in baloney! [Hoses down doctor]
• Description Cut: The Professor's exposition about being "pressured" by Mom to design a more efficient robot, followed by her beating his head against a table.
• "Eureka!" Moment: When Nixon invites all the robots on earth to a supposed party, Zoidberg realizes that it's a trap in order to shut down all the robots. Subverted in that everyone figured it out already.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • As much as Bender likes living, he admits that the robots must die. Especially Hedonism Bot.
  • Also, Bender's line about he's willing to kill for money, in the name of vengeance, and for Father O'Malley's weed-whacker, but the turtle is something he's willing to die for.
• Everybody Knew Already: When Bender receives Nixons invitation to a party for all robots at a remote location, Zoidberg voices out loud a deduction that it's a trap to shut down all the robots. Nobody reacts and, when he asks why, is bluntly informed by Leela that everyone already figured that out, to his dejection.
• Everyone Has Standards: The normally apathetic Professor is feeling guilty that Mom's pressure on him lead to polluting robots, and that Nixon will therefore commit mass genocide.
• Exposition Beam: Prof. Farnsworth makes himself remember by shooting himself with a memory ray.
• Fartillery: The robots save themselves by venting out enough gas to move the Earth off its orbit. Bender's exhaust is on his hindquarters, and it's twice as powerful as the others'.
• Final Solution:
  • Richard Nixon's Head attempts to commit genocide on all the robots of Earth by tricking them into attending a party on the Galapagos Islands so he could exterminate them all there. His reason for doing this was to provide a quick solution to the global warming problem but his actions are considered to be an act of genocide.
  • Ogden Wernstrom also helps Nixon attempt the genocide on the robots, and first proposed the idea.
• Flipping Helpless: Bender saves a turtle because, just like it, he's unable to get up if placed on his back. (All the times he did before he was slightly on his side.) In the climax, Bender finds himself on his back, but then he sees the turtle flip himself upright, which gives him the incentive to right himself up again.
  Bender: I'm even greater than I thought I was!
• Foreshadowing: In Farnsworth's flashback, he mentions that the robots' flaming burp "isn't always a burp." In the climax, while all of the other robots are belching out their exhaust as hard as possible, Bender give them an extra push by venting out of his ass.
• Graceful Loser: Nixon takes the Planet Express crew thwarting his attempting to deactivate all the robots in stride, even presenting the Professor with an award for his plan. Justified as they did end up solving global warming.^note It was only temporary, however, as the robots were allowed to keep polluting. Luckily, "Robot 1-X" fixed it.
• Green Aesop: Though it's mocking, the episode is fairly sincere in how it treats the importance of protecting the environment.
• Handwave: Bender's explanation for how his "vulnerability" has never come up before.
• The Hedonist: Hedonism Bot.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Bender is willing to die for the turtles to live.
• I Sense a Disturbance in the Force: When all the robots are seconds away from being extinguished, Farnsworth says the 'Jedis' will really feel that one.
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: Defied by Bender, who told the rest of the Planet Express members to keep their hands off his stuff after he was gone...because it was booby trapped.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Farnsworth does this twice at the conference:
  Farnsworth: I won't speak! I've got nothing to hide!
  Al Gore: Our next speaker is—
  Farnsworth: I DEMAND THE FLOOR!
  [later, once he has the floor...]
  Farnsworth: I know the source of the greenhouse gases, but in my shame I've kept it secret for 65 long years. Oh, it haunts my memory still! [holds a raygun to his head]
  Fry: Professor, no! Don't do it!
  Farnsworth: Don't do what? Don't use this memory ray so I can remember what happened back then?
• Land of Tulips and Windmills: Morbo and Linda report on a turtle migration to Holland.
  Morbo: Morbo wishes these stalwart nomads peace among the Dutch tulips.
  Linda: I'm sure those windmills will keep them cool.
  Morbo: WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!
• Large Ham: Al Gore's Head's introduction.
  Al Gore: I HAVE RIDDEN THE MIGHTY MOON WORM!
  • Also, Morbo, Spiro Agnew's headless body, and especially Hedonism Bot.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The robots when they hear they will be killed.
• Morality Pet: The turtle, for Bender.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Twice, Bender interrupts his speech to single out Hedonism Bot as being worse than anyone else.
  Hedonism Bot: I apologize for nothing!
• Nasty Party: Nixon and Wernstrom's plan to destroy all the robots is to lure them to a wild party on the Galapagos Islands and fire a powerful EMP at it.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Professor is responsible for the design of all modern robots, having skimped on the budget due to laziness and... other reasons.
• No Sympathy: Preacher-Bot gives not one damn about the robots endangering the turtles, much to Bender's ire.
• No-Sell: Roberto is shown trying to stab the loaner robot from "Bender Gets Made", to no effect. Because, y'know. Robots.
• Noah's Story Arc: Due to flooding in one city, Randy Munchnik built and loaded it with two of every animal...only for his partner to point out that he filled it with same-sex couples.
  Randy: Hey, there are parts of the Bible I like, and parts I don't like!
• Obviously Evil: Nixon's invitation to the party. See if you can spot his intentions:
  Do you like to party? To boogie down? Well, I'm throwing an all-night beach rager for my robot pals, and it all goes down this Saturday, on the isolated Galapagos Islands, where there will be no escape... from the fun! ALL ROBOTS MUST ATTEND.
• Oh, Crap!: This is Wernstrom's reaction when the giant mirror he placed in orbit to reflect the sun's rays gets knocked by a small asteroid and ends up reflecting a concentrated beam of sunlight through the auditorium.
• Planetary Relocation: Global warming caused by robot emissions leads Nixon to gather all robots to the Galapagos Islands in order to kill them with an EM blast. In order to both save them and solve the problem of global warming, Farnsworth has all the robots vent their exhaust upwards to physically move the Earth out of the way and into a larger orbit, thus cooling it (and also extending the year by a week).
• Puff of Logic: Bender initially chuckles at the others for being knocked out by Nibbler belching chlorine, but then realizes what chlorine does to metal and immediately rusts over.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Generally voluntary played for laugh in Futurama, but this one is probably an accidental one resulting from an animation error. While all the scientists are gathered in Kyoto, Japan, Wernstrom launches a solar mirror who darkened the sky above them. When we see the mirror from Space at the same time, he is shadowing the Isthmus of Panama. No, even at the entire Earth scale, the Japanese archipelago and Central America aren't close to each other.
• Shout-Out:
  • Al Gore's Head has acquired the rights to Harry Potter, leading to invokedhis more popular successor to Earth in the Balance, Harry Potter and the Balance of Earth.
  • The Dark Wizard at the scientific conference looks an awful lot like Tim from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • To coax Bender out of hiding, Leela takes a beer and asks, "Will you do it for a Bender snack?"
  • All of the Professor's early designs for robots were apparently similar to C-3PO (voiced by Billy West doing a spot-on Anthony Daniels impression while talking into a coffee can). Also counts as Death by Cameo.
  • Also see I Sense a Disturbance in the Force above.
  • The educational film about global warming is titled None Like It Hot.
  • A robot's emotional reaction to a helpless turtle is a shout-out to the first scene of Blade Runner.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • When they discover that Halley's Comet has no more ice to cool the Earth with, Bender notes that "This could be the end of the banana daiquiri as we know it! Also life."
  • When the robots are panicking because Nixon is about to destroy them, the Chain-Smoker is more upset that Nixon isn't coming back with cigarettes like he said.
• Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Wernstrom's plan to stop global warming is to divert 40% of the sun's heat with a giant orbiting mirror. A small piece of space debris moves the mirror so that it shoots a concentrated beam of light through the city. Wernstrom later modifies it to fire a EMP blast at the Galapagos Islands to destroy all the robots.
• Spotting the Thread: Zoidberg points all the reasons why Nixon's invitation is a trap, only for everyone to have already figured it out.
• Take That!:
  • When the call goes out for scientists, one rushes up declaring he has a degree in Homeopathic Medicine. The van tells him he's "got a degree in baloney". Also the degree is from The Evergreen State College, Matt Groening's alma mater.
  • The crew make it to Halley's Comet, only to find...
    Fry: My God! It's out of ice! Like some outer space Motel 6.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: After Bender declares he will die for the turtles.
  Fry: Bender, this world isn't good enough for you.
  Bender: Not even close.

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