Mother's Day

This article is about the episode. For the holiday, see Mother's Day (holiday).

Season 2 episode
Mother's Day
No.	27
Production number	2ACV14
Written by	Lewis Morton
Directed by	Brian Sheesley
Title caption	Larva-tested, pupa-approved
First air date	14 May, 2000
Broadcast number	S02E19
Title reference	The holiday of the same name
Opening cartoon	"Bold King Cole" (1936)
Additional
Commentary (Transcript) Transcript Pictures
Season 2
I Second that Emotion Brannigan, Begin Again A Head in the Polls Xmas Story Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love? The Lesser of Two Evils Put Your Head on My Shoulders Raging Bender A Bicyclops Built for Two A Clone of My Own How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back The Deep South Bender Gets Made Mother's Day The Problem with Popplers Anthology of Interest I War Is the H-Word The Honking The Cryonic Woman ← Season 1 Season 3 →

"Mother's Day" is the twenty-seventh episode of Futurama, the fourteenth of the second production season and the nineteenth of the second broadcast season. It aired on 14 May, 2000, on Fox. On Mother's Day, Mom initiates a takeover of Earth, with her control of the robots, the Planet Express crew along with her sons launch a mission to stop her by getting her back with her old love, the Professor.

The Story

Act I: "It's just what I wanted!"

It is Mother's Day on Earth, an occasion for robots to buy presents for Mom as she is responsible for their existence. Bender has acquired a whole hover-cart full of presents, a sentient greeting card among them, which Fry and Leela reluctantly help carry to Mom's Friendly Robot Company. There they find a gathering of almost every robot in existence, waiting for their chance to praise and congratulate Mom. After unloading the gifts, they all visit the Robot Museum until it is time for the celebration, when Bender leaves. Meanwhile, Mom has a plan how to take over the Earth: all her robots have antennas, so they can receive the signal for her Universal Robot Controller, a remote control that controls every robot in existence. At the celebration, she pushes the button Rebel, and the robots mount a fierce rebellion, demanding that Mom be made Supreme Overlord of Earth.

Act II: "Mom keeps the remote control in her bra?"

At the Planet Express building, the crew notice that the various robotic household items are refusing to cooperate. Fry is attacked by the coffee machine, Leela is having troubles with the toaster, Hermes is being chased by his stapler, while Amy is having difficulties with her hairdryer. The TV reports that the machines of Earth are rebelling, Bender drops by to inform the crew that he will join the protesters. All the machines in the building leave, including the Planet Express ship and Leela's Wristlojackimator, and the power fails as well. Meanwhile, the machines are wreaking havoc on New New York, and Mom is extremely pleased with it. Asked why she is letting civilization collapse, she answers that Mother's Day always puts her in a bad mood, as the only man she ever loved walked out on her that day. Walt, Larry and Igner find out her lost love was Professor Farnsworth, and decide to take action. The Planet Express crew have adapted to the conditions, they have lit a fire in the lounge and Zoidberg is acting as a freelance can opener, when Mom's sons approach them and ask the Professor to get together with Mom again. Farnsworth tells the story of their love, and that they split up exactly seventy years ago on account of his invention, Q. T. McWhiskers, which Mom wanted to use on the Intergalactic Arms market instead of as a toy, as Farnsworth intended. The only way to make Mom happy again is for Farnsworth to return to her, or at least fake doing so in order to reach the remote control she keeps in her bra.

Act III: "Is this what human mating looks like?"

Because all hover cars are rebelling, Fry decides to reinvent the wheel so that the crew plus Mom's sons can get to Mom's cabin in the Bronx. The cart is poorly designed, with wheels that are ellipses instead of circles. Also lacking any propulsion, Fry is forced to pull the cart and its passengers to the Bronx. Once there, the Professor does his best to seduce Mom in order to get at the remote control, but then the situation gets out of control. As the crew grows impatient, especially with robots appearing and trying to kill them all, they flee into the cabin. There they find Mom and the Professor in a post-coital state. Mom is so happy that she decides to end the revolt. Everyone begins to search for Mom's bra, which has the remote in it, eventually locating it hanging on a fan. The fan is reluctant to give it back, as it too is robotic, when Bender and the Greeting Card crash the scene. Mom asks Bender to return the remote, but Bender refuses as she asked him to rebel and proceeds to drink the champagne that the Professor brought. The Greeting Card wants to stop him from drinking, as in the new robot paradise there will be no alcohol. This forces Bender to become a counter-revolutionary and dispose of the card. He manages to return the remote control in time to Mom, who ends the rebellion. Unfortunately, Mom finds out that the whole action was just a plan to get to her remote, and she breaks up with Farnsworth again. Everything turns back to normal, apart from the Albino Shouting Gorillas that Farnsworth has bred to scream his love for Mom from the rooftop of Planet Express.

Reception

This episode was subject to censorship by Pick TV.

Additional Info

June - 2007 Calendar

Trivia

• Signs held by the Mother's Day celebrators include:
  • "CHR$(77)=>"Many Things She Gave Me"", meaning "M is for the Many Things She Gave Me"
  • "Repeat {LOVE MOM} while 1>0;", meaning to repeat Love Mom, as long as one is greater than 0.
• The Mother's Day cards are processed into Orphanage Grade Toilet Paper, after a cash magnet removes any money.
• A Betamax tape player is present at Mom's address.
• The Universal Robot Controller's buttons are labeled as follows:
  • Give Gifts
  • Tidy Up World
  • Rebel
  • Serve Man (Regular)
  • Serve Man (Ironic)
• Signs held by robot protesters include
  • Mom for overlord
  • File Deletion Is Murder
  • Metallic Is Beautiful
  • You can't hug a child with human arms
• Protesters chant "Hey Hey, Ho Ho, 100110", which would be binary for the ampersand (&).
• Practically every robot on the show has an appearance here, even some unknown ones like Destructor's green brother.
• The soup can that Fry tries to open in vain (and that Zoidberg has no problem with) is labeled Quantum Leek and looks a lot like the Campbell soup cans pictured by Andy Warhol.
  • Quantum Leek being a reference to the television show "Quantum Leap".
• During the robot revolt, a robotic garbage can throws itself through the window of "Sal's Pizza", a homage to Do the Right Thing.
• This is one of the few occasions we see a Suicide Booth again.
• On Walt's precious "non-computerized map", the locations are:
  • Mom's Cabin
  • Unknown Territories
  • Isle of Rikers (referencing Rikers Island)
  • Here There Be Tygers (referencing Ray Bradbury's short story of the same name)
  • Cloakwood Forest (referencing The Forgotten Realms)
• Fry's choice of canned champagne is named "Fermento".
• Most of the greeting card's call to arms mirror the preachings of the The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.
• Some of the robots appear to be burning punch cards, which echoes the practice of Draft-card burning as a protest against the Vietnam War. Punch cards were originally used in 19th century looms, but became ubiquitous in computer programming and data storage through much of the 20th century, and were often seen as a symbol of soulless computerized bureaucracy.

Quotes

Goofs

• It's hard to believe the wheel is completely forgotten in the future, because we can see one in the Academy of Inventors' logo.
  • Also, how could the wheel be forgotten, with thousands of preserved heads in jars from the era when wheels were used?
  • It is possible that the wheel has become obsolete and the only ones, besides preserved heads, who know about it view it as a quaint reminder of a previous era also in "The Lesser of Two Evils" Fry drives a car and in "Bendin' in the Wind" Fry drives a Volkswagen.
  • It is also possible that wheels are known in the future, and perhaps even used on rare occasions, but that the name "wheel" has been lost to history. Leela does recognize that Fry's cart would be more efficient if its wheels were round, which suggests some familiarity with the concept of the wheel and its mechanics.
• Mom states she last saw Farnsworth seventy years ago, which is impossible as Farnsworth fathered her son who appears to be in his thirties.
  • She may be as senile as the Professor.
  • Of course, a more likely explanation was that Hubert's siring of Igner was an idea that came later and was not part of the original ideas for the series (despite claims to the contrary).
• When the rebellion ends and the Slurm machine yells "Free soda to all humans!", the cans it dispenses are open.
• Though Mom's cabin is supposed to be in The Bronx, the non-computerized map shows the cabin is in Queens.
  • The map is non-computerized.
• The Planet Express ship is seen joining the Mom's robots' rebellion, despite having been invented by Professor Farnsworth.
  • The ship could be made with computerized parts from Mom, hence they take control of the ship.
  • Also, he could have made the ship while still working for Mom.
• Linda and Morbo are seen being held up outside the Planet Express building, although Channel √2 News is broadcast in Los Angeles and not New New York City.
  • A rebelling hover vehicle could have brought them there, or a transport tube.
• Farnsworth states in "Free Will Hunting" that he was responsible for robot programming and placed a personal safeguard against his being harmed by them. He shouldn't therefore feel threatened by them attacking him.
  • We may thus assume then that Mom's controller has a priority over-ride to guarantee no immunity (even her own).
• When the crew is sitting around the fire and Fry beats the soup can, Leela is seen sitting on her knees, in the next scene she's sitting cross legged.
• While Fry is trying to open the soup can by beating it, the coffee machine is visible in the background when earlier, it had left with the other robots.

Characters

(In alphabetic order)

Episode Credits