A Pharaoh to Remember

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"A Pharaoh to Remember"
Futurama episode
Bender's giant tomb
Episode no.	Season three Episode 49
Directed by	Mark Ervin
Written by	Ron Weiner
Production code	3ACV17
Original air date	March 10, 2002
Opening caption	"Psst... Big Party At Your House After The Show"
Opening cartoon	Toys Will Be Toys
Season three episodes
January, 2001 – December, 2002 Amazon Women in the Mood Parasites Lost A Tale of Two Santas The Luck of the Fryrish The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz Bendless Love The Day the Earth Stood Stupid That's Lobstertainment! The Cyber House Rules Where the Buggalo Roam Insane in the Mainframe The Route of All Evil Bendin' in the Wind Time Keeps On Slippin' I Dated a Robot A Leela of Her Own A Pharaoh to Remember Anthology of Interest II Roswell That Ends Well Godfellas Future Stock The 30% Iron Chef
List of all Futurama episodes

"A Pharaoh to Remember" is episode seventeen of Futurama's third season. It originally aired on March 10, 2002.

Plot

This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (January 2012)

After a pool heist Bender committed is attributed to a human felon, Bender grows concerned that he will be doomed to obscurity, and sets off to rectify the situation. He tries many schemes including a futile effort to convince people that his foot is trapped in a mailbox, trying to introduce a new rollerblading dance to a gang, and spraying graffiti on the side of a building, saying "Bender Lives Large and Kicks Butt." The building is demolished, and his phrase is reduced to "Bender Licks Butt" in the style of a MAD Magazine fold-in page. Bender returns to the office to find out that the crew had staged a "funeral" for him, to show that he will be remembered, but it ends badly. The Professor assigns the crew a new mission: to deliver a giant sandstone block to the planet Osiris IV.

Upon their arrival, Bender, Fry and Leela find a desert world whose society is modeled after ancient Egypt and who they claim introduced interstellar travel to them (a reversal of the ancient astronaut theories). The crew is enslaved to work on the building of the funeral pyramid of Pharaoh Hamenthotep. Their job is to work alongside the other slaves, moving heavy stone blocks manually. Bender, impressed by the Osirin Pharaohs' method of ensuring their place in history, becomes a workaholic, working so fast the slavedrivers cannot even keep up with him.

Pharaoh Hamenthotep arrives to inspect his newly completed pyramid, and as he was about to set everyone free, he is killed when the nose falls off a giant statue of himself. The priests entomb Hamenthotep, and the next day they consult their wall of prophecy to select the new pharaoh. While the slaves celebrate over their few hours of freedom, Bender sneaks out and makes a few surreptitious modifications to the wall, ensuring he is declared the new pharaoh. As Bender becomes the pharaoh, he states "Citizens of me! The cruelty of the old pharaoh is a thing of the past! Let a whole new wave of cruelty wash over this lazy land!"

Newly crowned Pharaoh Bender demands a statue of himself, one billion cubits tall, so that he will be remembered forever. Construction proceeds, with Bender quickly establishing himself as an excessively dictatorial and ruthless pharaoh, and the massive statue is soon completed. Nonetheless, when it is unveiled, Pharaoh Bender announces that he is displeased with it, and wants it to be torn down and rebuilt. The high priests, disgusted and tired with Bender, wrap him for burial, and entomb him, declaring that their leader has died, along with Fry and Leela for human sacrifices, at Bender's request.

With a limited oxygen supply running out, Fry and Leela want to blast their way out using the explosive Schnapps from the tomb's distillery; but Bender objects, worried that he will not be remembered if the statue is destroyed. After Fry and Leela make a show of not remembering Bender, he finally agrees to let them destroy his work. After blasting a crack in the statue's foot, Fry, Leela, and Bender escape and run back to the ship. As the ship departs from Osiris IV, the statue explodes in a gigantic fireball. Bender is distraught, but Leela consoles him with the knowledge that his reign of terror will be remembered longer than any statue (which would be unlikely evidenced by the fact that the explosion may have destroyed all life on Osiris IV). Satisfied, Bender tells the crew to set course for Earth. As the ship approaches an Earth-like planet, Bender begins to laugh evilly. Leela points out that the planet is not Earth and Bender stops laughing. The ship flies away from the planet, ostensibly towards Earth.

Broadcast and reception

In its initial airing, the episode received a Nielsen rating of 3.0/4, placing it 97th among primetime shows for the week of March 4-10, 2002.^[1]

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: A Pharaoh to Remember

• A Pharaoh to Remember at The Infosphere.