Godfellas

Futurama episode
"Godfellas"
Bender the god
Episode no.	52
Prod. code	3ACV20
Airdate	March 17, 2002
Writer(s)	Ken Keeler
Director	Susie Dietter
Opening subtitle	Please Turn Off All Cell Phones And Tricorders
Opening cartoon	Unknown
Season 3 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...

"Godfellas" is the twentieth episode of the third production season of Futurama. It was first shown in North America on March 17, 2002, as the eighth episode in the fourth broadcast season. The episode was written by Ken Keeler and directed by Susie Dietter. It features Bender becoming the god of a tiny civilization, and explores various religious issues. The episode won the first Writers Guild Of America Award for animation.

Plot

During a noisy space pirate attack, Bender—trying to find some peace and quiet in a torpedo tube—is launched into interstellar space beyond the reach of Fry and Leela. After an asteroid crashes into Bender, a civilization of tiny humanoids ("Shrimpkins") grows on him and worships him as a god. At first, Bender enjoys his new-found status, picking a prophet named Malakai and having Malakai bring "The One Commandment" ("God Needs Booze") from "Up High" (Bender's head) to the Shrimpkins, who brew what for them are vast quantities of "Lordweiser" beer. The Shrimpkins begin praying for rain, sun, and wealth, and Bender attempts to heed their prayers—failing and unintentionally harming the Shrimpkins in the process. Eventually, Malakai tells him that the Shrimpkins who migrated to his backside felt their prayers were unheeded and became atheists. The atheists threaten war with Bender's worshippers. Bender, aware that attempts to help the Shrimpkins so far only harmed them, refuses to intervene. The micro-civilization is destroyed when the Shrimpkin factions launch atomic weapons out of Bender's nuclear pile. Malakai remains faithful to Bender during the war and it saddens Bender when Malakai and his family are killed by a nuclear weapon.

Bender soon meets a cosmic entity who is alluded to be God and recounts his experiences. "God" notes that the best way to deal with worshippers is to use a light touch so they will neither lose hope nor become dependent on supernatural intervention, saying, "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

Meanwhile, Fry and Leela search for a way to locate Bender, which leads them to a sect of monks who use a radio telescope to search for God in space. Leela overpowers and locks up the pacifist monks and Fry spends the next three days searching for Bender. Fry finds "God" by accident, and "God" flings Bender back to Earth just as Fry and Leela are leaving the monastery, causing Leela to exclaim that "This is, by a wide margin, the least likely thing that has ever happened." Bender quickly recounts his tale ("First I was God, then I met God!") and Fry boasts they "climbed up a mountain and locked up some monks," which reminds Leela that they never let them out. Fry is reluctant to return to the monastery and claims that God will surely help them. Bender tells them that God cannot be counted on for anything, and demands they rescue the monks themselves. The camera zooms out from Earth, past planets, through space, and back to God, who chuckles and repeats his advice: "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

Production

Billy West states on the audio commentary that the voice of "God" is based on Vic Perrin's "Control Voice" from The Outer Limits.^[1]

Themes

The episode touches on the ideas of predestination, prayer, and the nature of salvation, in what Mark Pinsky referred to as a theological turn to the episode, which may cause the viewer to need "to be reminded that this is a cartoon and not a divinity school class."^[2] By the end of the conversation, Bender's questions still have not been fully answered and like many of the conversations between humans and God in the Bible, Bender is left wanting more from the voice than it has given him.^[2] Pinsky also notes that the monks visited by Fry and Leela occupy the monastery of "Teshuvah", which is the Hebrew word for repentance.^[2]

The book Toons That Teach, a text used by youth groups to teach teenagers about spirituality, recommends this episode in a lesson teaching about "Faith, God's Will, [and] Image of God".^[3]

Broadcast and reception

This episode won the first Writers Guild Of America Award for animation in 2003,^[2][4] where it competed against animated specials, long form programs and episodic animation.^[5] Series creator Matt Groening has cited it as one of the best episodes of the series.^[6] The Reno Gazette-Journal called the episode amazing and noted it as one of the prime episodes in season four.^[7] In 2008, Empire placed Futurama 25th on their list of "The 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time" and cited "Godfellas" as the show's best episode.^[8]

In its initial airing, the episode received a Nielsen rating of 2.6/4, placing it 97th among primetime shows for the week of March 11-17, 2002. ^[9]

Cultural references

The first half of this episode explores themes similar to "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon.^[10] The observatory located in a monastery is also a reference to The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke.^[10]

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Godfellas

• Godfellas at the Internet Movie Database
• Godfellas at TV.com
• Godfellas at The Infosphere.