"A Big Piece of Garbage" | |
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Futurama episode | |
Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 8 |
Directed by | Susie Dietter |
Written by | Lewis Morton |
Production code | 1ACV08 |
Original air date | May 11, 1999 |
Opening caption | "Mr. Bender's Wardrobe by ROBOTANY 500" |
Opening cartoon | Elmer Fudd in "A Corny Concerto" (1943) |
Guest appearance(s) | |
Ron Popeil as himself |
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Ron Popeil as himself
Nancy Cartwright as the Bart Simpson doll
"A Big Piece of Garbage" is episode eight in season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 11, 1999. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Susie Dietter. Ron Popeil guest stars in this episode as himself. Nancy Cartwright also has a brief cameo as a Bart Simpson doll. Much of the episode is a spoof of the 1998 film Armageddon; however, instead of Earth being threatened by an asteroid, it is threatened by a giant ball of garbage.
Professor Farnsworth invites the crew of Planet Express to join him at the Academy of Inventors' annual symposium, where inventors display their latest creations. He will be presenting his invention, the Deathclock, which displays the date of a person's death after that person's finger is stuck into the machine. At the symposium, the crew encounter one of Farnsworth's former students, Professor Ogden Wernstrom. When he was still a student, Wernstrom received an A-minus on a pop quiz and vowed revenge, even if it took him 100 years. Just over 99 years have passed, so Farnsworth considers himself to be essentially in the clear. Wernstrom presents his invention, a reverse SCUBA suit that allows fish to breathe water while walking about on land, demonstrated by his fish, named Cinnamon. He then taunts Farnsworth over his invention from the previous year—the Deathclock.
Mortified that he had previously presented the device and forgotten about it, Farnsworth hastily begins drawing on a napkin. He presents the drawing, which depicts both a Smelloscope, a device that allows people to smell distant cosmic objects, and a doodle of himself as a cowboy. As the audience laughs he sweats and wipes the napkin on his head by accident, blurring the picture. Wernstrom announces that the invention deserves "the worst grade imaginable: an A-minus-minus." Back at Planet Express, Farnsworth invites everybody to see the Smelloscope that he had constructed last year and also forgotten about. Fry begins smelling Jupiter, Saturn, and other objects around the solar system and quickly discovers the smelliest object in the universe. After calculating its trajectory, Farnsworth announces that the object will collide with New New York City in 72 hours, reducing it to a "stinky crater" (Bender immediately starts looting at this news).