"Insane in the Mainframe" | |
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Futurama episode | |
Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 11 |
Directed by | Peter Avanzino |
Written by | Bill Odenkirk |
Production code | 3ACV11 |
Original air date | April 8, 2001 |
Opening caption | "Bender's Humor by Microsoft Joke" |
Opening cartoon | "The Mild West" (1947) |
"Insane in the Mainframe" is the eleventh episode of the third season of the American animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 8, 2001. The episode was written by Bill Odenkirk and directed by Peter Avanzino. In the episode, Fry and Bender are admitted to an insane asylum for robots after being charged for their roles in holding up a bank. Fry's attempts to convince the asylum's staff that he is a human fail; he is eventually made to believe that he is a robot, and is deemed "cured" and released from the asylum. After being released, the Planet Express crew try to make him rediscover his humanity; these attempts fail, until Fry bleeds and realizes he is in fact, human.
The episode introduces the recurring Futurama character Roberto.
While at Big Apple Bank to open a retirement fund, Fry and Bender become involved in a holdup. The criminally insane robot Roberto hands them bags of cash for their trouble, and after he runs off, Fry and Bender are charged for their role in the robbery. At the trial, Roberto surreptitiously threatens to kill Fry should Fry testify against him. After pleading insanity on the advice of their lawyer, Fry was going to be sent to a human asylum, and Bender to a robot asylum; yet since the human asylum is overcrowded (as poverty had been deemed a mental illness by the Judge), both Fry and Bender are sent to the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots.
Once there, Fry undergoes a torturous physical examination, to Bender's enjoyment. To make matters worse, the doctors refuse to acknowledge that Fry is human, due to their logic that, if Fry is a patient in a robot asylum, he must be a robot, completely disregarding that he is a biological life form. Fry is roomed with car salesman Malfunctioning Eddie, who is undergoing treatment for his condition of exploding when surprised or shocked. Fry perseveres, surviving on food coughed up by a sick vending machine robot.