Futurama: "Fear of a Bot Planet"

"Fear of a Bot Planet." Futurama, Season 1, episode 6. Fox-TV, 20 April 1999.

Episode sends Fry, Leela, and Bender to "Chapek 9," a planet inhabited only by human-hating robots (from K. Čapek, R. U. R.). Despite no humans, the powers that be propagandize against humans and hold a daily hunt for humans. Works the proportion, humans / robots = oppressor humans / oppressed. Climax shows that the powers that be are incompetent robot elders, using humans for scapegoats. Note loyalty of Fry and Leela for Bender and Bender's returning the loyalty. Note explicit use of 1950s "anti-Blob," anti-alien movies as propaganda, with a comically obvious robot actor playing a human monster (consult Peter Biskind's "Pods, Blobs, and Ideology in American Films of the Fifties," in Shadows of the Magic Lamp, George E. Slusser and Erik S. Rabkin, eds. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois P, 1985). See also Wikipedia entry for episode title.

(RDE, 21/04/99)