"Attack of the Killer App" is the third episode of the sixth season of the American animated sitcom ''

Futurama ''Futurama'' is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of the professional slacker Philip J. Fry, who is cryogenically preserved for 1000 years a ...

''. It originally aired on

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...

in the United States on July 1, 2010. The episode focuses on the release of the new eyePhone, resulting in Fry posting a

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...

of Leela on the Internet.

Craig Ferguson Craig Ferguson (born 17 May 1962) is a Scottish-born American comedian, actor, writer, and television host. He is best known for hosting the CBS late-night talk show ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'' (2005–2014), for which he won a ...

, host of ''

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Scottish actor and comedian Craig Ferguson. This was the third iteration of the ''Late Late Show'' franchise, airing from January 3, 2005, to December 19, ...

'', guest stars as Leela's singing

boil A boil, also called a furuncle, is a deep folliculitis, which is an infection of the hair follicle. It is most commonly caused by infection by the bacterium ''Staphylococcus aureus'', resulting in a painful swollen area on the skin caused by an ...

, Susan.

Plot

The episode opens with the Planet Express crew recycling their old electronics.

Hubert J. Farnsworth Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, commonly referred to in-show as either Professor Farnsworth or simply Professor, is a fictional character in the American animated television series '' Futurama''. The mad scientist proprietor of the Planet Expres ...

announces that they will be delivering all the Earth’s e-waste to the Third World of the

Antares Antares is the brightest star in the constellation of Scorpius. It has the Bayer designation α Scorpii, which is Latinised to Alpha Scorpii. Often referred to as "the heart of the scorpion", Antares is flanked by σ Scorpii and τ S ...

system. After dropping them off, they decide it would be better to keep using their old electronics. This changes when they see a commercial for MomCorp’s new eyePhone. The crew all buy eyePhones, which feature a wide variety of applications, including the

Twitcher Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device like binoculars or a telescope, by ...

application. Bender and Fry get into a competition to get the most followers, wagering a dollar and stating that the loser must jump into a tub of two-headed alien goat vomit and diarrhea. Meanwhile,

Mom ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given childbirth, birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the cas ...

reveals to her sons that the eyePhones allow her to direct market to the users, based on what they post on Twitcher. She also reveals her evil plan wherein the "twit worm" will be transmitted as soon as someone has one million followers. The twit worm will work as a virus infecting the human brain and making people into mindless zombies that follow her every whim. Fry decides he needs to have more interesting twits in order to beat Bender. He soon discovers that Leela has Susan Boyle, a boil, named Susan, which sings show tunes. Fry shares video of the boil on his eyePhone, in spite of his promise not to. The video is a hit and Leela is ridiculed wherever she goes. Fry and Bender both reach one million followers simultaneously and Mom transmits the twit worm to all of their followers, including

Hermes Conrad This article lists the many characters of ''Futurama,'' an American Cartoon series, animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the a ...

Amy Wong This article lists the many characters of ''Futurama,'' an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a ...

and Pro. Farnsworth. Leela discovers that her humiliation is old news and that a new video has everyone’s attention. She forgives Fry and he reveals to her that he posted a video of himself completing the loser’s side of the bet in order to make up for the humiliation he caused her. Meanwhile, Mom's virus activates turning Fry and Bender's followers to zombies who get in line to buy the eyePhone 2.0 while Mom looks on satisfied.

Continuity

Bender's good twin

Flexo Flexography (often abbreviated to flexo) is a form of printing process which utilizes a flexible relief plate. It is essentially a modern version of letterpress, evolved with high speed rotary functionality, which can be used for printing on a ...

makes a brief cameo in one of the recycling bins.

Cultural references

Most of the episode focuses on parodies of the iPhone and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, renamed the eyePhone and Twitcher respectively. The eyePhone is placed directly in the eye, hence the name. Fry asks, "Since when is the internet about robbing people of their privacy?", to which Bender replies, "August 6, 1991", which is the date that

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profess ...

announced the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

project and software on the newsgroup alt.hypertext. A video clip shot by Fry reveals that Leela has a

(voiced by

) named Susan on her right buttock that sings show tunes with a Scottish accent, a reference to singer

Susan Boyle Susan Magdalane Boyle (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer. She rose to fame in 2009 after appearing as a contestant on the third series of ''Britain's Got Talent'', singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from '. Boyle's debut studio album, ''I D ...

. The song that was shown in the episode was "I Dreamed a Dream", the same song which Susan Boyle performed in her first audition of ''

Britain's Got Talent ''Britain's Got Talent'' (often abbreviated to ''BGT'') is a televised British talent show competition, and part of the global ''Got Talent'' franchise created by Simon Cowell. Presented by Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly (colloquially ...

'' and later brought her worldwide fame.

Broadcast and reception

In the original American broadcast, "Attack of the Killer App" was viewed by an estimated 2.159 million households receiving a 1.3 rating/2% share in the

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

and 1.1 rating/4% share in the 18-49 demographic. Reviewer Robert Canning of

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

rated the episode 8.5 out of 10, calling it "great" and stating that ""Attack of the Killer App" had more than enough great laughs to outweigh this weak bit", in reference to the Susan Boyle joke. He also praised the references to iPhone and Twitter jokes. ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

'' reviewer Zack Helden gave the episode a B, saying: "This was funny, generally, and I'm glad the series hasn't lost its teeth. It's just, I miss the writers' habit of biting off just a little more than they could chew." He also found the Susan Boyle jokes to be "mean-spirited" but clever and so "bizarre that it worked". Darren Franich of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'' said the episode was "as good as anything the show produced in its prime" particularly commenting on the speed of the episode and the precision of its satire. He also noted that the episode benefited from good timing, coming right on the heels of recent iPad and iPhone releases which kept the episode from feeling "outdated". Sean Gandert of Paste rated the episode a 7.1. While he found the eyePhone jokes to be clever, he refers to the Boil plotline as "a horrifically stupid joke that dominates and largely ruins the second part of the episode". The episode is the origin of the "shut up and take my money"

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

References

External links