"I Dated a Robot" is the fifteenth episode in the

third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

of the American animated television series '' Futurama'', and the 47th episode of the series overall. It originally aired on the

Fox network The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations ...

in the United States on May 13, 2001.

Plot

After the crew sees an episode of ''The Scary Door'', Fry decides to do all the things he always wanted to do, and the Planet Express crew obliges. After demolishing a planet, visiting the edge of the universe, and riding a

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

, one of his few remaining fantasies is to date a celebrity. Fry and Leela venture into the Internet to visit nappster.com and download a celebrity's personality. Fry downloads the personality of

Lucy Liu Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. Her accolades include winning a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Seoul International Drama Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award. Liu has sta ...

into a blank robot, which begins projecting an image of her. Fry and the Liu-bot begin dating, aided by her being programmed to like Fry. The other Planet Express employees, concerned about his relationship, show him the standard middle-school film that predicts the destruction of civilization if humans date robots. Unfortunately, Fry ignores the movie, and keeps making out with his Liu-bot. Bender, offended by the concept of competing with humans for the attention of female robots, sets off with Leela and Zoidberg to shut down Nappster. In the Nappster building, a broken sign eventually reveals that the company is actually "Kidnappster". Breaking into the back room, Bender discovers that Nappster has been kidnapping the heads of celebrities and making illegal copies of them. Leela grabs the real Lucy Liu's head, and the four take off. The Nappster

CFO The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

loads a backup disk of Liu, and creates a horde of Liu-bots ordered to kill. Leela and the others, running from the robot horde, duck into a movie theater, where Fry is seeing a movie with his Liu-bot. Everyone ducks into the projection room. Zoidberg discovers a five-ton bag of popping corn, and sends it pouring onto the robots on the theater floor. The robots eat their way out from under the corn and start shooting popcorn kernels from their mouths at the room. Fry's Liu-bot points the projector at the other robots, and the heat causes the popcorn to pop, bursting the robots. At the request of the real Lucy Liu, Fry blanks his now-damaged robot in order to protect her image. A hypocritical Bender begins dating Liu's head much to Fry's anger.

Cultural References

* The "I Dated a Robot!" movie is a parody of school propaganda films such as ''

Reefer Madness ''Reefer Madness'' (originally made as ''Tell Your Children'' and sometimes titled ''The Burning Question'', ''Dope Addict'', ''Doped Youth'', and ''Love Madness'') is a 1936 American propaganda film about drugs, revolving around the melodramat ...

'', ''

Duck and Cover "Duck and cover" is a method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear explosion. Ducking and covering is useful in offering a degree of protection to personnel located outside the radius of the nuclear fireball but still within su ...

'' and other after-school specials. * Bender also references the 70s show ''All in the Family'' immediately following the propaganda film, he both adopts the character Archie's manner of speaking and makes a play on his "Meat head" line, quite similar to Bender's own "Meatbag". *The internet website Kidnappster is a direct parody of Napster.

Broadcast and reception

In its initial airing, the episode received a

Nielsen rating 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 rati ...

of 3.8/8, placing it 76th among primetime shows for the week of May 7–13, 2001. Zack Handlen of ''

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 ...

'' gave the episode a B+.

References

External links

* I Dated a Robot at

The Infosphere ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. * {{Futurama episodes, 3 Futurama (season 3) episodes 2001 American television episodes Television episodes about robots