"The Problem with Popplers" is the fifteenth episode in the second season of ''

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 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 an ...

in the United States on May 7, 2000. The title is a reference to the ''

Star Trek: The Original Series ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that follows the adventures of the starship and its crew. It later acquired the retronym of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' (''TOS'') to distinguis ...

'' episode "

The Trouble with Tribbles "The Trouble with Tribbles" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series ''Star Trek''. Written by David Gerrold and directed by Joseph Pevney, it was first broadcast on December 29, 1967. In ...

". The episode focuses on the Planet Express crew discovering what they think is fast food they call "Popplers," but they turn out to be the young of the Omicron aliens, and the evil Lrrr seeks revenge.

Plot

When the Planet Express crew lands on a

planet A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is neither a star nor its remnant. The best available theory of planet formation is the nebular hypothesis, which posits that an interstellar cloud collapses out of a nebula to create a you ...

in search for a

fast food Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredien ...

restaurant, they find that it abounds in a delicious edible life-form, which they call "Popplers". The highly addictive "Popplers" soon inspire a new business venture for the crew. However, after Popplers become an incredibly popular food item and the organization MEAT (Mankind for Ethical Animal Treatment) begins to protest against them, it is learned that they are the larval stage of the Omicronian race, and that the planet where they came from is one of the nursery planets of the Omicronians. Leela, the first to discover this when a Poppler awakens in her hands, leads the charge to stop the eating of Popplers. This mostly fails, partly due to Bender's subversive actions. The warlike natives of Omicron Persei 8, led by Lrrr, arrive to seek justice for humans devouring billions of their young. The Omicronians demand that they be allowed to eat the same number of Earthlings as "Popplers" which were eaten. Since there are fewer humans on Earth than the number of Popplers that were eaten, and since Lrrr filled up on nuts during the negotiations, the Omicronians choose instead to eat the first Earthling to eat their young: Leela. In order to fool the Omicronians,

Zapp Brannigan 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 ...

brings a female

orangutan Orangutans are great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia. They are now found only in parts of Borneo and Sumatra, but during the Pleistocene they ranged throughout Southeast Asia and South China. Classified in the genus ...

dressed and styled as Leela. The Omicronians are initially fooled because they have difficulty recognizing individual humans; however,

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

Free Waterfall Junior exposes the sham to protect "one of Mother Earth's most precious creatures". After realizing the trick, and after Ndnd eats the orangutan, Lrrr demands the real Leela. With Leela in Lrrr's mouth, the small Omicronian, Jrrr, whom Leela had been nannying since birth, arrives. Jrrr jumps into Leela's mouth and convinces the Omicronians that it is wrong to eat other intelligent life out of

revenge Revenge is committing a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. Francis Bacon described revenge as a kind of "wild justice" that "does... offend the law ndputteth the law out of office." Pr ...

. The Omicronians leave, but not before Lrrr devours Waterfall Junior. The amount of

drugs A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalat ...

in Waterfall's system leads to Lrrr becoming stoned. The episode ends with the Planet Express Crew eating a smorgasbord buffet of unintelligent animals, including a suckling

pig The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus ...

and a

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...

who wasted all his money on instant-

lottery A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...

tickets.

Reception

The episode was ranked number eleven on

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 ...

's top 25 episode list, particularly noting its great premise. In ''Doug Pratt's DVD'' Pratt called the episode "original and inspired". ''The A.V. Club'' gave the episode an A.

Usages of the name

The PDF library Poppler is named after the lifeform in this episode.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Problem with Popplers, The Futurama (season 2) episodes 2000 American television episodes Fiction set around Omicron Persei