Amazon Women in the Mood

"Amazon Women in the Mood" is the first episode in season three of '' Futurama''. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 4, 2001.

Plot

Amy has been receiving phone calls for a year, where the caller stammers and then hangs up. The calls are from Kif, who loves Amy but is too nervous to speak. Zapp realizes that Amy and Leela know each other, and asks them on a double date with him and Kif. Leela agrees as a favor to Amy, and they go to a restaurant aboard a space liner.

Kif uses Zapp's boorish pick-up lines, offending Amy. To prevent her and Leela from leaving, Kif sings karaoke. Amy is touched, but Zapp pushes Kif off the stage and sings poorly to Leela, causing the passengers and crew of the ship to flee the restaurant. Zapp crashes the ship into the planet Amazonia, where the Amazonians, a race of giant, muscular, tribal women, capture them.

Fry and Bender travel to Amazonia to rescue their friends but are also captured. Fry, Zapp, and Bender ridicule female values, which makes Leela and Amy appreciate how good life would be without men. When the Amazonians ask what the purpose of men is, Amy explains, and the Amazonians realize she is describing "snu-snu," something they have heard of, but never experienced.

The leader of the Amazonians is the Femputer, a giant computer (voiced by Bea Arthur). Bender is spared for not possessing male anatomy, but Zapp, Fry, and Kif are sentenced by the Femputer to death by snu-snu—a fate that both excites and horrifies Fry and Zapp while only horrifies Kif—and are repeatedly snu-snued by Amazonians. Before being taken away, Kif tells Amy that he was the one who kept calling her and hanging up, that the offensive pick-up lines were not his own words, and that he loves her. Amy resolves to save him.

Leela and Amy convince Bender to reprogram the Femputer. He discovers that the Femputer is actually a computer operated by a fembot, who created the Amazonian society because her home planet was extremely chauvinistic. Amy rescues Kif; the Amazonians chase after them, cornering them in the Femputer's chamber. By this time, however, Bender and the fembot have become romantic. They order the Amazonians to release their captives and bring gold.

The crew returns to Earth where Fry and Zapp receive treatment for their crushed pelvises. Bender has a pile of gold bricks, and Kif and Amy are a couple. They all agree that Amazonia was their best mission ever.

Cultural references

The episode's title is a reference to the movie ''Amazon Women on the Moon''.

Themes

The episode features what ''Science Fiction Weekly'' calls the "stereotypical women's fantasy"—a world without men, a theme featured often in science fiction. The cliché, unlike the opposite male fantasy of having a harem of women, represents the desire "not to be marginalized in one's own society".

Broadcast and reception

This episode was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2001 for " Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour)" but lost to ''The Simpsons'' episode "HOMR". In 2006, it was named by IGN as the best episode of ''Futurama'', praising it because it is both "crude and hilarious". The episode was also noted as the "most hilarious" episode in Futurama's third season by ''Curve'' and in the book ''5000 Episodes and No Commercials: The Ultimate Guide to TV Shows on DVD''. In 2013, it was ranked number 10 "as voted on by fans" for Comedy Central's Futurama Fanarama marathon.

In its initial airing, the episode placed 79th in the Nielsen ratings for primetime shows for the week of January 29 - February 4, 2001.

References

External links

* Amazon Women in the Mood at The Infosphere.
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{{Futurama episodes, 5

Futurama (season 3) episodes
2001 American television episodes
Gender role reversal