It's a Cold War on Futurama

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Futurama "Cold Warriors" (S06E24): "we're following you but not on twitter" is the opening phrase. [haha!] Flashback to Fry hiking in winter with his dad. He falls through some ice and ends up with a cold. [his dad is so rough on him!] Fry stays home from school sick, then decides to enter a science contest. The family is out to eat pizza and Barack Obama (on leave from law school?) is the delivery boy, whom the family considers a loser. [I didn't realize it was him at first, I had to rewind.] Fry's idea is to infect his guinea pig with the common cold virus and launch it into space. [this is back when a "science project" didn't involve research, data, a hypothesis, and everything else...] At the science fair, Fry loses. His dad admits that he is tough on Fry because he wants Fry to persevere, pull through, and make him proud. [blah.]

In the present, they go ice fishing. [why is Amy wearing a "belly parka"??] Fry gets a cold, but nobody else knows was the "common cold" is. The police quarantine the Planet Express building.

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Because the common cold died out, humanity can now suffer from this now-deadly disease. [fairly ridiculous, but original.] Amy becomes congested, then Hermes, then Zoidberg. [nice riff on Airborne.] Leela tries to escape, but it doesn't work. It's announced that Bender will have to play nurse for everyone else, which pisses him off. [should've seen that coming.] When the quarantine is lifted off the building, another is placed over the city and then the entirety of Manhattan is lifted and brought toward the sun. [wasn't expecting that!] There's an option to pulverize Fry and find the original virus, but Fry remembers that they could get the virus culture out of the satellite (which was the project of the winning kid), so the gang heads to find it. They do, and have to inoculate everyone in Manhattan. [not the most exciting finish.]