Futurama: Jack Meets Rapunzel, with Batman and Robin??

photo credit: Futurama TM and © 2013 Twentieth
Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes I stop and wonder how the writers behind Futurama write the episodes, and with one like this, I just keep going back to one concept... they must come up with an idea that's a bit "out there" and run with it, only to later figure out how to get the ball rolling. In this case, Leela turning into a squid and the shenanigans that follow seem to clearly be the main concept for the episode, and it was only later that it was decided that her condition would surface because of a mechanical bull she's riding.. and that the only reason she's even there is because Bender stole a hat and everyone followed him to the bar. Otherwise, the first few minutes of this episode are irrelevant to the rest of it! Not that the entire episode made perfect sense, mind you... Batman (as a bat) and Robin make a random appearance as well.

Futurama "Leela and the Genestalk" (S07E22): At a country bar, the group takes turns riding a mechanical bull of sorts. Leela has a wilder ride than the others because her hand is sprouting suction cups and she can't let go of the machine. [it must be horrifying to be stuck on there!] Turns out, Leela is going through "squidification," which sometimes affects mutants. [I don't know if I had ever noticed Leela's mother having tentacles!] Fry heads to a marketplace to sell the ship for money to pay for surgery, and winds up getting two magic beans for it. Leela gets so upset as the tentacles grow that she decides to move to the sewer. But, when she sees beanstalk grow, she climbs it instead, coming upon a castle in the clouds with a unicorn ambling about. [haha at there reference to The Jeffersons!]

It's not long before Leela discovers that "Mom" has been genetically mutating all sorts of things in her castle-plane. [weird.] She even breeds pigs and porcupines for a pork treat with built-in toothpicks! Leela's boots fall from the sky, so Fry and Bender use a jetpack-like device to go up there in search of her. [I rolled my eyes over how accurate those boots were...] Leela lets them climb up her tentacles as if she was Rapunzel, and they all attempt to escape. [why are Batman and Robin there??] They stumble upon a Giant being held captive before shimmying down a drainpipe and taking over the ship, crash-landing it but making it home. However, they find out that some of Leela's suction cups were used to genetically engineer a beanstalk, and that Mom can make Leela tentacle-free, just as she modified the Giant to be average height. [status quo for the win!]