Review: "Fry and the Slurm Factory" (Season 1, Episode 13)

Worth noting, this is the highlight of the tour.

Airdate: November 14th, 1999

Synopsis: Slurm, Fry's favorite soft drink, announces it's brand new marketing scam, and it catches the eyes of Fry and Bender. Whoever finds a golden cap wins the grand prize - a trip to the Slurm Factory on the planet Wormulon. One Bender breakdown, a "f-ray", and a swallowed cap later, the Planet Express crew are on the tour. There, Fry's utter addiction to Slurm drives them to the secret ingredient.

Review (SPOILERS): If I had a trademark favorite drink, it would be Diet Pepsi. Sure, Diet Coke is a decent alternative, but Diet Pepsi - that's the real mccoy of soda drinks. It's one of the reasons why Taco Bell is my favorite fast-food joint. If a restaurant has Diet Pepsi, I will order it. It, to me, is the perfect soft drink - tasty, yet it's structure allows for more, y'know, actual food to be eaten... like Taco Bell.

Alright, it probably has chemicals in it that probably has adverse effects on my health that I don't even know about yet, and every glass I drink may cut my lifespan by a minute, but it still tastes fantastic!

Yet, that has no contest on Fry's addiction to Slurm, the soft drink that dominates Futurama. In it, Slurm provides a tragicomic coda to the first season of this classic sci-fi series - tragic because it showcases the dystopia of the universe and just how messed up addiction is, and comic because it provides a hysterical deconstruction or subversion of Star Trek cliches.


Let's put it this way - Slurm itself is a scathing satire of the food and drugs industry, wrapped in a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory plot. Slurm hosts contests where the chances of winning are "mathematically insignificant", uses an ingredient that is extracted through... strange means, plans to destroy their product so that, when they revive it, they make billions in renewed sales (an obvious send-up of New Coke), effectively participate in slave labour of an entire species masqueraded by offering them a weak union, and hides it all underneath an ad campaign that hedges it's bets on coolness while abusing the participant - a send-up of the tobacco industry and how the "Marlboro Men" wound up falling to lung cancer.

In a tragic move, however, Fry is beyond hooked to the stuff. It almost feels like drug withdrawal when he is disconnected from Slurm. His reaction to not being able to drink on the tour is to dive into the Slurm. Even when finding out how Slurm is made, he still drinks it. When Leela and Bender are being tortured (transformed into new Slurm producer for New Coke-style marketing scam and making Slurm cans, respectively), Fry literally can't choose between saving Leela and drinking the Super-Slurm - he has to drag the Slurm to save Leela, and when she dumps the Slurm, he tries to stick his head down the sewer.

Most damming, when it comes between exposing Slurm and keeping his soft drink in production, he chooses the latter.

On one hand, it really is a comic take on the idealistic sci-fi protagonists, as Fry never overcomes his addiction and is willing to make morally questionable moves to maintain the production of his favorite soft drink. However, there's still the tragic look in how addictive the drink is for Fry - he actually cries when forced to choose between his friend and his other love. He recognizes that he must save his friend, but also seems to realize that the drink has him. Bender and Leela's scenarios are both horrific, but in a sci-fi-ish way. Fry's is more realistic, and thus, more tragic.

Besides that, this is an episode that is quite a bit fun, if not the shining brilliance found in later episodes. Willy Wonka is a timeless movie - five kids go to a quirky candy factory, which has a whimsy that can turn dark when seen by impulsive eyes. (Even Charlie, the least insensitive kid, fell victim to the Fizzy Lifting Drinks!) Here, it parodies some aspects of that movie - the quirkiness of Wonka's employment of the Oompa Loompas is parodied in the effective slave labour of the dissatisfied Grunka Lunkas, and both sing snarky songs to the tourists. Instead of the mad genius of Wonka, Glurmo is a manipulative jerkass who seems to abuse every employee possible... even the Slurm Queen. He makes Bender look like a samari... OK, he isn't that depraved, but he's still nuts!

This episode also shifted to a "main trio" style plot halfway through. It did provide a little bit of character development for the characters. In the case of Leela, it showcases a case of failability in a character that seemed infallible at the beginning of the show. I was, however, surprisingly captured by a throwaway line from when Bender jumps into the Slurm after Fry and Leela go in. His response to Leela wondering why he went in?

 "Everybody was doing it. I just wanted to be popular."

This can be taken two ways.

1. Bender has the mindset of a teenager.
2. Bender has deep-seated insecurities about himself, and masks that with a vulgar ego, acting out and all that.

Probably one, but two is interesting to think about.

Overall, it's a good episode, if not the best so far, and showcases a good parody of a timeless movie while also providing a bit of social commentary along the way.

End season 1.

Tidbits:

• The opening cartoon was actually a Tracey Ullman Show short. What skit? Something from a recurring segment called The Simpsons. This particular short was titled "Making Faces". The skits have largely fallen into obscurity, given that none have been released on DVD... and the segment was spun off into probably the most revolutionary sitcom ever (or at least one up there with All In The Family, The Young Ones, and Married... With Children.)
• The scenes with Hermes and Zoidberg are both hysterically dark. Hermes not only tells Bender to cut him a cheque for the couch Bender set fire to, but is receptive to employing Grunka Lunkas as effectively slaves. Zoidberg... I'll just say that he diagnoses an overheated Bender with Fin Fungus.
• Truly love how much Farnsworth cares for his employees, telling them to put on goggles during the use of the "F-ray" while he puts on a full suit.

Favorite Scene: The Grunka Lunka song - what brilliant songwriting, and what a hysterical parody. Especially the reaction of Glurmo ("You just used up your bathroom break!")

Least Favorite Scene: Maybe it's the aftermath of Caitlyn Jenner's interview with Diana Sawyer still reverberating in my brain, but honestly, that joke about Bender discovering a transgender robot has not aged very well.

Memorable Quote: "Odds of winning mathematically insignificant." - Slurm Commercial. Says more about marketing contests than anything else.

Score: 8.

Next: the season wrap up.