Insane in the Mainframe
Fry and Bender are sent to a robot asylum.
The 43rd Futurama episode, and third season's eleventh, aired April 8, 2001 on Fox. Fry and Bender land in a robot asylum after a bank heist. Fry fails to prove he is human, is convinced he is a robot, and is released. The episode introduces the recurring character Roberto.
Quick Facts
- Season
- 3
- Episode
- 11
- Director
- Peter Avanzino
- Writer
- Bill Odenkirk
- Production
- 3ACV11
- Air date
- 8 April 2001
- Opening cartoon
- "The Mild West" by Fleischer and Famous Studios (1947)
Facts from the source article.
Plot
Fry blew his entire life savings—a hundred bucks—on lottery tickets, then decided to start a retirement fund. At the Big Apple Bank, he and Bender got caught up in a robbery. The insane robot Roberto handed them bags of cash before fleeing, and the pair were charged for their part in the crime. During the trial, Roberto threatened to kill Fry if he testified, which the judge accepted as a valid legal precedent. Following their lawyer’s advice, they pleaded insanity. Fry was supposed to go to a human asylum and Bender to a robot one, but the human facility was full because the judge had classified poverty as a mental illness, so both ended up at the HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots. There, Fry endured a painful physical exam while Bender watched with amusement. The doctors refused to believe Fry was human, arguing that anyone in a robot asylum must be a robot, ignoring his biology. Fry’s roommate was Malfunctioning Eddie, a car salesman who exploded when startled. Fry survived on food regurgitated by a broken vending machine robot, but his mental health worsened. When Fry expected to be released, Eddie got out instead, and Fry’s new roommate turned out to be Roberto, recaptured after robbing the same bank again. After a complete mental breakdown, Fry was let go, “cured” of his delusion that he was human and now convinced he was a robot. Roberto escaped, taking Bender with him. Back at Planet Express, Fry tried to find his robot purpose: as a “foodmotron” nobody wanted sandwiches from his pants, as a calculator he couldn’t recognize a plus sign, and as a toolbot he couldn’t unscrew a bolt with his fingers even after oiling his armpits. Leela kissed him passionately to snap him back to humanity, but it didn’t work.
Cultural references
The episode's title plays on Cypress Hill's 1993 song "Insane in the Brain" and the commonly misremembered lyric "insane in the membrane." The HAL Institute for Criminally Insane Robots takes its name from HAL 9000, the murderous spaceship AI from the Space Odyssey series. Nurse Ratchet, a robot character, nods to the nurse in Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and possibly to the Autobot hero from Transformers. Fry's automatic classification as insane because he is in an asylum mirrors the Rosenhan experiment. Stanisław Lem's short story "The Sanatorium of Dr. Vliperdius" also features a robot asylum with similar characters, including a robot who believes he is human. The Linctron is modeled after the audio-animatronic Abraham Lincoln from Disneyland's Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. In the cafeteria, a hat-wearing robot stands in for the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, saying "Change places."
Frequently Asked Questions
Who directed Insane in the Mainframe?
Insane in the Mainframe was directed by Peter Avanzino.
Who wrote Insane in the Mainframe?
Insane in the Mainframe was written by Bill Odenkirk.
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