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"Well, enough governing. It's Saturday morning, damn it. Let's watch some cartoons."
Richard Nixon's Head

"Saturday Morning Fun Pit" is the 133rd episode of Futurama and the 19th episode of Season 7.

Plot[]

Earth President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew sit down to watch some Saturday morning cartoons starring various re-interpretations of the Futurama crew.

Bendee Boo and the Mystery Crew[]

In a parody of the Scooby-Doo series, the gang (with Hermes as Fred Jones, Amy as Velma Dinkley, Leela as Daphne Blake, Fry as Shaggy Rogers, and Bender as Scooby-Doo) are driving through the Repeating Forest (a reference to the low-rent animation tactics used by Hanna-Barberra) on their way to visit the Professor's cloning lab. On the way, they are first accosted by a Dragon Ghost which warns them to leave the forest before they stop at George Takei's kabuki theater (which has fallen on hard times due to the placement of a basketball arena next door) for a bite to eat. They then make their way to the cloning lab, where Zoidberg is the Professor's ironically anti-cloning butler and the Harlem Globetrotters are having a team of five clones of Larry Bird made to practice against. While staying overnight, nearly every Scooby Doo trope is paid homage to. In a two-part reveal, Zoidberg is decapitated when the Mystery Crew expect his real head to be a removable mask, and Takei is revealed to be the one who did it because if the Globetrotters couldn't play, people would come to his kabuki theater instead. Takei adds that he did it because he is mentally ill. The Globetrotters go on to their scheduled basketball game, which turns out to be against a team of SIX Larry Birds.

Purpleberry Pond[]

The crowd outside the White House grows violent and throws a brick through the window. Nixon's solution is to watch Purpleberry Pond-after putting in a call to Hollywood that the public want the government to regulate children's programming to have helpful lessons shoehorned in. In Purpleberry Pond, life is idyllic and everyone and everything is a shade of violet. The Berry Burglar (Professor Farnsworth in a role more analogous to Gargamel from The Smurfs rather than the Purple Pie Man from Strawberry Shortcake) is trying to get his hand on some of the maple-covered berries, which grow on the bushes around the pond. The characters encourage "healthy" eating, having fun with others and not judging people because they're different. Throughout there are commercials for Purpleberry Puffs cereal, a new variety of cereal being introduced whenever a new character is introduced. For example, when "Lord Loquat" is introduced, "orangeberry" pieces are added to the cereal and when the Berry Burglar fires a sugarball bomb at Purpleberry Pond, the cereal introduces its new "Sugar-blasted" pops. A sub-narrative shows the child in the commercials becoming obese and implying she develops type II diabetes.

"G.I. Zapp" (aka Nixon's Edit)[]

Lastly, Nixon and Agnew begin to watch the G.I. Zapp cartoon, but find after a few minutes that it is, as the rioting crowd outside says, too violent. Nixon creatively re-edits the cartoon (using a device which is implied to have played a part in Nixon's historical erasing of Oval Office tapes.) In Nixon's version, the violently code-named G.I. Zapp members are recast as "patriotic peace-keepers" rather then mercenaries. They are re-christened as well. Nixon changes the title from "Operation Throat Slit" to "Operation Banana Split". The G.I. Zapps jump into the battlefield! With names like "Freezer Burn", "Nutcracker", and "Waterboard", they are a force to be "reckoned" with. The G.I. Zapp plane crashed at the A.C.R.O.N.Y.M base, leaving Zapp and Kif dead. Throughout the battle, Nixon tries to retcon the violence. (i.e. Farnsworth saying "Negotiate!" instead of "Fire!") When "Orphan Crippler's" (Bender's) chest cavity opens to reveal what appears to be a giant Killamajig from Chapek 9 or a Fleen from Omicron Persei 8, set to violently dispatch of an enemy soldier, Nixon gives up and cuts to a "The More You Know" style PSA about sharing instead of fighting featuring Dwight, Cubert, Nixon, and Agnew themselves, riding up on a motorcycle and sidecar and tearing in half the football that the children had just been arguing over.

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