Futurama, Episode 7.04: "The Thief of Baghead"

This week’s Futurama episode review begins with an elaborate, and perhaps useless, backstory… but I can assure you that there’s a payoff here somewhere. :-) During Easter weekend back in April, as I was sifting through various pop culture-related Internet items, I came across an episode of Chris Hardwick’s podcast The Nerdist that I found irresistible: a 75-minute chat with Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche. You might not know these guys’ names, but you’re probably familiar with their work: Paulsen and LaMarche voiced Pinky and the Brain, respectively, on Fox’s 1993 weekday animated series Animaniacs… and were so successful that they ultimately managed to secure their own spinoff, Pinky and the Brain, on the then-fledgling WB Network.  To listen to these two guys talk for well over an hour about the many voices they’ve done, and the multitude of series they’ve been a part of, was something that I couldn’t pass up.

Now, while Paulsen has many awesome credits to his name (including fellow Animaniac Yakko Warner, and Raphael from the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series), it was LaMarche’s presence that particularly excited me.  Sure, the Brain is an iconic voice… but it’s a variation on LaMarche’s priceless impression of Orson Welles, which has appeared in works as diverse as Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (where LaMarche overdubbed a young Vincent D’Onofrio!), a 2010 episode of Futurama which riffed on Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast, and most uproariously, the mid-1990s ABC/Fox animated series The Critic, which frequently depicted Welles in his later years, where Welles was apt to sell himself out for any and every product endorsement he was offered.

On Futurama, La Marche provides a hearty stable of voices, including Morbo the newscaster, Kif Kroker, Clamps, and Lrr, a.k.a. RULES OF OMNICRON PERSEI 8!!! Fortunately, last night’s episode of Futurama provided a more-than-ample showcase for LaMarche, as he got to gloriously over-act as both Langdon Cobb, the supposedly greatest actor in the world, and as everyone’s favorite robot soap opera actor, Calculon!  In fact, Calculon kicks off the episode with a segment from All My Circuits, where he confronts his soap-opera family:

Calculon: “It seems someone in this room… is a murderer!”
Calculon’s Family: [shocked gasps]
Calculon: (nonchalantly) “It’s me. But the real question is… Which of you is the victim? And that secret, I shall take to my grave!” [Calculon stabs self]

But alas, the Planet Express gang quickly proceeds to the aquarium, where the gang views exhibits such as Jurassic Tank… which is essentially a huge tank where a T-Rex struggles to stay above water.  (It’s a priceless visual gag in and of itself… but I have to give bonus points to the Futurama folks for adding a John Hammond-esque character to sell the moment.)  At the aquarium, Bender comes across Calculon in the robotic flesh, and proceeds to snap a slew of photos of his favorite actor, unwittingly coming across as a paparazzo in the process.  Of course, Bender isn’t trying to be a member of the paparazzi… until Zoidberg shows Bender his copy of Us People magazine, and mentions how much money his pictures could make.  Before the end of the first act, Bender’s in Hollywood at the Us People offices, hoping to make bank.

And make bank he does, as he captures lewd (yet lucrative) photos of Selena Go-Bot and Parts Hilton embarrassing themselves... usually with Bender’s help. (Seriously, Futurama writers… a Paris Hilton joke? Couldn’t we try to be a little less dated?) But, Bender is soon given his most difficult task: to capture a photo of legendary actor Langdon Cobb’s face. Sure, it seems like a simple task… until we realize that Cobb has never been seen in public without his trademark paper bag over his head.  Bender’s more than up for the task, and actually manages to infiltrate Cobb’s mansion to get a picture… but Cobb implores Bender to destroy the picture, or risk the consequences.  Of course, Bender doesn’t do, and proceeds to show Fry, Amy, and Hermes the picture of Cobb… which imminently sucks the soul – I mean, LIFE FORCE! – out of their bodies.

Professor Farnsworth proceeds to give us some hackneyed exposition: Cobb is from the planet Bryora Six, home of the quantum lichen people. It turns out that Cobb is composed of a algae id and a fungal ego… the latter of which stores the life forces of all those who are shown Cobb’s face (or even a picture of him).  So, our heroes devise a plan to weaken Cobb’s ego and release the souls: by facing Cobb against Calculon in the World Acting Championship, where Calculon will attempt to stage the ultimate death scene by using food coloring – “the most poisonous substance known to robots!” – and actually dying on stage.  And so, the third act features some hilarious over-acting, as Cobb unloads a Boston police officer’s eulogy and Calculon re-enacts Romeo’s death scene from will.i.am Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Ultimately, Cobb wins the acting competition… inflating his ego to dangerous size. Fortunately, Bender attempts to solve the problem by showing Cobb his own portrait… ultimately causing his ego to violently explode, returning our heroes’ life forces to their buddies.

Although “The Thief of Baghead” starts strong, it does tend to run into some lulls once the major plot kicks in.  While Langdon Cobb is a well-done take on actors’ snootiness (is it me, or did he sound an awful lot like Kevin Kline?), the character isn’t really funny… which drags the last two acts down.  As for Calculon, his scenes are pretty much on point; I mean, how can you fail with a deliriously Shatner-like robot actor?  But locking him into Romeo and Juliet limits the finale’s creativity; given the hilariously sharp and subversive writing of the All My Circuits opening, the Futurama writing staff could’ve crafted a heck of an over-the-top death scene.  It also doesn’t help that a good chunk of the cast is taken out of play for half of the episode; why you’d want to do without Fry’s idiocy for that long of the episode, I have no idea.

I’d have to say that this week’s Futurama is a mixed effort: it certainly contains a fair number of laughs, but it pales in comparison to the high Futurama standards we're accustomed to.  Next week will apparently be a Zapp Brannigan showcase, though… that certainly will be hard to mess up. But we’ll just have to wait and see…

Random notes:

• Happy belated Fourth of July, everyone! Usually, networks choose not to air original programming on major holidays… but apparently, Comedy Central felt that our nation’s birthday wouldn’t be complete without a new Futurama adventure, so here we are!
• “August is Shark Week!”
• What I wouldn’t give for a They Live camera lens… speaking of which, I loved how a lot of the plot revolved around Bender’s appreciation for camera film in the year 3012, even though film is already an endangered species in 2012. (Of course Bender would be his own darkroom... of course!)
• Langdon Cobb: Winner of 7 Academy Awards for Best Actor… and 2 for Best Actress! (There’s a great callback later in the episode, when Calculon is announced as a 7-time Oscar runner-up.)
• “Once again, television has given me a reason to live!”
• “I’m a celebrity! I can kill anyone I want!”
• Next week: Leela’s mom dates Zapp Brannigan. Hilarity should ensue… I hope!