Tell Your Parents It's Educational
In this three-part documentary parody episode, the Futurama cast are shown as various animals including salmon, Galapagos tortoises, and elephant seals.
Tropes for this episode:
- 20% More Awesome: Continuing the Running Gag, Beachmaster Bender brags that he's "40% ass".
- Adam and Eve Plot: Lonesome Hubert and Mom are the last two surviving Pinta Island Tortoises and must mate to ensure their species will survive. It doesn't work.
- Alternate Species Counterpart: All of the segments feature the Futurama cast reimagined as different types of animals.
- Bears Are Bad News: "I am Brrr, DEVOURER OF FISH AND HONEY!" — We also learn the male bear ate some boy scouts.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Each story's antagonist is different but are all based on preexisting characters.
- In the Salmon story, we have Zapp trying to mate with Leela.
- In the Tortoise story, a snake with Sal's face attacks the group halfway into the story, but only succeeds in eating Finch!Amy as Tortoise!Farnsworth is too big for him to eat.
- In the Elephant Seal story, Bender is the main antagonist, doing the same thing Salmon!Zapp was doing, but on a lager scale with his harem.
- Big "NO!": Salmon Fry when seeing Salmon Leela swim off the other stream with his rival salmon Zapp.
- Challenging the Chief: Beachmaster Bender is challenged for a duel for control of the beach. He prevails.
- Chekhov's Gun: The rock that crushes the baby tortoises.
- Chocolate Baby: Beachmaster Bender brags about how all the pups for the year are his, completely unaware that the other males had mated with his harem and produced at least four offspring that look identical to them.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The duel between Beachmaster Bender and Kif ends with Kif quickly being crushed to death.
- Chubby Chaser/Fat and Proud: Given how their social hierarchy functions, the cast for the Elephant seal segment are quite fond of their obesity to where the beta males fatshaming Bender comes across more as them being envious for being smaller than him rather than mocking him for being obese.
- Determinator: Salmon Fry defies nature itself to be with Salmon Leela, jumping over a mountain to get to her.
- Deus ex Machina: Salmon Fry being saved by Bear Ndnd.
- Documentary Episode: The entire cast are reimagined as wild animals on the nature documentary series, Mutual of Omicron's Wild Universe.
- Downer Ending: All three segments end with the protagonist being killed.
- "The Salmon" has Fry and Leela reunite and successfully mate with each other, but they both die shortly afterwards.
- "The Pinta Island Tortoise" ends with Lonesome Hubert's offspring being crushed, ensuring that his species will become extinct.
- "The Elephant Seal" probably has the closest thing to a happy ending. While Kif is killed by the Beachmaster, the other males take this opportunity to mate with the rest of the Beachmaster's harem. This rendered moot shortly afterwards, once the Omicronians end up destroying the Earth.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The aliens destroy Earth with their Wave-Motion Gun in the final scene.
- Falling-in-Love Montage: Salmon Fry and Salmon Leela get a montage with song "Sea of Love". They jump above the surface of sea, they create a heart shape with water, they have a Spaghetti Kiss and they watch bioluminescent jellyfish and look at each other lovingly.
- Fat Bastard: Bender as the heavy-set Beachmaster ramps up all his Jerkass qualities, as no one can challenge an elephant seal his size.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: A three-segment show where the entire cast are animals being made the focus of a nature documentary. It doesn't have much of the sci-fi comedy the show is usually known for.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Kif's fight against the Beachmaster results in his death, but his bachelor friends used the fight as a diversion to mate with as many of Bender's females as possible, resulting in a Pyrrhic Victory for Bender.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Salmon Fry's "Son of a fish" when seeing Salmon Zapp making it to the next stream plateau.
- I Can Explain: Line said by Professor Tortoise when he is found mating a rock by Mom Tortoise.
- Identical Grandson: Played for laughs. Bird Fry in the second segment is actually his great great grandson Fry, whose only difference is a minutely sharper beak.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Salmon Fry coughs right before dying.
- It's All About Me: Salmon Bender's Final Words are "Tell my offspring I loved ME very much."
- I Will Wait for You: Professor Tortoise wonders if the female he met a century ago at the far side of the island is still there waiting for him. Turns out she was.
- Killer Bunny: Fish Nibbler devouring a giant moray.
- Last of His Kind: Lonesome Hubert is believed to be the last Pinta Island Tortoise. His tale is inspired by
Lonesome George
, who was indeed the last of his species before his death in 2012. The episode is dedicated to his memory. - Misplaced Wildlife: Scruffy is a walrus in the elephant seal segment, although the two species don't have overlapping territories. Northern elephant seals can be found south of the Alaskan peninsula, while walruses are found further north.
- Morphic Resonance: The animals bear features of their human counterparts.
- Nature Is Not Nice: A recurring theme across all three segments is that nature is cruel, indifferent, and ultimately meaningless if a species is unable to pass their genes to the next generation.Narrator: And so, the endless circle of life comes to an end, meaningless and grim. Why did they live, and why did they die? No reason. (shot of dead fish floating off into the sunset)
- No Kill like Overkill: Beachmaster Bender not only crushes Kif beneath his blubbery weight during the fight, he continues to crush him in his sleep and doesn't know he's killed him until many hours later.Leela: Beachmaster, stop fighting! He's been dead since yesterday!
- No Need for Names: It's pointed out that the salmon characters have no name because they are fish.Salmon Leela: I'll never forget you...fish.
- Not What It Looks Like: When Turtle Farnsworth tries to get interment with a boulder he mistakes for Mom Turtle, the actually she-tortoise appears and gets jealous. Farnsworth Turtle attempts to clear things up, but Mom Turtle tells him to shut up.
- Offing the Offspring: Beachmaster Bender crushes seven of his own pups while rolling over in his sleep. He doesn't care because he can always repopulate.
- Out with a Bang: Just like in real life, the salmon use up all their energy to travel upstream and mate, dying shortly afterwards.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Professor Farnsworth is shown as a Pinta Island Tortoise, the last one in the world. It aired only months after Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island Tortoise in real life, died.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: We only see the birds commenting on the mating act between the two tortoises.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog:
- After spending so much time trying to get Lonesome Hubert to mate and save his species in "The Pinta Island Tortoise", all three of his offspring end up being crushed less than a minute after hatching, rendering his species extinct.
- Kif and the other males' efforts at overthrowing the Beachmaster in "The Elephant Seal" are all for naught since the Omicronians end up destroying the Earth.
- Shout-Out:
- Mutal of Omicron's Wild Universe is an obvious nod to the popular nature show, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
- One of the creatures show during the opening is a facehugger from the Alien series.
- The narrator is a Morgan Freeman sound-alike, referencing his role in narrating the nature documentary March of the Penguins.
- Salmon Fry jumping the ridge between the two streams reminds of the iconic scene from Free Willy
- Somewhere, a Herpetologist Is Crying: In the second act, the narrator perpetrates the misconception that all reptiles are cold-blooded (leatherback sea turtles and tegu lizards can regulate their body temperatures, plus many prehistoric reptiles like dinosaurs and pterosaurs were warm-blooded).
- Spaghetti Kiss: The salmon Fry and Leela share a kiss while eating a small eel.
- Spicy Latina: Professor Tortoise calls Mom Tortoise a "hot-blooded Latina."
- Sssssnake Talk: The snake encountered by Professor Tortoise and his entourage speaks like this.
- Starcrossed Lovers: "The Salmon" features Fry and Leela as two salmon who were hatched in different streams. They fall in love, but instinct forces them to separate as they return to their own streams to spawn.
- Swallowed Whole: Bird Amy is swallowed by the snake.
- Tempting Fate: Salmon Hermes should learn to choose his words better:Hermes: Who wants a piece of me?Zoidberg: I'll try a bite!(Zoidberg grabs Hermes and bites his head off)
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: The female seal have eye lashes.
- Time-Passes Montage: Professor Tortoise walks along his path as sun and moon interchange.
- Together in Death: Salmon!Fry and Salmon!Leela (and to a lesser extent, Salmon!Bender and Salmon!Amy) pass away by each other's side after mating. Justified in that they're salmon, a species of fish that often goes Out with a Bang.
- Toothy Bird: The Finch versions of Fry, Leela, Amy and Hermes all have teeth as well as beaks.
- Truth in Television: Tortoise Farnsworth refuses to mate with Petunia Tortoise who is of a different subspecies. The last Pinta Island Tortoise, lonesome George, refused mates of different subspecies.
- Unexplained Recovery: Early on in the salmon segment, salmon Scruffy is shown being eaten by lobster Zoidberg. However, later on when the salmon are getting ready to swim upstream, he’s seen with the other fish, no worse for wear.
- Unreliable Voiceover:Narrator: The female conveys her receptivity through subtle vocalizations.Seal Amy: Wanna do it?
- Watching the Sunset: The two tortoises do this after mating.
- Woman Scorned: Mom Tortoise is enraged when seeing the Professor mating a rock (they both mistake it for another tortoise).
