The Sting - Touching, yet funny

Spoilers

This is one of the better episodes we've seen so far. Everything from the neat little references (yet another reference to HoneyComb cereal) to the more poignant moments (especially the ending) make this one of the better episodes so far. Gotta love that whole 2001 gag where Leela tries to retrieve Fry's coffin. With an episode this top notch, we can expect to be disappointed by everything afterwards. Except for maybe the upcoming finale.

Now for the questions...

-The scene where Fry and Leela escape from the honeycomb has a bee crashing into a wall, exploding into flames, after which the two of them outrun the ensuing explosion. This has been done in a zillion science fiction films, but was this supposed to be an exact reference to another film?

-The baby queen bee impales Fry and stings Leela. The stinger breaks off, which would eventually lead to the death of the Queen Bee, if it hadn't been hit by a space truck upon evacuation through the airlock. I do realize it's a cartoon, but I thought queen bees were supposed to have stingers that could attack repeatedly. After all, that's how the queen bees fight for dominance in the hive...or did someone goof when writing this episode?

-Alongside Captain Crunch ("Admiral Crunch") and Count Chocula ("Arch Duke Chocula"), HoneyComb cereal gets a lot of nods in this show. First with "Anthology of Interest I" ("I'm a big robot and I want a biiiiiiiig cereal!"), and now with this episode. ("HoneyComb big! Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not small. No, no, no."). What other cereal references have they used so far?

Peace, Vince Yim

Actually, queen & worker bees can attack other bees repeatedly; stingers only stick fast in squishy human/animal flesh. When bees sting each other they can pull them out for re-use because they are only piercing hard, chitinous exoskeletons.

Incidentally, when bees sting humans/animals it's not really that the stinger "breaks off"; the stinger and venom sac are ripped out of the bee's abdomen when it struggles to free itself from the victim. The bee subsequently dies from the traumatic internal injury.

--/<eith

On Mon, 02 Jun 2003 19:24:10 GMT, "Hiro Protagonist" spewed forth:

I'd put it in the Star Wars trench run, but I dunno.

On Mon, 02 Jun 2003 21:04:44 GMT, Rev. Bleech_ spewed forth:

Er, and I forgot to add, anyone see any 'Wrath of Kahn' in Fry's Funeral ?

Rev. Bleech_ wrote in message news:...

Totally. The ejection of the coffin, the Scottish bagpipes, right out of Wrath of Kahn, I thought, too!

Nobody dismiss this as some kind of goof. There ARE kamikaze ants. I think. That's just insect mentality. Kill and/or die to protect the hive.

in article [email], Yama at [email] wrote on 6/2/03 3:44 PM:

That or he hit his turbo-thruster going into the turn. ;)

On Mon, 02 Jun 2003 19:24:10 GMT, "Hiro Protagonist" wrote:

"I'll get Fry's corpse and keep it under my matress to remind me that he's dead. That'll prove I'm not insane!"

LOL! Great line.

Crash7 remove x's from address to email

"Hiro Protagonist" wrote in message news:...

As long as doing some nit-picking, It should be noted that the bees' wings should be useless in space - wings reqire air to function. Without air, the wings would beat uselessly, and the animal would not move. In space, some sort of jet propulsion is mandatory for getting around. Not to mention that these bees don't need oxygen, either (though I'm willing to speculate that these bees get O2 somehow in the hive, and hold their breath while outside it). Still, this is nit-picking, the show was fantastic.

-jww

Maybe there's just air in that part of space.

Matthew Miller wrote:

Or maybe it's because they're *space* bees.

"Matthew Miller" wrote in message news:[email]...

Ain't no air in space! ...Unless a wizard (or alien) did it...

Where do you think the air you're breathing right now is? Anti-space?

"Matthew Miller" wrote in message news:[email]...

Aera in universam XXV est. Either on Earth, on Rigel 4, or on The Radiator Planet. The laws of quantum mechanics forbid me from knowing more specifically.

Quadro wrote:

Giant space bees, time travell, aliens, living heads in jars etc etc. Is a little air in space realy worth arguing about as to how real it is?

;)

Best Wishes Thomas

There's an air'n space museum

"Thomas Andersson" wrote in message news:bei7a7$5kv90$[email]...

"Thomas Andersson" wrote in message news:bei7a7$5kv90$[email]...

Yes! It distracts me from the tedium of work and family!

"Matthew Miller" wrote in message news:[email]...

<...>

Perhaps the wings don't act on air at all. But are instead a complex particle emitter array and they only happen to look and flap like an earth honeybee's. When infact they are emitting a massive amount of tiny dense particles that propel the Bee around space.

Or a www.izard.

There's no wizards in space!

On or about 12 Jun 2003 12:51:23 GMT, Matthew Miller made the sensational claim that:

But there are Space www.izards I'm sure.

I refer you to 4acv08 s05e01 /Crimes of the Hot/.

Leons Petrazickis import java.lang.disclaimer;

In article , "Michael Zaite" writes:

Yes, that's it exactly. And the "sounds" the buzzing wings make are an illusion caused by electromagnetic induction directly in your brain, like the sounds caused by the Aurorae Australis and Borealis.

And by gover'ment satellites.

In article ,

That's spelt gumm'int.

Maybe their wings are capable of photosynthesis.

"J. Wellington Wimpy" wrote:

I am absolutely positive it was an intentional mistake on the part of the writers.;)

Leons Petrazickis import java.lang.disclaimer;

Dear Sir

I must object to your message by the strongest means possible. First of all you don't need jet propultion in space, you mean rocket propultion, because jet propultion also needs air. A jet engine takes in air, heats it up and forces it out on the other side of the engine, which is smaller than the intake. Therefore the heated air is pushed out at very high speed thus propulsing the aircraft. However, sattellites can move in space, yet they don't use a rocket enige to move around, you would need fuel for that, which is way to costly. They use gyroscopes to move. Those are wheels that turn very quickly, and if you coordinate those wheels carefully, you can create movement, thanks to the laws of action and reaction.

I thank you for this opportunity to nitpack also

Sincere Greetings

Aster (Mrs.)

"Petrazickis" wrote in message news:VsuFa.5713$[email]...

news:...

"Zeverken" wrote in message news:...

Dear Friend,

I stand corrected on the jet/rocket propulsion issue. A slip up on my part. However, my original point of wings being useless in a vacuum still stands. As for gyros on satellites: the orbital motion of artificial satellites are pretty much set after launch. The gyros on board are used to adjust attitude / orientation, not to move from one point to another.

I bid good day to thee madam,

-jww

Hiro Protagonist wrote:

Now that you mention it, it did have some similarities to the escape sequence from the Death Star II sequence in Return of the Jedi.

"Exatron" wrote in message news:...

     And the part where Fry falls into the royal jelly and gets regenerated
by it later looks like a spoof of an ST: Voyager episode where 2 of the
characters fall into some silvery liquid glop on a planet while searching
for deuterium.  The glop turns out to be a life form which replicates the
2 crew members (I guess their space suits weren't very airtight).
     I can't remember the name of the Voyager episode though.

"Hiro Protagonist" wrote in message news:uvNCa.3957$[email]...

used

There was another in this episode ("We've found it! The honeycomb hideout!")

There may be no air IN space, but there's an Air AND Space museum!

That quote reads so wrong the way you emphasized the words :o)

Homer REALLY thought it's "Air In Space Museum" because... well, because he's Homer...

This episode was sad, but was also comical and had a nice ending :)