This might actually be the tamest episode to date, garnering only a TV-PG (The Simpsons even gets a TV-PG-D usually). Nevertheless, it was great, if not the greatest. Fry and Gunther were hilarious in their petty rivalry, as was Farnsworth's general senility. The only thing it lacked was the irony present in a lot of the best episodes of "The Simpsons"--the nerds of Robot House ask Bender to teach them how to be cool without a trace of irony in that cliched message. The new musical score that Christopher Tyng seems to have adopted worked well for a change of pace.
GRADE: A-
Minutiae (sorry, this is from memory...):
- Futurama has a new opening theme, in case you used that little interlude to fetch yourself some artery-clogging potato chips. This actually seems to be a different section from the same ~2.5-minute score, spliced up.
- The Macintosh-ish computer in the robot "panty raid" is outdated even by today's standards. No wonder it keeps crashing (naughty, naughty computer!).
- Both the 10/3/1999 episodes of "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" had instances of characters being subjected to electric shocks. Matt Groening must think they're funny.
Obscure Refs That Probably Aren't Really Refs But I Put Down Here Just Because I Can:
"Big Guy and Rusty" - This Fox Kids Saturday Morning cartoon features a talking monkey (voiced by Kathy Kinney of "The Drew Carey Show") that looks and sounds much like Gunther.
"Archie" - Early-90s Fry's hair looks like 1970s Archie Andrews'.