The Honking

Infobox Futurama episode
episode_name = The Honking


caption = Bender the were-car.
episode_no = 31
prod_code = 2ACV18
airdate = November 5, 2000
country = USA
writer = Ken Keeler
director = Susie Dietter
opening_subtitle = Smell-O-Vision Users Insert Nostril Tubes Now
opening_cartoon = "Bold King Cole"
season = two

"The Honking" is episode eighteen in season two of "Futurama". It originally aired in North America on November 5, 2000. The title comes from "The Howling", a modern werewolf film.

Plot

As part of his late uncle Vladimir's last will, Bender has to spend a night in his family's sinister, old castle. However, the castle's holographic "robot ghosts" cause him to flee out into the night, where he is promptly run over by a mysterious car. A car that "creeps on the ground on four rubbery feet, like a wolf."

After returning to New New York, Bender begins to experience nightmares and blackouts, and starts to believe that the mysterious car has followed him home. In the city, mysterious tire tracks are discovered at places where Bender has been.

Worried, Bender seeks "professional help"; a coin operated circus fortune teller machine. The machine informs him that he was run over by a "werecar," the robotic equivalent of a werewolf, and has thus become one himself. He is cursed to keep running people over until he will inevitably kill his best friend; Fry. The only thing that can lift the curse is to destroy the original werecar.

That night, Bender indeed turns into a sedan that resembles the Lincoln from the movie "The Car" and goes after Leela, angering Fry who takes this as a sign that Bender doesn't consider him to be his best friend after all.

After narrowly surviving Bender's nocturnal rampage, the crew returns to the village near Uncle Vladimir's castle. From there, they follow a trail of various bizarre werecars (e.g. the "abominable snowmobile"), until they ultimately find the original werecar; Project Satan, a demonic car built from parts of the "most evil cars in history."

In the final act, Bender once again transforms, and this time goes after Fry, to the latter's immense joy. During the fight between Leela, Fry, Bender-car and Project Satan, Project Satan accidentally drives himself into a large furnace, destroying him and lifting the curse.

The episode ends with a cured Bender trying to strangle Fry for taking his last beer, signalling their friendship has returned to normal. As normal as it has ever been, anyway.

Continuity

* In this episode, Bender's antenna is shown to also act as a receiver for remote controls, which Hermes uses to set him to "mute" when he becomes too annoying. Bender is entirely unaware of any change.

Reception

in "Doug Pratt's DVD" Pratt noted that this episode had an "extremely witty plot turn".cite book|last=Pratt| first=Douglas| title=Doug Pratt's DVD: Movies, Television, Music, Art, Adult, and More!| pages=474]

Cultural references

* The beginning of the episode shares many similarities to an episode of "The Flintstones" titled "A Haunted House is not a Home". In the episode, Fred Flintstone will inherit a scary castle from his eccentric uncle provided he spend one night within its walls. The castle contains a long dinner table, above which is a painting of Fred's uncle in which the eyes move. There is also constant laughing heard throughout the castle.
* The factory where Project Satan was initiated is called Anti-Chrysler, a pun on Antichrist.
* The eerie sound that is heard in the castle is the default startup tune for Windows 98.
* One of the robot ghosts chasing Bender is the Microsoft Windows logo. Another is a flying toaster.
* The town of Thermostadt is a pun on Thermostat, a device used to adjust the temperature in many homes, using the common German suffix "-stadt" or "town."
* One of the tombstones in the castle cemetery reads "The Red LeBaron", a punning reference to the Red Baron and the Chrysler LeBaron, foreshadowing the were-car plot.
* Uncle Vladimir's spoiled son Tandy is named for the Tandy Corporation (now the RadioShack Corporation). On his torso is written "Euro-TRaSh-80", a reference to Tandy's TRS-80 personal computer, nicknamed the "Trash-80".
* When the will is read, the line for Tandy is a parody of a line from the famous Volkswagen commercial "Funeral."
* The painting with the moving eyes is that of "Commodore LXIV", referring to the Commodore 64 personal computer.
* The line spoken by a Thermostadt villager, "Mumbo, perhaps. Jumbo, perhaps not," is a parody of a line from the 1934 horror film "The Black Cat": "Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not."
* This episode references several horror movies, including "The Car", "Christine", "The Haunting", "The Shining" and "An American Werewolf in London".
* While staying in Vladimir's castle, Bender is alarmed to see the binary number 0101100101 (357 in decimal) in a mirror, resulting in 1010011010 when reflected. 1010011010 is the binary representation of 666, the Number of the Beast. The fact that it is only coherent in the mirror is a reference to the famous "Redrum" phrase occurring in "The Shining" (the leading zero in the unreflected version makes no sense for arbitrary width binary numbers; even Bender points this out by saying it was gibberish).
* Calculon's claim that he was all of "history's greatest acting robots" is a subtle reference to the immortal Mr. Flint from the "" episode "Requiem for Methuselah". David X. Cohen confirms this "Star Trek" reference in the DVD commentary.
* Calculon claims that he was once David Duchovny.
* The impound lot in which Bender wakes up has the slogan "The Happiest Place On Earth", a reference to Disneyland.
* Project Satan refers to "Ed Begley, Jr.'s electric motor, the most evil propulsion system ever conceived!" Begley is known for his environmentalism and support for hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius, and owned a General Motors EV1. [http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/electric.html]
* At one point, Doctor Zoidberg attempts to sell Mary Kay products to his co-workers.
* The scene where the horse-drawn carriage is moving along the cliffs towards the castle is very similar to a scene in "Bram Stoker's Dracula".
* The castle that once belonged to Bender's uncle is located in the former Robo-Hungarian Empire, a reference to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
* The villager who takes them to the castle remarks "I will go this far and no farther" similar to the 1931 film "Dracula". They are, in fact, at the doors to the castle.
* Calculon says that the most evil parts of the most evil people's cars were used to build Project Satan, like the steering wheel from Adolf Hitler's staff car and the left turn signal of Charles Manson's VW, both Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson are considered to be two of history's greatest villains. He also mentions the windshield wipers from KITT from the series Knight Rider, to which Fry says "Knight Rider wasn't evil!". Calculon responds "His windshield wipers were! It didn't come up much on the show, though."

References