Futurama

4ACV19: School of Hard Bolts
By Shadowstar

Caption: This program no longer causes eye cancer.

Cartoon: Quick Draw McGraw

ACT ONE:

ZOOM IN: Seaside view on the PE building. CUT TO: Fry and Bender sitting in front of the TV. (what else is new)

Announcer: (on TV) Now, it’s time for midseason, so get your VCRs ready for the shows that were too good for the start of the season!

Bender: Ah, this sucks.

Fry: Yeah, back in the 20th century, midseason was worse than this. Like in 1999 on FOX, there was this animated show about- [Leela comes in, cutting Fry off]

Leela: Do you ever do anything besides sitting on your lazy asses all day?

Bender: Hey it’s not easy!

Fry: Yeah, every five hours, we gotta get up to eat. And every other couple hours, I have to go to the bathroom.

Leela: *sigh* You- [Prof. comes in, cutting Leela off]

Prof.: Good news everyone!

Bender: Oh great, here we go.

Prof.: Today, you’ll be making yet another delivery to the Galaxy of Terror!

Fry: But, something bad always happens when we go there.

Prof.: Yes, but nothing can go wrong this time.

Fry: [whispering to Bender] How many times has he said that?

Bender: [makes computing noises] About five hundred-and-eighteen.

Prof.: I heard that! And it’s five hundred-and-twenty- seven. Anyway, you’re be visiting the planet Frimbola, the dullest planet on the edge of the Galaxy of Terror.

Leela: Well that doesn’t sound too bad.

Prof.: You don’t know half of it.

Fry: Aw, do we have to go, it’s midseason!

Bender: But didn’t you just say-

Fry: Hey, it beats working.

Bender: Amen!

Leela: Look, you won’t get paid by just sitting on the couch all day.

Fry: Oh… all right, c’mon Bender.

Bender: Oh fine.

Prof.: Don’t worry, I’ll keep the couch warm for you. [chuckles]

Bender: [curses under breath]

CUT TO: PE Ship flying through the Galaxy of Terror, then landing on a blue-white planet. Leela, Fry and Bender walk to a building, which reads “Bowling Ally”.

Walking inside, they see a bunch of bland people bowling, and the ball takes like five minutes and only hits one pin.

Fry: Man, this place is depressing.

Bender: Yeah, let’s just deliver this package and get out of this dump.

[Fry, Leela and Bender walk to the front desk]

Leela: Hello, here’s your package you ordered.

Man: [slowly] Thanks, I’ve been waiting for this time- speed device for a while. [opens package, and puts a device on wall and flips a switch, turning everything to normal speed.]

Fry: Woah, cool.

[sparks come from the device and the bowler’s bowling balls start to fly across the room. Fry, Bender and Leela run. Bender gets hit by a couple of balls and the dents knock out one of his eyes, Leela dives behind the bar, Fry hides behind a plant. He looks from behind it, only to get hit in the face by a ball. He looks from the other side and gets hit by another. After a while, Fry looks around and get up. Then, he’s hit by more bowling balls. The three all run out and begin to start the ship]

Fry: Hey wait, Bender, where’s your eye?

Bender: Oh yeah, I forgot it! [Bender walks out; not realizing his leg is tangled on the table leg]

Leela: Blast off in t-minus 10, 9, ah… forget it. [takes off]

Fry: Wait Leela, Bender isn’t back yet!

[cut to Bender, picking up his eye and shoving it back in]

Bender: There, good as- [notices a Playbot vending machine] Oh yeah! [walks toward vending machine and shoves his arm in the slot, grabbing bunches of coins]

Hehehehehe… huh? [notices his leg is being pulled back] AAAAAAH!

[Wide exterior shot of the ship and Bender trying to hold on to the vending machine.]

Leela: What is Bender doing?

Fry: I don’t know, wait, he’s got his hand in another vending machine.

Leela: Alcohol, or porno?

Fry: Porno.

Bender: AAAAAGH!! [gets pulled backward toward a magnet vendor] No, not the magnets! [gets seven magnets on him, Bender flips out and starts singing, “By the Old Wooden Mill”]

[Meanwhile, the ship takes off and Bender and the vending machine is pulled toward it, the ship flies and lands on Earth]

Leela: Well, we made it!

Fry: Wait, what about Bender? [Bender comes crashing down through the ship’s roof with the vending machine.]

Bender: [weakly] Uh… hi?

CUT TO: Hermes’ office, where Bender is talking to Hermes, Prof. and Leela.

Hermes: [reading papers] Well, to repair the damages, it’ll take $150,000.

Prof.: Oh… [to Bender] This is all your fault with your obsessive personality comprised with alcohol, drugs and pornography!

Bender: Yeah, but it was a whole vending machine’s worth! Don’t try to lie and say that you couldn’t resist it either!

Leela: That ship is more important to me than almost everything, and you cut a hole right through it and think it’s no big deal?

Bender: Evidently so!

Hermes: Well, we’ve dealed with all of your incompetence, but this is the final straw!

Prof.: Bender, you’re fired!

Bender: [gasps]

Hermes: Let me handle this, Professor. Bender, you’re fired!

Bender: [gasps]

END OF ACT ONE

ACT TWO:

ZOOM IN: Robot Arms Apartments, night.

CUT TO: Fry gargling over a sink, he spits out the water and turns around, seeing Bender open the door.

Fry: Hey, Bender, what up?

Bender: I just got fired.

Fry: That’s great, wait, what?

Bender: Those stubborn organ sacks threw me out of the business. I’m going to miss it.

Fry: What, your job?

Bender: No! My couch! And I left half a beer under it.

Fry: So, now what are you going to do.

Bender: I dunno, probably kill myself. [looks out window] Hmm, long line for the suicide booth. I can probably bribe them for a few bucks.

Fry: No Bender, I’m not going to let you die. I’ll help you find a job.

Bender: Aw, thanks buddy! [they hugs, Bender reaches in Fry’s pocket, and grabs some cash]

CUT TO: Frontal view of Planet Express building

CUT TO: Zoidberg on the couch watching TV, Leela and Amy on the table behind it playing cards.

Fry: Good news everyone, I’m going to help Bender find a job!

Prof.: Hey that’s my line, and Bender, get out! I fired you yesterday.

Bender: It’s not like there’s a law.

Prof.: Yes there is, it was passed in 2562 that no one can come to their old job to grovel or will be shot.

Fry: But Bender’s not groveling for his job back, he’s groveling to help him find a new job.

Prof.: Oh, then off we go! I have the classified section right here!

[picks up big wad of papers. Fry opens it and sees only one page of Classified]

Fry: Hey, what’s this big wad for if there’s only on page of Classified?

Prof.: The rest is Robot Classified.

[Fry skims through a whole bunch of pages.]

CUT TO: Clips accompanied by a music montage. First, Bender tries to be a postbot, but keeps sneaking peeks at people’s mail, and dog’s biting his shiny metal ass. Then, he was a supporter for a car wash. He held the water cannons for the car to be blow-dried. Unfortunately, Bender fell and cracked the car’s windshield. Before his boss could notice, he ran off. Next, a bartender. Bender kept drinking beer until he was so drunk, he hit an innocent guy at the bar.

CUT TO: Planet Express, night

Bender: It’s hopeless, I’m doomed of becoming an unemployed hunk of metal.

Leela: Don’t give up Bender, there’s one job left: Uh, schoolbot!

Bender: Are you crazy? School’s for chumps! This isn’t working. I gotta get outta here. [walks out]

Fry: Man, Bender seems really mad at himself, we should go help him, no, wait, All My Circuits is on!

CUT TO: Sidewalk across from Planet Express building

Bender: Awww… if I don’t get a job, I’ll have to live off of stealing booze and cigars and porno, and some people aren’t easily bribable chumps! I guess I can be a model schoolbot! OK, I’ll do it!

CUT TO: New New York, daytime, a street.

[Bender is drilling in a poster onto an outlet (which he bought) with his hand that says, “School.” Bender finishes and steps down. What it really says is “Bender’s Crime School.”]

Bender: Perfect. [laughs]

CUT TO: Outside Planet Express

CUT TO: Inside Planet Express, Leela is pouring herself coffee, Fry’s reading the newspaper while eating Bachelor Chow.

Fry: Hey, get a load of this?

[Leela walks over to see]

Fry: [reading] Crime for Dummies school opens, students wanted, part-time professor wanted also. There’s a job Bender can enroll into.

Leela: Hey, wait, isn’t that phone number there you and Bender’s apartment number?

Fry: Do we even have a phone?

Leela: This is the kind of job that’s kinda illegal. We should go check it out.

Fry: First, I gotta get Bender, he may want to enroll.

Leela: Didn’t you listen to what I just said?

Fry: No, what?

Leela: *groans*

CUT TO: Inside the classroom. Bender is tutoring robots. The classroom is decorated with containers of broken bottles, knifes, guns and what have you, a human skeleton with hit parts labeled, and an ABC table: (A: Atomic Bomb, B: Burglar, C: Cyanide…)

Bender: Now, when you have a getaway car, make sure it’s full of gas as you escape.

Shifty Robot: So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong! I’m so stupid!

[Fry and Leela enter]

Bender: Hey, you’re disrupting my lesson!

Fry: Bender? You work here?

Bender: That’s right, coffin-stuffer. This is my new job! And what do you care, you’re the ones who fired me.

Fry: But I’m your friend!

Bender: Ah, friendship is over-rated!

Leela: But you can’t open this kind of business, one that teaches people how to felon, it’s against the law!

Bender: Ah, if it were against the law, they wouldn’t let me print it in that newspaper, and was it in there? Yes! Now go away, unless you want to enroll!

Panicky Robot: I have a question!

Panicky Robot #2: Me too!

Bender: Cram it! I’m talking to friends here!

[the two robots remove their heads and it’s really those two cop guys in disguise]

Human Cop: You’re busted!

Robot Cop: Put your hands up!

Bender: Uh… hey, look! A shoe sale!

[the two cops look and Bender runs off]

Robot Cop: That’s a nice shoe sale.

Human Cop: Yeah, hey, he got away! Robot Cop: C’mon, let’s beat his ass.

[the two cops run after Bender]

Robot: Does that mean class is dismissed?

END OF ACT TWO

ACT THREE:

[Bender is running down an ally and then a railroad track (a la The Fugitive) and is being chased by a hover train. It’s about to hit him… but it goes right through him. No, it’s not a ghost train, it was a hologram. Bender continues to run and hides in a dumpster. The two cops run right past it]

Bender: Hehehehehehe… I need a smoke.

CUT TO: Outside, the dumpster is smoking.

Human Cop: Hey, should we check out that smoking dumpster?

Robot Cop: Nah, it’s probably that guy who throws burning raccoon skins in there.

[The two cops walk off. Bender jumps out with burning raccoon skins all over him and rolls around the floor. He takes a hose out of his chest cavity and cools it off.]

CUT TO: Planet Express building, than inside it, where

[Fry, Leela, Amy, Hermes, Zoidberg and Prof. are sitting at the table]

Prof.: So, Bender’s opened a crime college?

Leela: For the 14th time Professor, YES!

Prof.: A crime college you say?

Amy: We better get him to shut it down before he gets in trouble with the law again.

Fry: No way, when Bender puts his mind to something, he always finishes it.

Leela: What about the toilet he promised you for the apartment?

Fry: I’m sure he probably just forgot.

[Bender comes running in, a little melted]

Bender: Aaah, you gotta help me! My crime school has attracted cops! You gotta get ‘em off my ass!

Leela: Why should we help you, after the way you treated us.

Bender: OK, all right, maybe I was a bit too harsh, so, can you help me?

Fry: Ah, OK, Bender.

Bender: Yes! You’re my best friend, Fry!

Leela: You can hide out in the hull of the ship.

Bender: I rather dislike you!

CUT TO: Ship blasting off, orbiting Earth. The hull bursts open and Bender falls down onto the concrete.

Fry: What was that?

Leela: I think Bender just plummeted from the hull.

Fry, I told you to tighten those hinges.

Fry: I couldn’t find the screwdriver.

Leela: It’s in the basement.

Fry: [smacks forehead] Woah! Heh, I’m so stupid.

CUT TO: In front of Planet Express, Bender is like a foot into the concrete. The two cops look down at him.

Bender: Any chance of an easy pardon?

Robot Cop: Not a chance, scuzzbot.

Bender: Oh yeah, well, I’m just going to bribe you for all you’re worth!

CUT TO: Gavel banging.

Judge: Bender, you’re off the hook, but you must shut down your crime college immediately! [hands him closure deed]

Bender: Sure will! I’ll just put it in my ‘Important Stuff’ bin. [opens chest cavity, puts deed in folder, walks out of courthouse] Heh heh heh… [it turns out the folder was a shredder]

CUT TO: Bender walking down the street.

Bender: Now to get back to mooching cash off of promising delinquents.

[His robot classmates are ransacking Bender’s crime college]

Robot: Hey, I got a bunch of knives!

Bender: Hey, what are you doing?

Robot: What you taught us.

Bender: Awww, they grow up so fast. [the robots run off] Hey, wait… aw, CRAP!

CUT TO: Bender boarding up his crime college with a sign, “Closed Forever.” Fry and Leela walk by.

Fry: What happened here?

Bender: My punk classmates broke into my crime college and took everything. At least I got a hefty 100 thousand! [opens chest cavity, revealing money. Leela takes a bill]

Leela: Hey, this isn’t real money! It’s counterfeit!

Bender: What? How do you know?

Leela: Since when has Bill Clinton been on the $500?

[Bender notices a car filled of his former classmates]

Robot: That’s right chump, we’re professional con- artists taking advantage of amateurs like you! [car drives away]

Bender: WHY THOSE-

Fry: Let ‘em go, Bender. Let ‘em go.

CUT TO: Inside Planet Express.

Hermes: So, you want your job back?

Bender: Yes, I’ll pay for the ship’s damage in full. [hands him the counterfeit money.]

Hermes: Done and done!

Bender: Heh heh heh… And I promise that I will work harder than ever before!

CUT TO: Bender slouching on the couch.

Fry: I thought you were going to work harder than ever before.

Bender: I’ll do it tomorrow.

Fry: Amen. [sits down with him]

END OF ACT THREE