Thoughts on [3ACV22] The 30% Iron Chef

[on:]

This is our weekly (well, for one more week) review thread. Some moderator will hopefully open and bump it shortly before the episode aired. If you do not want to be spoiled, go away.

Review:
I thought it was quite good for a Bender episode. After about 12 minutes it started getting slow though. The contest was rather boring but for the gondolier. Zoidberg was funny as always. Overall: B to B+

[Reply #1 on:]

Woo-hoo! I got to open the review thread!

Anyway, this was, IMO, a really great episode. It was terriffic to see Bubblegum tate again, and I loved the Iron Chef parody. Zoidebrg's subplot was fun, too... predictable, but it was SUPPOSED to be predictable.

9 out of ten.

[Reply #2 on:]

I only saw half, i was eating dinner!
Why? Why?
There was AL2 in it, I noticed, it flashed each time it said Iron Chef, and i think it was the same each time.

[Reply #3 on:]

Great story,Great plot A+!! Water in LSD!

[Reply #4 on:]

Yup, liked that one a lot. Was a *little* bit slow and in places but there were some top class Zoidberg moments and one-liners from Bender.

[Reply #5 on:]

Great episode.  The first part was good, but not great, but the Iron Chef parody was sheer brilliance.  Not in my top 5 episodes, but potentailly in my top 10.

[Reply #6 on:]

This episode presented in BC (Brain Control), where available.

[Reply #7 on:]

Good stuff, a really funny episode. If you haven't seen the real Iron Chef on TV, I urge you to go and see it! The wormhole bit was funny, as was the "romo" joke. 8/10.

[Reply #8 on:]

I loved this episode. It had a great iron chef parody. The whole subplot with Zoidberg was also great

[Reply #9 on:]

It was funny.  I loved when the Chairman unveild the secret ingredient, Soylent Green.  That joke never gets old.  Many funny scenes.

Zoidberg was funny through most of it.

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.

[Reply #10 on:]

Very well done episode.  More opinions as they develop.

[Reply #11 on:]

I loved this ep.  Very funny and well-written.  I used to be a HUGE "Iron Chef" fan and seeing a parody of it was great.  I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.  Let's just hope "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" is as good. 

[Reply #12 on:]

nice episode.  About bender, but they let zoidberg have a lot of airtime.  My favorite "bender" episode.  one more to go :'(

[Reply #13 on:]

A funny ep. Had me smiling the whole way through. 9/10

[Reply #14 on:]

I think one of the things that made me happiest, that didn't involve the Iron Cook segment (which is probably my favorite segment of the season), was when they played the song from The Karate Kid (You're the best, around, ain't nothing gonna keep you down).  Great memories there.

[Reply #15 on:]

'Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.'
lol HA HA!!!... oh yeah...

diffinetly a great eps. I loved Zoiberg! lol
'Oh, The Guilt!', 'I hate bottles', Fry's Confession... on a Dr. Zoidbergs notepaper.. lol

And the begining was great!
'I'm going to go warn, tell the others','and stop crying Leela!' 

aahh.....

[Reply #16 on:]

It was funny enough, but I didn't think it was that great. But then again, I was watching it with non-fans who kept talking, so I missed some parts, and I don't have it on tape.

It seemed kind of Futurestock-ish to me. Lots of funny jokes, but then a bunch of other bits that were kind of annoying. The end, where Farnsworth says the secret ingrediant is water was way too much like the I Second That Emotion ending. Pretty disappointing.

But the "I hate bottles" shirt, and Zoidberg's subsequent guilt was hilarious, and the Iron Chef parody at the end was good too. All in all, it was a fairly funny episode, but I wish they would have kicked the story up another notch, and cut out some of the more annoying stuff.

[Reply #17 on:]

 

Originally posted by Erdrik:
'Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.'
lol HA HA!!!... oh yeah...

Haha! I forgot about that. Yeah, that joke was awesome. None of the people with me got it though. Why must everyone else be so stupid?

[Reply #18 on:]

I bet that sucked, Joe, since need not be a Futurama fan to get that joke anyway.

I liked this episode through and through. I thought it was gonna be dull watching yet another Bender episode, ::eyes dart frantically for Juliet:: but the subplot was good in balancing it out, and I really liked the Iron Chef parody. Zoidberg was at his greatest again. Bender's lousy cooking makes a comeback, as well as classics like Morbo. I thought his lines were funny.

[Reply #19 on:]

 

Originally posted by Just Chris:
I bet that sucked, Joe, since need not be a Futurama fan to get that joke anyway.

Or listen/ed to Styx.

[Reply #20 on:]

I don't listen to Styx, but the song is pretty famous, I thought everyone had heard it(from commercials and such). But no, I laughed and the person next to me was like "what?". And I said "you know, it's from that song". And he was still confused.

PS, Joe was my father's name. Please, call me Mr. Jeff.

[Reply #21 on:]

Some of the jokes I missed the first time around (due to the phone) were some of the funniest ones.  The line from the commenter guy in the Iron Cook show "Next up: challenger Bender, a student of the legendary Helmut Sparkle, Bender is some sort of wonderful mechanical man!" and something like "My story is sort of like that, but better because it involves robots" (I thought it was funny because the stories *were* similar, but Bender's was better because it *did* involve robots).

I think this was probably the funniest episode this season.  Unlike Futurestock, the jokes didn't suck.  The middle part where Bender becomes a Robo was the worst/boringest scene, but still entertaining.

[Reply #22 on:]

I liked this episode even though it was Bendercentric. The humor mostly didn't come from Bender, which was good. Because Bender being himself is not that funny. I liked Morbo breaking down after talking about Bender's ugly food being beautiful inside. And the Iron Chef parody did indeed make me laugh heartily. Also good was Zoidy getting panicked by the cuckoo clock, and we learned that Zoidberg's first name is John.

[Reply #23 on:]

This episode is the best of season 4, hands down. There were no boring scenes. I'm a physics student in University and seeing the wormhole gag just had me laughing forever because it's so true, or not true, depending on what you believe about black holes. The Iron cook scene was awesome too and it's nice to see a subplot for once. We didn't get too many this season. I give this ep a well deserved A minus minus! nah, all +'s. Best line is definetly the Romo/Robo joke. too bad it was on the trailer.

[Reply #24 on:]

Ah Bender's horrible cooking..I remembered this from the 1st season episode "My Three Suns" (classic)..They even had him pour all that salt again! Haha! *memories*
Anyway I thought it was great! The whole setup about how everyone already knew Bender's cooking was bad was a treat for the loyal fans. Also liked the flirting going on between Bubblegum Tate and Martha Stewart's Head..Being just a head, how would he see her ass though? anyone else catch that?
 

[Reply #25 on:]

Oh one other thing I thought was clever was Prof Farnsworth called that one room "The accusing parlor" when they were trying to figure out who broke his bottle/ship..Its clever because it was the same room they used in Anthology of Interest I when they were trying to solve the murder mysteries.  I think it might have been used another time too..I forget.

[Reply #26 on:]

Well I liked it, had lots of laughs.  One of the funnier episodes.  Im not a huge fan of bender heavy episodes but this one was quite good.  I like the first segment the best, and Zoidberg and Morbo were funny!  Id give it a B+ or a A- not sure but definantly a good episode!   

[Reply #27 on:]

Zoidberg said one of the funniest things this season when he was looking through the bottle:
"Surrender your mysteries to Zoidberg!"
HAHAHAHAHAH! A-!!!!

[Reply #28 on:]

Great ep! A clever parody of both Iron Chef and Star Wars! 

[Reply #29 on:]

This is one of those I'm going to like better--later. 30% Iron Chef is the first episode to be "non-linear"--telling two separate stories at once--and perhaps that threw me off a bit, especially since, so soon after Godfellas, Fry suddenly doesn't seem to give so much as a crap that Bender disappears into space.

A lot of episodes this viewing season could've benefitted from a little more work on the scripts. If the cast and crew knew how badly FOX was going to delay the show, maybe it would've gotten what it needed.

Someone mentioned that showing the cooking procedures could've been fun. I agree; similarly, A Leela Of Her Own could've been that much funnier if we got a little more into the insanity of Blernsball--or gave us a little hint of Fry's difficulty with Leela working with all these hunky nekkid men in the locker room. Thirty minutes minus commercial time just isn't nearly enough to tap the potential of these latest plots; perhaps doing the Zoidberg stuff in a separate ep would've worked better--imagine the confrontation he could've had with Hermes when his guilt is discovered. (It wouldn't be the first time; according to Groening, Cubert was supposed to do his bit in A Big Piece of Garbage but the script just ran way too long. Rather than throw it away, Cubert was pulled and his handful of scenes developed into A Clone of My Own.)

Still, lots of fun gags. (And bad puns. Wrath of Conrail? Owwwwwwwwww.)

Morbo should divorce his wife and marry puny human Linda. They're the perfect couple.
 

[Reply #30 on:]

okay, someone tell me what this means

Fry: Hey, er what's with all the pots and pans? You building a wife?
Bender: Part of one ...

[Reply #31 on:]

 

Originally posted by FishyJoe:
It was funny enough, but I didn't think it was that great. But then again, I was watching it with non-fans who kept talking, so I missed some parts, and I don't have it on tape.

It seemed kind of Futurestock-ish to me. Lots of funny jokes, but then a bunch of other bits that were kind of annoying. The end, where Farnsworth says the secret ingrediant is water was way too much like the I Second That Emotion ending. Pretty disappointing.

But the "I hate bottles" shirt, and Zoidberg's subsequent guilt was hilarious, and the Iron Chef parody at the end was good too. All in all, it was a fairly funny episode, but I wish they would have kicked the story up another notch, and cut out some of the more annoying stuff.

But it was not just ordinary water, he siat, yet nothing but plain ordinary water laced with nothing more but a few spoonfuls of lsd.

[Reply #32 on:]

Got to say I thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out. You could tell that it was done in a way that would allow networks to edit out the drug reference very easily.

[Reply #33 on:]

Finally another great episode! After the last I began getting comfortable with the thought of Futurama being cancelled. But this one was pure comedy!
I didn't get all the jokes. I don't know the show "Iron cook", I'm not quite sure, which record cover this prism was (Pink Floyd?) but I liked this Styx-thing, the Helmut Spargel-plot (which reminds me of any given Karate-movie) and of course the light-sabre.
And Zoidberg was as funny as never before. I'm sure I'll have to watch this episode careful again to remember all the quiet jokes, but for my money it's one of the best Futurama-episodes ever.

[Reply #34 on:]

This episode was great. Zoidberg stole the show in my opinion. Nearly every scene he was in had me in stiches. I think the Yoda parody could have been played up a bit more, but overall, I loved it. A solid 9/10.

[Reply #35 on:]

Zoidy was indeed good. If they'd ended each of his panicked screaming sessions about 1 second earlier, it woulda been perfect. Something that struck me - Zoidberg is the staff doctor, the PE crew's lives are in his hands - and he's not allowed to touch the $10 bottled ship.         Also, Elzar is officially confirmed to be a Neptunian now, he was identified as such on the cooking show. Good times, good times.

[Reply #36 on:]

 

Originally posted by TheMadCapper:
Something that struck me - Zoidberg is the staff doctor, the PE crew's lives are in his hands - and he's not allowed to touch the $10 bottled ship.

You've never had work covered HMO health care before have you?

[Reply #37 on:]

 

Originally posted by BrainSluggo:
....Fry suddenly doesn't seem to give so much as a crap that Bender disappears into space.
...snip...

there is a difference.
1)In Godfellas Bender was thrown into space against his will. Where as in 30% Iron.. he chose to run away.

2) In Godfellas Bender was unable to get back. In 30% Iron.. Bender could return anytime he wanted. Fry probly just figured Bender would get over it and come back on his own.

[Reply #38 on:]

Calling him "Doctor" Zoidberg doesn't have a whole lot to do with his medical skills.  But man, he was funny in this episode.  The whole thing was great - especially the iron cook.  I also loved some of the railway line name puns.  As TMC alreeady pointed out we find out that Zoidy's first name is John.

[Reply #39 on:]

Good episode, IMO.  I liked it better than last weeks.  I really liked the Zoidberg parts.