A Fishful of Dollars

One of the weakest season 1 episodes.

The plot's overall concept is brilliant. I just don't feel that it plays out as well at it should have done. That's not to say that the end result is bad, it's just somewhat bland at times and suffers from a few unnecessary things such as Pamela Anderson's guest appearance which adds nothing to the show other than a few throw-away gags and isn't really justified.

This isn't helped by it being the weakest episode yet (of the first 6) in the joke-department. It's still hilarious -it is Futurama afterall -it's just less hilarious than the 5 episodes that had gone before it.

I want to stress that a 6 out of 10 is not a bad score from me. If Futurama's worst episode is a 1/10 and the best is a 10/10, a 6/10 is basically just an ever so slightly better than average episode. That's what this is. Also, every time I watch this episode, I get an anchovie pizza craving.

Whilst this episode does have some funny moments, AFFOD is not a brilliant one. It's still good, just at the bottom of the pile for Season 1. There's not a lot of futuristic stuff going on (although calling Sir Mixalot "classical music" made me chuckle), and the fact that the episode kinda leaves Leela and Bender on the sidelines for a lot of the time is disappointing.

Characterisations are brilliant though. Mom is awesome in this one, and her sons are the funniest trio since the Three Stooges for me. Jokes are hit and miss, the animation quality is also not the best it's been, but musical cues and sound are brilliant.

Pamela Anderson as a guest star makes little to no sense, but it's great that she was nice enough to lend her name and voice to the show for this episode.

There are some great lines in this episode, but I still think that there could have been more, particularly from anybody who isn't Fry.

"A Fishful of Dollars" is one of those episodes where the writers take some crazy idea from the future and extend it to its most logical, ludicrous and hilarious conclusion. In this episode, Fry discovers that thanks to the magic of compound interest, the $.93 he had in his bank account in the year 2000 has grown to .3 billion. He indulges himself and his friends in his newly found wealth, discovers that he can purchase some treasured relics from the 20th century with his money, and somewhat predictably starts to lose touch with reality, abandoning his friends as he attempts to recreate his former life. Along the way we get a bunch of jokes about the advertising industry and the culture divide across millennia -- Leela's matter-of-fact categorization of Sir Mix-a-Lot as "classical music" is particularly funny.

The episode introduces industrial magnate Mom, who plays an elderly, folksy Southern lady in the public eye and reverts to a evil, ruthless megatycoon in private. Tress MacNeille does a fantastic job switching between the two personalities, and the antics of Mom's three dimwitted sons Larry, Walt and Igner are always funny. Mom and Fry cross paths when Fry outbids Mom -- to the tune of million -- for the last known canister of anchovies in existence. Larry, Walt and Igner then abduct Fry, break into his bank account and empty his account, hoping that Fry will sell the anchovies back to Mom. The ending is quite predictable and trite -- Fry turns down the offer so that he can share the anchovies with his friends -- but it is a fair representation of Fry's personality. "A Fishful of Dollars" is not the most compelling episode of the first season, but it's still enjoyable.