Top 10 Times Futurama Crossed the Line

We all know from Fry’s hearty Slurm addiction that he’ll drink anything . . . even when it comes out of another creature’s butt. However when Fry is accidentally trapped on Omicron Persei 8 in this blatant parody of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial”, we learn the true lows of this incorrigible garbage gut. Making a home in the closet of young omicronian Jrrr, he finds sustenance in his friend’s feces. With their bright colors and perfectly round shape, sure, they look a lot like candy. But still, even if they tasted like it too, that’s just nasty.

On the surface, Hermes might seem like he’s got it all figured out with his great job, a goddess of a wife, and business-smart kid. But underneath it all, he still has some insecurities. So when he fires himself from his own job and is replaced by a robot, Hermes tries to build a better version of himself by turning himself into a machine. Fortunately, what Mecha-Hermes throws away, Zoidberg uses to recreate the flesh and blood Hermes . . . although but not before slipping his claw inside the stitched-together body to use it as a ventriloquist dummy. You do you, Zoidberg.

Zoidberg isn’t the best doctor, so why does the Professor keep him on payroll? Well, it turns out the two have a secret pact about a terrible disease the Professor thinks he contracted years ago. When the symptoms start to show themselves, he asks Zoidberg to euthanize him. Only problem is, it has to be by surprise, because he’s afraid of dying. All of this could be uncomfortable in and of itself, but it’s the way Zoidberg attempts to murder his longtime friend that pushes it too far. Strangulation? Electrocution? Stabbing? Then again, the elaborate killing machine built be the rest of the crew isn’t exactly better.

From exploiting the adorably innocent “Humplings” for a children’s TV show, to subjecting the brains of helpless orphans to so-called “snuggle rays”, there are quite a few things wrong with this episode. One of them is Tickleodeon CEO Abner Doubledeal’s pitch for a new TV series called “Popular Slut Club”. But even worse is “Extreme Toddler Wrestling”, which easily breaks just about every child abuse law ever. Tiny babies pitted against each other in a playpen - one even using a highchair to beat down the other - and all for the amusement of adult fans? Thank goodness it's animated.

Over the course of the show, the crew has quite a few run-ins with Omicron Persei 8, but this is the one that started it all. After a long day’s work in space, the hungry trio decide to hunt for snacks on a nearby planet. They discover a delicious protein source that soon also becomes a big hit back on Earth. There’s only one problem. They’re eating babies - the larvae of the Omicronians. You’d think that learning they’d been gobbling down someone’s live young like chicken nuggets would be a decisive moment for the crew - but it takes a lot more than that to put some of them off their food.

Here’s another encounter with Omicron Persei 8 that we’re sure the crew, particularly Fry, would like to forget. When Fry’s nose is stolen by aliens who regard ‘Human Horns’ as aphrodisiacs, things couldn’t get much worse. Except that, well, thanks to Bender, they could. After Bender’s explanation of human anatomy, the Omicronian leader Lrrr decides to remove and consume his ‘lower horn’ instead. What a way to go. The social commentary on our use of animal parts as aphrodisiacs in the real world is clever and funny, but also extremely uncomfortable . . . especially for male viewers. Yikes.

Bender making off with Amy’s body, and then an emperor’s, seems cruel, but that’s just the thing we’d expect from the kleptomaniac robot. It’s actually Fry and Leela we’re focusing on for this entry. With both of them arguing that the other only loves them for their looks, they decide to switch bodies too - Leela into the Professor’s body and Fry into Zoidberg’s. This soon escalates into the two using their new bodies to gross each other out, then dropping everything to get busy in public. Makes Bender’s scheme seem kinda innocent by comparison.

It’s the Emmy-winning episode the show became infamous for, and a storyline that continually comes up in later episodes. In this "Back to the Future" parody, the crew accidentally travel back in time to 1947, which happens to be when Fry’s grandparents were dating. Although Farnsworth warns him against tampering with the past, Fry of course visits both, accidentally killing his own grandfather Enos . . . and then having sex with his grandmother Mildred. Sure, he’s ensures his existence by becoming his own grandfather. But in the process, he also commits incest. Causal loops or not, this is a gross one.

Naturally, at first, everyone freaks out when tentacles from another universe plunge into the back of their necks. But instantly, they’re filled with love and peace, so everything is OK, right? Wrong. All those tentacles? Yeah, it turns out they aren't just tentacles. They’re sex organs. The creature was mating with everyone in our universe, at the same time! And even if the creature, Yivo, and the universe’s population did eventually fall in love, and even move in together for a bit, it all started with the sentient planet taking advantage.

Before we shake our fingers at our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions

Dwight Smokes A Joint
S04E06 Bender Should Not Be Allowed On Television

Kif Gives Birth
S05E05 Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch

Thanks to this episode, “death by snu snu” has become a popular phrase, referring to sex with a tall or muscular woman. But its origins are actually pretty brutal. On the Futurama planet Amazonia, giant, voluptuous women use “snu-snu” as a sentence for criminal offences. Now in theory, sex until you drop might sound like an exciting idea. At least, it does for Fry, Zapp, and Kif, who are both terrified and thrilled. But it’s also non-consensual, results in a crushed pelvis, and eventually . . . well, death by snu snu.