- Title: Futurama – Forty Percent Leadbelly
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After meeting a famous folk singer while on a delivery to a maximum security prison, Bender (John Di Maggio) decides to get a duplicate guitar of the man’s famous guitar made and start his own career as a folk singer. Unable to write an authentic folk song, Bender takes Zoidberg‘s (Billy West) advice and live the railroad life (and steal others’ true experiences for his new “original” songs).
When the events of Bender’s song start coming true, and trying to murder him for his various misdeeds, the robot finally realizes he’s still sending a signal to the 3D printer which is creating exact duplicates of his imaginings (many of which want him punished). A space train and an army of land octopi later, Bender is forced to create a duplicate of himself for Big Caboose (West) to kill for doing his girl wrong.
Although the end of Bender’s song is rather catchy, I didn’t the show took full advantage of the concept (and I could really have without Bender’s rapping to end the episode). “Forty Perecent Leadbelly” does include several allusions and homages including the villain we see at the beginning who the Planet Express crew deliver frozen in Carbonite (although not very well as he escapes and trades places with Fry) and the railroad lines themselves resembling the original Tron. It’s not a bad episode by any means, but like most of the final season (at least so far) it fails to deliver on the promise of what could have been a much more memorable episode.