Classic Christmas TV episodes: ‘Xmas Story’ (‘Futurama’)

Show: “Futurama” (Season 2, episode 8)

Airdate: Dec. 19, 1999

Overview: In the year 3000, Christmas is known as Xmas and Robot Santa Claus has been programmed with too strict of a “naughty or nice” judgment, so he judges everybody as naughty and guns them down. (Actually, it turns out that Zoidberg is judged to be nice.)

Memorable moments:

• Farnsworth says the pine tree went extinct 800 years ago, noting that it has “gone the way of the poodle, and your primitive notions of modesty.” Then he opens his coat to reveal nothing underneath and says “Ahhh, brisk!” Later, Farnsworth and Hermes are playing checkers naked in the background of a scene.
• This is a nice Fry-and-Leela episode. All of the trouble with Santa starts because Fry goes out to buy Leela an Xmas present. He debates between a $500 parrot or 500 $1 lizards (“Girls like swarms of lizards, right?”) and stays out too late. Later, she saves his life and says, “You’re lonely and I’m lonely, but together, we’re lonely together.” Awww.

Trivia:

• Robot Santa Claus would appear again in “A Tale of Two Santas” (Season 4, episode 2), the DVD movie “Bender’s Big Score” and last month’s “Futurama Holiday Spectacular.”
• If memory serves, this episode was aired by Fox in a later timeslot due to the violent content. But I might be thinking of the second Xmas episode.
• John Goodman voices Robot Santa.

Schmaltz factor: Low. This is not your typical Christmas episode, obviously. Rather, it uses the clichés as a jumping-off point for humor, like when Bender observes Tinny Tim and says, “Poor little kid” … and then laughs.

Verdict: The sweet Leela-and-Fry moments give this episode the requisite Christmas spirit. But when Robot Santa Claus shows up about halfway through, it doesn’t work for me. Sure, some of the lines are OK, like when he says he’ll deck the halls with their guts, but generally the episode kind of devolves into violence. I admit it: I’m not a fan of Robot Santa.