Hell Is Other Robots

After a Beastie Boys concert, Bender attends a party with his old friend, Fender, a giant guitar amp. At the party, Bender and the other robots abuse electricity by "jacking on," and Bender develops an addiction. After receiving a near-lethal dose from an electrical storm, Bender realizes he has a problem and searches for help. He joins the Temple of Robotology, accepting the doctrine of eternal damnation in Robot Hell should he sin. After baptizing him in oil, the Reverend Lionel Preacherbot welds the symbol of Robotology to Bender's case. As Bender begins to annoy his co-workers with his new religion, Fry and Leela decide they want the "old Bender" back. They fake a delivery to Atlantic City, New Jersey and tempt Bender with alcohol, prostitutes and easy targets for theft. He eventually succumbs, rips off the Robotology symbol and throws it away, causing it to beep ominously. While seducing three female robots in his room at Trump Trapezoid, Bender is interrupted by a knock at his room door. He opens the door and is knocked unconscious. He awakens to see the Robot Devil and finds himself in Robot Hell. The Robot Devil reminds Bender that he agreed to be punished for sinning when he joined Robotology. After discovering Bender is missing, Fry and Leela track him down using Nibbler's sense of smell. They eventually find the entrance to Robot Hell in an abandoned amusement park. A musical number starts as the Robot Devil begins detailing Bender's punishment. As the song ends, Fry and Leela arrive and try to reason with the Robot Devil on Bender's behalf. The Robot Devil tells them that the only way to win back Bender's soul is to beat him in a fiddle-playing contest, as required under the "Fairness in Hell Act of 2275". The Robot Devil goes first, playing Antonio Bazzini's "La Ronde des Lutins". Leela responds, having experience in playing the drums, but after a few screeching notes, Leela says it's time for the drum solo and smacks the Robot Devil with the fiddle. As Fry, Leela, and Bender flee, Bender steals the wings off a flying torture robot, attaches them to his back, and airlifts Fry and Leela to safety. Leela drops the heavy golden fiddle onto the Robot Devil's head, making them light enough to escape. Bender promises to never be too good or too evil, but to remain as he was before joining the Temple of Robotology. Over the closing credits, a remix of the show's theme song plays instead of the original version. ==Production==

|alt=A closeup of a man in front of a microphone. He has a receding hairline and wears dark-framed glasses. "Hell Is Other Robots" lampoons drug addiction and religious conversion. In the DVD commentary for the episode, David X. Cohen, Matt Groening and Eric Kaplan all agreed that they felt comfortable enough with each of the Futurama characters to begin to take them in new and strange directions. Cohen also noted that the writing team had begun to loosen up during this episode, which gave it a feel similar to the series' later episodes. Cohen and Ken Keeler traveled to New York to work with the Beastie Boys for their role. Adam "MCA" Yauch was unavailable at the time of the recording so only Adam "King Ad-Rock" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond voice themselves in the episode, with Horovitz also voicing Yauch. ==Themes==

This episode is one of very few that focuses on the religious aspects of the Futurama universe. In most episodes, it is indicated that the Planet Express crew, along with most beings in the year 3000, are "remarkably unreligious". It introduces two of the religious figures of Futurama, The Robot Devil and Reverend Lionel Preacherbot, both of whom make appearances in later episodes. Preacherbot, who speaks in a manner typical of inner-city African-American pastor stereotypes, converts Bender to the religion Robotology. This leads to a series of events that are similar in many ways to the experiences of real world religious converts. Mark Pinsky states that the episode has a "double-edged portrayal of religion" as it portrays both an improvement in Bender's character but also some of the "less pleasant characteristics of the newly pious". The Robot Devil is introduced after Bender's fallback into sin. Pinsky writes in The Gospel According to The Simpsons, that while explaining to Bender his claim on his soul, the Robot Devil uses logic similar to that used by many Southern Baptists: "Bender tried to plead his case, without success. 'You agreed to this when you joined our religion,' the devil replies, in logic any Southern Baptist would recognize. 'You sin, you go to robot hell – for all eternity. By the end of the episode, Bender has returned to his old ways and states that he will no longer try to be either too good or too bad, a parody and contradiction of the Book of Revelation statement that one should not be lukewarm in his faith. ==Cultural references==

playing the solid gold fiddle This episode contains a large amount of religious parody, with references to many religiously themed works of fiction. The episode's title is itself a parody of the famous line "Hell is other people" from Jean-Paul Sartre's one act play No Exit, though the episode has no other resemblance to the play. and according to series creator Groening he received a call from the Church of Scientology concerned about the use of a similar name. Groening's The Simpsons had previously parodied elements of Scientology in the season nine episode "The Joy of Sect". In a review of the episode, TV Squad later posed the question: "Is the Temple of Robotology a poke at the Church of Scientology?" When TV Squad asked actor Billy West about this, he jokingly sidestepped the issue. ==Reception==

"Hell Is Other Robots" is one of four episodes featured in the DVD boxed set Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection, Groening's favorite episodes from the first four seasons. The DVD includes audio commentary from Groening and DiMaggio, as well as a full-length animatic of the episode. Dan Castellaneta's performance as the Robot Devil in this episode and "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings" was described as a "bravura appearance". In a review of Futurama's first-season DVD release, the South Wales Echo highlighted the episode along with "Fear of a Bot Planet" as "crazy episodes" of the series. Brian Cortis of The Age gave the episode a rating of three stars out of four. Writing in The Observer after Futurama's debut in the United States but before it aired in the United Kingdom, Andrew Collins wrote favorably of the series and highlighted "Hell Is Other Robots" and "Love's Labors Lost in Space". He noted that the jokes "come thick and fast". TV Squad wrote that the series' funnier material appears in "Robot Hell – after Bender is 'born again' in the Temple of Robotology." Johnson concluded his review by rating the episode a "B". ==See also==