1ACV13: Fry And The Slurm Factory First UK airing: Sky One, 8:00pm, 7-3-00 "I could fit if I didn't have these damn arms!" It's a bloody good job that I don't mind watching Third Rock From The Sun, which on Sky used to be on immediately before Futurama... since Sky decided that, without going to the trouble of actually telling anyone, they would swap around the transmission times of Futurama and Third Rock. So, come 8:00 Tuesday, I switched on the TV expecting to see a cheesy CG animation of Earth accompanied by a guitar twang -- and instead saw the familiar shape of the Planet Express building. You've never seen anybody leap across a room, grab a videotape and slam it into the machine so fast in your life. Sky -- jagoffs. It's official. As for the episode... jeez, four parody shows in a row? Give it a rest! Admittedly the Willy Wonka/Slurm stuff wasn't played up nearly as much as the Animal House refs in last week's 'Mars University', but when you consider that so far the second season has had more full-on parody episodes in just one month than the whole of the first season, it's going a bit far. 'Slurm Factory' was actually a bit of a weak episode. Although it had a few good comedy moments (like the exploding couch, Bender's 6502 brain, Fry's rotting teeth or his shriek of "Ow! My sperm!" when Bender turned the F-Ray on him) and even gave Fry a rare moment of heroism -- okay, near-heroism -- it had a kind of "aw, let's just knock this one out" feel to it. Everyone should have learned from Star Trek by now that every shot of people running through corridors is a shot that could be put to better use instead, like, I don't know, jokes or something. Predictability was high on the agenda -- for example, the moment I saw the slug trail in the gift shop I knew Amy was going to repeat her pratfall from 1ACV03 and slip on it, but it was presented as totally unexpected when it could actually be seen coming a mile off. Even the revelation about where Slurm really comes from actually seemed oddly normal -- which on Futurama should be the last thing anyone expects. And is it just me, or is Fry getting more and more stupid at a rate that would make even Homer Simpson nervous? Maybe it's something he's drinking. Stick to beer, Fry me old son -- that only gradually whacks the brain cells! From a British perspective, one of the jokes that got a lot of airtime just didn't travel -- the beer mascot that inspired Slurms McKenzie (is it Spuds McKenzie? I know it's a dog of some kind) is completely unknown over here. (The nearest British equivalent would probably be The No-Nonsense Cardboard Man, BTW -- now that's a beer mascot!) It's like when MST3K references Gilligan's Island or Leave It To Beaver or The Jetsons -- I know of them, but I've never actually seen them, so the jokes provoke an "Oh, that's a so-and-so riff" rather than actual laughter. I know I can't expect an American show to cater for an international audience, but Sky's owned by Rupert Murdoch too -- he of all people ought to be aware of the value of globalisation... Incidentally, when I was at university (Keele, not Mars) I was getting through something like 20 cans of Coke a week at one point, and (for a reason that now completely escapes me) keeping the cans -- by the end of my final year I had over 300 in my room. Despite this, not only do I still have no fillings (hey, not everyone in Britain has rotten teeth!) but I managed to avoid having any heart attacks as well. That puts me one up on Fry, I guess... although he did get to live in the year 3000 and snog Leela and Amy in the same episode, the little turd. Damn! Rating: