Billy West Movies

Loretta Lynn was one of the first female superstars in country music and remains a defining presence within the genre; with her strong, clear, hard-country voice and tough, no-nonsense songs about husbands who cheat and wives who weren't about to be pushed around, Lynn introduced a feminist mindset to Nashville years before the phrase "women's liberation" became common currency. Coal Miner's Daughter is a screen adaptation of Lynn's autobiography, starring Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn. One of eight children born to Ted Webb (Levon Helm), a coal miner raising a family despite grinding poverty in Butcher's Holler, KY, Loretta married Dolittle "Mooney" Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) when she was only 13 years old. A mother of four by the time she was 20, Lynn began singing the occasional song at local honky-tonks on weekends, and at 25, she cut (at Mooney's suggestion) a demo tape that earned her a deal with an independent record label. Loretta and Mooney's tireless promotion of the record (including a long road trip through the south in which they stopped at every country radio station they could find) paid off -- Loretta's first single, "Honky Tonk Girl," hit the charts and earned her a spot on the Grand Ole Opry. Stardom called and Loretta never looked back, but success brought with it both joy (a long string of hit records and sold-out concerts and a close friendship with Patsy Cline) and sorrow (a nervous breakdown brought on by overwork and a great deal of stress to a marriage that endured -- but just barely). Sissy Spacek won an Academy award for her vivid, thoroughly natural performance as Loretta (she also did her own singing), and Levon Helm (drummer for the legendary rock group the Band) made an impressive screen debut as her father. Ernest Tubb makes a cameo appearance as himself. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Warner Bros. attempted to revitalize its animation division with this family adventure that blended live action and animation in the style of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), reportedly coming in with a price tag of $100 million. Basketball legend Michael Jordan stars as himself, a retired sports hero trying his hand at baseball and failing miserably. Meanwhile, the Looney Tunes gang, led by Bugs Bunny, are kidnapped by aliens called the Nerdlucks. It seems that the Nerdlucks' theme park, Moron Mountain (a barely-veiled dig at Disney) is failing to attract customers. The space invaders are convinced that the appearance of Bugs and his pals Porky Pig and Speedy Gonzalez will beef up business. Bugs makes his captors a deal -- they'll play a game of basketball for their freedom. When the Nerdlucks stack the deck by pilfering the talent of NBA superstars Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing, the Warner Bros. heroes enlist the aid of Jordan, who returns to the court to help the classic characters. While he prepares to play, Jordan is aided by fellow celebrity Bill Murray. Director Joe Pytka previously created many of the television commercials that featured Jordan as a paid endorser. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Bender becomes addicted to jolts of electricity at a "jacking-on" party. He goes on a jolt spree and almost kills the rest of the crew. A robot priest offers him the Good Book 3.0 and he kicks his addiction by finding religion. Fry and Leela want the old Bender back, so they take him out for a night of corruption and he ends up paying for his sins in robot hell. In the tradition of the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," Fry and Leela try to win back his soul by battling the robot devil Beelzebot (voice of Dan Castellaneta) in a fiddle contest. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

During a "blernsball" game, Bender gets upset about the mistreatment of robots, while Fry struggles to understand the rules of blernsball. The Planet Express crew gets a delivery request to Chapek 9, a planet ran by robots where humans are routinely killed. Bender tries to get out of it by claiming it's the robot holiday of Robannukah. He makes the delivery anyway, but he gets busted for working for humans. In order to save him, Fry and Leela dress up like robots and find Bender in a robot adult bookstore. The planet's rulers capture Fry and Leela, while Bender is ordered to kill them. The rulers eventually agree that humans are harmless, and killing them is only a way to distract the robot population from their real problems. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

When Hermes threatens to stop paying him if he doesn't get to work, Bender becomes the ship's cook. The crew has to make a delivery on Trisol 3 in the Galaxy of Terror. When Fry has to walk through the heat of the three suns in order to deliver a package, he gets thirsty and drinks a strange blue liquid. The liquid turns out to be the leader of a race of liquid aliens who make Fry their new leader and force him to recite an oath. That evening, the leader in Fry's stomach commands that they kill Fry in order to get him out. Leela comes up with a plan to beat him up until he cries, thereby draining out the liquid alien leader. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

While trying to save the animals on the dying planet Vergon 6, the Planet Express crew meet arrogant Zapp Brannigan (voice of Billy West), captain of the Nimbus. He tries to seduce Leela by taking her to his bedroom (called "the Lovenasium") while Fry and Bender go to jail. After spending a night with Zapp, Leela is disgusted and leaves with Fry and Bender. Zapp's underling Kif Kroker (voice of Maurice LaMarche) becomes Amy's boyfriend. They save all the animals on Vergon 6, where Leela meets her new pet, Nibbler. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Fry, Leela, and Bender meet the rest of the Planet Express crew: boss man Hermes Conrad (voice of Phil LaMarr), intern Amy Wong (voice of Lauren Tom), and doctor John Zoidberg (voice of Billy West). With Leela as their captain, the first assignment is a delivery to the moon. Fry is really excited about his first trip to the moon, but everyone else thinks it's no big deal. The only thing on the moon is a big amusement park called Luna Park and it's all very commercial. They go on some carnival rides after they make the delivery, and Amy loses the keys to the ship. Leela and Fry take off on a rover ride to explore the other parts of the moon's surface away from the tourist traps. After hiding out at an oxygen farm, Amy rescues them. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

The Planet Express crew makes a delivery to the Professor's office at Mars University. Realizing that he's just a high school dropout, Fry decides to enroll in school and become a college dropout. He ends up sharing a room with the Professor's super-intelligent experimental monkey, Guenter. Guenter competes with Fry in social activities and academic performance while struggling with whether to rejoin his species in the wild. Meanwhile, Bender hangs out with the robot fraternity of his college days (when he majored in Bending and minored in Robo-American Studies). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Titanium becomes worth a lot of money, so Bender sells his body and tries to live as just a head. After he visits the head museum and has a binary number nightmare, he decides he wants his body back. Unfortunately, the head of a crazed Richard Nixon bought it so he can run for president against Jack Johnson and John Jackson. Fry and Leela help Bender sneak into Nixon's hotel room to steal back his body. Bender ends up having to blackmail Nixon with an incriminating video tape, but he still wins the election with a new cyborg body. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

On Nibbler's birthday, Bender gets jealous because nobody is paying attention to him. Even when he tries to get noticed for baking a cake, Nibbler eats the whole thing. Angry, Bender flushes him down the toilet and Leela is heartbroken. Because the uncaring Bender feels no remorse, the Professor installs an empathy chip in him so he can understand how bad Leela is feeling about the loss of her pet. He is overcome with emotion and flushes himself down the toilet to try and save Nibbler. Fry and Leela try to find him, but they end up finding a race of underground sewer mutants. They all save Nibbler and have to fight the sewer monster "El Chupanibre." ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

Fry is sad about his first Christmas away from his family and Leela is sad because she's the only one of her species in the galaxy. Fry wants to comfort her, but he just ends up making her feel worse. To make up for it he goes out to buy her a present, despite warnings that an evil Robot Santa Claus (voice of John Goodman) is on a killing spree to judge the naughty from the nice. Fry gets Leela a parrot at a pet store, but it flies away out the window of a tall building and she ends up having to save his life again. Meanwhile, Bender pretends to be a hobo so he can get free alcohol at the liquor kitchen for homeless robots. Conan O'Brien guest stars. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

In the season finale episode, "Anthology of Interest I," Professor Farnsworth unveils his "What-if" machine and Bender, Leela, and Fry each get a chance to ask it a question. Bender asks what it would be like if he were 500 feet tall, so he becomes a giant and flies to Earth to the tune of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man." He befriends a boy (Fry) and accidentally destroys the city in a take on The Iron Giant. The Professor then makes Dr. Zoidberg a giant so they can fight each other. Leela asks what it would be like if she were more impulsive, so she ends up killing the Professor in order to get his fortune. As people find out about the murder, she is forced to kill them one by one until she has killed almost everyone. Fry asks what it would be like if he were never cryogenically frozen in 1999. He ends up meeting the Action Rangers -- made up of scientist Stephen Hawking, Vice President Al Gore, Star Trek actress Nichelle Nichols, and Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide