Rate and Review: "Yo Leela Leela" (6ACV21)

[Zombies Rise from the Sea]

July 21, 2011: Yo Leela Leela (6ACV21)
Leela becomes a Hollywood big shot after her series creation.

[Postmaster]

Wait what? Are you just creating the thread 9 hours before it airs for no particular reason?

I mean I guess there's no reason why you can't do that, but I just dumbly read this thread not knowing what was up, and I wish I hadn't because I prefer to go in to episodes knowing nothing.

[Comicshow MolemanBob]

This is the first episode to air in the production order after "Neutopia" so I wonder if Scruffy is a woman in this one (I highly doubt it, but...)

Also I'm not really looking forward to this one, I've seen the clip with Futurama's "take" on Nickelodeon (And yes it's just as bad as The Simpsons "puns" "Tickleodeon" )

[HMS pinafore]

Tickleodeon is slightly better than Mixar because at least It actually is a pun insted of putting a m where a p should be.
Still don't approve of it though

[hughes]

so will you only be happy if they create a completely new name for the network, or what?

anyway, this episode wasn't brilliant, but it was amusing. i knew that leela hadn't really written it from the beginning, but the planet was an amusing twist. 4/5

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

I did not like this one much. The pacing felt weird, and Leela's entire motivation felt weak to me, at least in execution if not in theory. I knew Leela's quiet place was gonna payoff when they referenced it a second time, but just assumed it would end up with someone else writing the story. I never expected the beings to actually be real so that was a pretty nice surprise. Unfortunately they did nothing with it in the obscenely rushed third act. The ending left me rather bewildered. Just really poor storytelling overall. Also, did anyone else get a King of the Hill vibe at first what with the manger babies?

Aside from that the episode only managed to make me laugh once or twice. The best laugh was Leela getting maced twice. Maybe I'll enjoy it on a rewatch but this was easily my least favorite episode this year. 2.5/5, rounded down to a 2 on the poll.

[Jims]

I enjoyed this episode a lot. I will admit right up front that I'm biased by the subject matter, as since my nephew was born, I have had to watch these kinds of programs much more lately (he's turning 4). So seeing these lampoons were really funny to me.

(Although I've never seen Yo Gabba Gabba or whatever it's called, so maybe I'm not that biased after all.)

First, we'll brush away some of the complaints.

Like the mafia last week, I thought the orphans felt a little played-out by now. They pretty much exist as a variation of the same joke in every appearance they have, so the whole "sucky orphans" shtick was really doing that much for me... Particularly when that head guy would say stuff. There were a couple strange turns in the plot as well, the most jarring being when Leela suddenly turned into an egomaniac. I was happy to see that they didn't pursue this character turn more, as it's a very Simpsony kind of plot twist. Still kind of a strange moment in the middle of the thing.

Also thought they hammered in the whole "no punishment for Leela" thing juuuuuust a little too hard. Could've used without them holding hands singing her praise.

(EDIT: And yeah, I agree with the criticism that Leela's motivation at the beginning was pretty thin. I was able to get past it a bit since Leela has such a competitive and perfectionistic streak, like seen in the Blurnsball episode. That and she loves the Orphanarium kids. But still, a little on the thin side.)

The main thing I liked about the episode was the pacing of the jokes. The dialogue was very snappy and rapid-fire at moments, almost getting a little Vaudeville (Vaudevillian?). It was a small little line, but I almost did a spit-take at the fat orphan Albert's line, "That wasn't really a story." Caught me completely by surprise for some reason. Very Seinfeld (Seinfeldian?) in that turnaround. I also really liked the observation Amy had about making it so the hipster parents watching will also enjoy it.

The kids show parody was almost pitch perfect in capturing the style of these inane shows. The satire isn't completely 100% fresh, though, as this stuff has been done on countless other shows by now. Still, they hit all of the main components, like the forced childish morals and the silly pandering. They even did a great job of underlining the phony commercialism of it all. Ironically, I think that if you showed a 3 or 4 year old those mini-clips of the shows, they actually WOULD enjoy it. So that's saying something about the writing of those segments.

I might edit in more later, but I gotta stop here. 4.5/5.

[Tomacco]

I did not like this one much. The pacing felt weird, and Leela's entire motivation felt weak to me, at least in execution if not in theory. I knew Leela's quiet place was gonna payoff when they referenced it a second time, but just assumed it would end up with someone else writing the story. I never expected the beings to actually be real so that was a pretty nice surprise. Unfortunately they did nothing with it in the obscenely rushed third act. The ending left me rather bewildered. Just really poor storytelling overall. Also, did anyone else get a King of the Hill vibe at first what with the manger babies?

Aside from that the episode only managed to make me laugh once or twice. The best laugh was Leela getting maced twice. Maybe I'll enjoy it on a rewatch but this was easily my least favorite episode this year. 2.5/5, rounded down to a 2 on the poll.

Wow, point for point, you covered everything I was about to write in my review. The second mention of the quiet place, the Manger Babies, everything. Somehow I enjoyed Luanne's puppet show more than Leela's though, not sure why. Somehow Leela's made me cringe (even in the form of a satire, I find it hard to watch toddler shows), but Luanne's had a certain sweetness to it. My only difference from your review was I didn't find the mace thing very funny. I liked the chaotic scene towards the beginning, and the orphans' initial resistance to Leela's stories though. Also, how many episodes about fame going to people's heads will I see on different shows before I die? Every show has one, some way or another.

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

Wow, point for point, you covered everything I was about to write in my review. The second mention of the quiet place, the Manger Babies, everything. Somehow I enjoyed Luanne's puppet show more than Leela's though, not sure why. Somehow Leela's made me cringe (even in the form of a satire, I find it hard to watch toddler shows), but Luanne's had a certain sweetness to it. My only difference from your review was I didn't find the mace thing very funny. I liked the chaotic scene towards the beginning, and the orphans' initial resistance to Leela's stories though. Also, how many episodes about fame going to people's heads will I see on different shows before I die? Every show has one, some way or another.

The original manger babies episode of King of the Hill is really good, much better than this. Leela's story/performance to the orphans wasn't as bad to me as it was for you though.

Also, agree with Jims in that the orphans definitely seem played out, as was Abner Doubleday(was that his name?)

[Tomacco]

This episode had the same vibe as "A Leela of Their Own" for me. Just kind of a "meh" episode through and through in the middle of a good string of episodes. I'll forget all about this one by tomorrow night, and be ready for the next one. It's okay, this season has been great until now, it couldn't last forever.

[TriforceBun]

Meet the Manger Babies is an excellent episode.

Tonight's Futurama felt a lot like Jean-era Simpsons, actually. From "Tickelodeon"'s Tress MacNeille-filled kid show parodies to standard awards show silliness (which really felt like a sequence taken right out of this season's "Angry Dad: The Movie"), the episode went for the cheap laughs pretty often. The humor was overall sort of middling, and while nothing was terrible, it was a bit drier than usual.

I did like Leela's characterization from start to finish, minus the rather dumb (and overplayed) bit about fame going to her head. From the beginning, I thought her motivation made enough sense to carry the story, and the orphans are always a cute and welcome addition to any episode. I like how they're putting in more third act twists that work with the story, but this was one of the ones I could definitely see coming, real-life creatures and all. She said she was going to a distant planet, after all!

The modern references are once again among the weaker jokes and lines in the series, and overall, the episode dragged, particularly in some of the story sequences. At least it had a satisfactory enough plot, and wasn't without its cute moments.

3/5

[DotheBartman]

This episode had some of the same sort of problems that "Law and Oracle" did: iffy, sometimes hyper-fast pacing, with not much development of any plot point in particular, and an over-reliance on cliches (granted, with Oracle that was sort of the point). Although I realize it would sort of kill the ending twist, I think for the story to work a lot better, it would have needed to be revealed that Leela's characters were actually real closer to the beginning, like the first act, so that the rest of the episode could deal substantively with her guilt and trying to hide her secret. This was touched on, but rushed through - Bender's extortion of her gets, what, two scenes? And then Leela admits it all by the next - and a lot of other plot points could have also been whole episodes but sort of got shafted in the mishmash of things. (Despite Oracle and this episode sharing these problems, however, I'm not concerned; the other episodes so far have had much better pacing and structure.)

That said though....it was funny. Really funny. The kids' show satire was spot-on, the whole twist with the planet of children's characters WAS quite clever and surprising, Leela's attempts to be "punished" were pretty hilarious, and all in all I was laughing quite a bit. For that reason, I do think it deserves more credit than an episode like "A Leela All Her Own," which wasn't horrible or anything, but definitely a lot more lacking in humor. This felt more like a season two episode: a bit lacking in story and general structure, but funny enough that I don't really care too much at the end of the day.

(P.S. I think the preview clip and the version I saw on TV had one difference; the reference to Randy "Macho Man" Savage, most certainly written in 2010 before his recent death, was I believe changed to a reference to Rowdy Roddy Piper.)

[HRH Sir Prince Charles]

I thought it was pretty funny. Is the Warden's voice different, though? That kind of threw me.

POPULAR SLUT CLUB is going to be stuck in my head

[Muskrat]

Yyyyyyeah, didn't like this one much at all. There were a few things that made me laugh or smile, and the pacing was pretty good (something other, funnier, episodes this season have struggled with). But I just didn't connect at all with the kids show stuff, and I wouldn't expect many other Futurama to either. I was surprised by the twist, though, at the very least. Mostly I thought it was just dull, so a comparison to A Leela of Her Own is very accurate. The ending, with Leela not being punished but praised, was kind of clever.

Easily weakest of the season so far.

[HRH Sir Prince Charles]

Leela and Fry romance watch: Leela kisses Fry on the forehead before accepting her YPCA, while shaking everyone else's hands

that felt dirty

[NoOneFamous]

Ehh, didn't like this one that much either. I agree with TriforceBun that it felt like a Jean era Simpsons episode - lots of lame puns and easy parodies. Oh, and parodies/spoofs of kids' shows have to be among the easiest to write and come up with, and its been done to death, so I didn't really enjoy any of that.

Somehow, I picked up that the creatures would be real right away. Probably because this is Futurama, and there's a new planet for everything.

The pacing was too rushed for me to really care that she didn't actually write the stories.

3/5

[Gatorgod]

Finally, an episode geared towards my intellectual sensitivities!

[Spiff]

If Leela is unable to come up with a story about a space princess or about an annoying elephant who is friend with a tapdancing lobster, then why wouldn't she ask Fry for a story? The rest of the episode was better, so it's 3/5 for me.

And I really missed Rumpletweezer

[Comicshow MolemanBob]

Bender: That was the best Christmas ever

WTF

[arii]

Yeah I wasn't quite as big on this one...

It was funny, sure enough, and the pacing felt like it had calmed down from the previous few episodes, but the plot was still rather shallow and predictable. As soon as Leela's "quiet place" was mentioned a second time I knew that the characters she'd created were real guys and she was just recording everything they actually did. The idea of an entire planet of this silliness is pretty funny but there wasn't much payoff from it.

Agreed on the orphans beginning to feel overused, and especially agree on the whole "Character A's ego gets way too much in the way and he/she gains a ridiculous superiority complex; is then exposed" trope and how that played out. Leela seemed to switch to that almost immediately and it didn't really make any sense. There was no character arc for her in this episode - she went from "I can't write stories" to "I AM THE BEST STORYTELLER EVER" in the blink of an eye, and it really was rather jarring. i get how it can make sense for her, as explained in this thread - and how she is such a competitive person - but her ego developed instantaneously rather than over time, and it just didn't work.

Disappointed to see the Bender-exploiting-Leela angle never went anywhere. That could've been introduced way earlier on in the story and we could have gotten more jokes about it. Instead it was crammed in briefly and not treated like the plot point it probably should have been. Could've lead to more jokes.

Agree on how this feels like one of the weaker Futurama episodes, but even while being a weak one, it's still a solidly funny episode and easily rewatchable. Just not as good as the past few.

[Real Melvin]

hmm, this was kind of terrible

[Mr. Krikt]

What happened to Bender extorting Leela? We were treated to a whole two seconds of its consequences.
As soon as I saw the planet's colours, I saw the twist coming but at least the characters were amusing. The episode seemed to have run out of steam by the end too; it felt like they had a very basic concept and didn't know where to go with it.

[DotheBartman]

The "quiet place" planet had a real "Super Mario World" feeling to me.

[Mira]

well, it made me laugh enough. a bunch of weird creature singing about not eating meat off the floor and poking dead animals with a stick. I give it a 4/5 just because most of the jokes worked well, imo.

[Ryan]

leela was really unlikable in this episode.

otherwise, it was ok.

3/5

[HMS pinafore]

One of the weaker episodes of this season but I am willing to forgive this because It is not terrible and It got some laughs out of me3.5/5

[Comicshow MolemanBob]

Yo Leela Leela

I don't mind this episode. I mean it's quite funny (Not gut-busting hilarious but humorous none-the-less) But I found myself laughing at a few parts. The funniest characters weren't the main ones in this episode and I found myself laughing more at the side characters like Warden Vogel (Although he seemed to have adopted an Irish accent in this episode for some reason) and Abner Doubledeal was also quite funny. Some scenes that I enjoyed came mostly in the first act (Popular Slut Club, Leela's original story and everyone making noise at Planet Express) So the first act was most defiantly the best part of the episode...

Although the story kind of dipped in the second act it still contained some laughs while the third act was pretty bland and uneventful (Besides the "big reveal") I do think the ending could have been much better, but it wasn't horrendously bad just not that funny (But I do like that the orphans were adopted and do wonder if they will return as orphans later in the series)

To conclude, I could compare this episodes humor to that of "That Darn Katz!" (More cute than funny and relies on the plot for humor rather than laugh out loud humor) And the plot is similar to "A Leela of Her Own" though I think this one is a little more enjoyable than that one...

Score: 7.0/10

[Postmaster]

A couple of weeks ago Adam R said something about the series becoming like an Adult Swim show and I could really see what he meant in this episode. It's a very weird idea and in general a strange concept for a Futurama episode, not that this is a bad thing, but it really didn't feel like subject matter that a Futurama fan would care about. I kind of know what Tomacco means about feeling kind of awkward even during a parody of a children's programme. It felt like the episode took a long while to go anyway, it was a nice payoff when it was revealed where she was getting her ideas from, but yeah the episode felt a little stretched out, like it'd be more suited to a segment in a trilogy episode or being a 15 minute episode.

[irvine_11]

One of this seasons better episodes. (B+)

[irvine_11]

I thought it was pretty funny. Is the Warden's voice different, though? That kind of threw me.

POPULAR SLUT CLUB is going to be stuck in my head

Yeah, it sounded like they gave him a slight Irish accent this time around. Seems like a random decision to me.