A Big Piece of Garbage story
"A Big Piece of Garbage" is episode eight in season one of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 11, 1999. The episode was written by Lewis Morton and directed by Susie Dietter. Ron Popeil guest stars in this episode as himself. Nancy Cartwright also has a brief cameo as a Bart Simpson doll. Much of the episode is a spoof of the 1998 film Armageddon; however, instead of Earth being threatened by an asteroid, it is threatened by a giant ball of garbage. Directed by: Susan Dietter. Story by: Lewis Morton.
6 total · 4 major · 2 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| close encounter with a stray artificial object | major | A giant ball of garbage headed toward Earth and threated the lives of billions. |
| environmentalism | major | This episode was a criticism of wastefulness and carelessness with the environment. |
| rivalry | major | Professor Ogden Wernstrom had held a grudge against Farnsworth for a hundred years after Farnsworth gave him an A- on a quiz. |
| waste management | major | Old New York launched a giant ball of garbage into space that came back to collide with New New York hundreds of years later. |
| disembodied head | minor | Ron Popeil's head MCed the symposium. |
| parody on life in academia | minor | Farnsworth and Wernstrom rivaled for a parody of a science award. |