Scared Screenless

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Season 10 episode Broadcast season 13 episode
Scared Screenless
N/A
No.	165
Production number	AACV05
Written by	Bill Odenkirk
Directed by	Dwayne Carey-Hill
Title caption	Evacuate Earth ̶N̶O̶W̶!̶ After the Show
First air date	15 September, 2025
Broadcast number	S13E05
Opening cartoon	The Headless Horseman (1934)
Additional
Commentary (Transcript) Transcript Pictures
Season 10

"Scared Screenless" is the one hundred and sixty-fifth episode of Futurama, the fifth of the tenth production season and the fifth of the thirteenth broadcast season. It aired on 15 September, 2025, on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

Plot

Act I

At dinner in Amy and Kif's home, their children are ignoring their family to play with their devices. This scene is mirrored at the Conrad household, where Dwight is playing multiple video games at once, and at Planet Express, where Professor Farnsworth has to enter an alternate reality to retrieve Cubert from a VR game.

The parents, frustrated with their children's behavior, come up with a plan on "Bring Your Crummy Teens to Work Day." Professor Farnsworth activates a "Deny-Fi" signal, cutting off the internet for two hours. He sends the kids outside to play, but they immediately try to get back online. They find a shady robot who provides them with a black-market WiFi signal.

Later, the children are admitted to Taco Bellevue Hospital, suffering from "screen addiction." Even in the hospital, the kids continue to game, using their heart monitors to compete. Fed up, Farnsworth suggests they go back in time to prevent having children, but Kif proposes a less extreme solution. The episode concludes with the kids being sent to "Scared Screenless," an intensive digital addiction camp run by Zapp Brannigan.

Act II

Zapp reveals that he is running a summer camp to improve the fitness of recruits, which he blames on screen addiction. He confiscates the kids' devices and Bender's antenna, locking them in a bag.

The parents, free from their parental responsibilities for the first time in a while, decide to have a night out. The ladies head to a bar, where they make a game of drinking every time someone mentions their kids. Meanwhile, the men cruise around in Zoidberg's car, as Kif tries to enjoy himself despite worrying about his son.

Meanwhile, when the kids get to the planet Remotus, Zapp hoists the device bag high up on a tree branch. The kids and Bender are struggling to adapt to life without their devices. They can't set up a tent without a tutorial video or chop firewood. Zapp, on the other hand, is revealed to be living in luxury inside his "Go-Yurt." He attempts to teach the campers to survive in the wild but fails, ultimately admitting to them that he prefers cold stew. That night, he tells them about the wily snipe, a mythical creature with the talons of an eagle and the fangs of a viper, and warns them to be on the lookout.

The next morning, the kids discover that Bender can get a WiFi signal from the sun by using his antenna, which he'd replaced with a spork. They hatch a plan to retrieve their devices, using a human totem pole to reach the bag of devices. Bender uses his extendo-arm to grab the bag and quietly takes their devices, replacing his spork with his antenna. They go to a nearby bush and find out that Bender's password is "assword1." As they finally get back online, Axl learns that snipes are debunked on Snopes, but as he says this, they are all attacked by the very snipe Zapp had warned them about.

Act III

The parents' night out takes a turn for the worse. The ladies get completely intoxicated at the pub, while the guys, with Zoidberg as their designated driver, crash their car into a police station. They are all arrested, and the police confiscate their devices, including Fry's phone and Kif's, which he was using to try and talk to Axl. Kif is devastated when the call drops and his phone is taken, explaining that his son only calls him in emergencies.

Meanwhile, on Remotus, Bender and the kids are still being chased by the mythical snipe. They are saved by a hippie commune, who trap and kill the snipe, revealing it to be nothing more than a giant chicken. The hippies, led by cousins Groovestick and Bliss Waterfall, explain that their ancestors left Earth centuries ago to escape technology. They live a simple, nature-based life, and they've been inbreeding to continue this lifestyle.

The kids show the hippie children their devices, which the hippies see as "witchcraft and dark science." At that moment, a solar eclipse begins. The hippies believe the eclipse is an attack by the "great snipe of heaven" and that the kids' devices have angered the sun. They grab makeshift weapons like rain sticks, carrots, and radishes and begin to attack the kids and Bender.

The kids and Bender run from the hippies, but the solar eclipse blocks their access to the sun-powered WiFi signal they were using. Axl can no longer call his father, and the kids realize they are completely offline. As they are cornered by the hippies, the act ends with the kids and Bender being hit by the hippies' radish projectiles.

Act IV

On Remotus, the hippies' attack is interrupted when a radish hits Zapp's box of wine, causing his yurt to deflate. The kids seek Zapp's help, but his laser gun and the bus's hatch are non-functional, as they require an internet connection to operate. Back in the prison cell, the parents panic when they realize there's a network outage on Remotus. Kif remembers that Zapp has a hard-wired emergency phone. They find an old payphone in their cell, and Fry, a phone phreaker, hacks it to make a call to Zapp.

Kif gets through to Zapp, begging to speak with his son Axl. Zapp, preoccupied with his own survival, briefly holds off. When Zapp finally gives Axl the phone, a radish hits the receiver, breaking it and the connection. Axl is devastated, believing he'll never talk to his dad again. However, Dwight discovers a phone jack on Bender's head. Axl connects a cord from the broken phone to Bender, but the cord also connects to the payphone in the jail cell.

Kif and Axl are able to speak to each other, but the connection is difficult. Kif, frustrated with the broken phone, ties a tin can to the cord. When the hippies catch up to them, Kif's can-on-a-string conversation turns into a threatening phone call, promising to tear out the hippies' hearts.

Groovestick takes the phone and tries to talk back to Kif and Zoidberg, believing it to be "sorcery." At that moment, the eclipse ends, and Bender's antenna gets the signal back. The hippies, awed by the devices, drop their weapons and are immediately captivated by the screens. The kids' devices have corrupted them, and they begin to play games, even calling them "God." Enraged, Groovestick is about to attack with a rain stick when a snipe appears and eats him. His son nonchalantly promises to avenge his death.

With their mission complete, Zapp packs the kids back onto the bus, where they are once again engrossed in their devices. Back in the jail cell, the men are released. Kif attempts to text Axl, but he doesn't reply. Just as he gets disheartened, a heart appears over his text, signaling a positive response from Axl. The women, still drunk, are led into the cell as the new inmates, leaving Kif with a feeling of connection and hope.

Additional information

Trivia

• The Waterfall family return for the first time in 16 years.

Continuity

• Zoidberg's superhero mural from "A Clockwork Origin" is still seen in Cubert's bedroom.

Alien Language Sightings

Time: 7:56
Location: O'Zorgnax's Pub
Language: AL1
Translation: Human Bloody Mary $8.00

Characters

(In alphabetic order)

• Amy
• Axl
• Bender
• Debut: Bliss Waterfall
• Debut: Bliss and Groovestick's son
• Cubert
• Dr. Tenderman
• Dwight
• Fry
• Debut: Groovestick Waterfall
• Hermes
• Kif
• LaBarbara
• Leela
• Mandy (no lines)
• Newt
• Q. T. McWhiskers (cameo, as a doll)
• Smitty
• Debut: Snipe
• URL
• Zapp
• Zoidberg

References

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