Bender, fetch me that powdered opal!
Futurama S06E20“All the Presidents’ Heads” episode of the sixth season
- Opal has unusual temporal properties
- Time travel effect is caused by the rare powdered crystalline opal used to make the liquid, which keeps the heads alive in a temporal bubble.
- Professor Farnsworth dumps the Andamooka Opal (the world’s entire powdered opal supply) into Washington’s jar and licks the head, transporting himself, Fry, Leela, and Bender back to colonial-era New York.
- The caption in the opening cartoon reads “БЫСТРЕЕ, ВЫШЕ, СИЛЬНЕЕ” which is Russian for “FASTER, HIGHER, STRONGER”
- Powder crystalline opal, the preservative commonly used for heads in jars
- The song that plays during the party scene is “El Sonidito” by Hechizeros Band
“Fry goes to his night job at the Head Museum where he feeds the preserved heads of the Presidents of the United States. He invites the Planet Express crew to the museum for a party, where they become drunk and begin ingesting the preservative fluid inside the jars. Doing so causes them and everyone standing nearby to temporarily travel back in time to the eras each head originally came from. Professor “Farnsworth reasons that this time travel effect is caused by the rare powdered crystalline opal used to make the fluid, which keeps the heads alive in a temporal bubble. Farnsworth despairs that there is no way to travel to the past to fix their mistake until he notices the Andamooka Opal on the queen’s crown. After stealing and crushing it, the four are able to use the preserved head of David Farnsworth to return to colonial times and restore the timeline.”
