"Mars University" is episode eleven of the first production season of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on October 3, 1999 as the second episode in the second broadcast season of Futurama. This episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and directed by Bret Haaland.

Plot

The Planet Express crew's latest mission is to deliver a crate to Professor Farnsworth's office at Mars University. While touring the campus, Bender comes across a chapter of his old fraternity, Epsilon Rho Rho (ERR). The nerdy fraternity brothers beg Bender for his help in the art of being cool, as "even Hillel has better parties than us!"
Fry finds out that his 20th century college dropout status is equivalent to only a 31st century high school dropout. Knowing this, he vows to enroll, and drop out all over again. In a scene straight from Animal House, Bender and the Robot House boys climb a ladder to peek in a girl's dorm window (in reality, they only try to see one of the girls' computers). A mishap happens when Bender's extendable eyes causes them to fall and crush Snooty House's servants quarters.

Fry gets a room in the financial aid dorm, and finds his roommate Guenter is an intelligent monkey wearing an undersized hat. The Professor enters, and reveals that Guenter was the contents of the crate, and that the electronium hat is the source of Guenter's intelligence. Bender and the Robot House members get called before Dean Vernon (Vernon was the first name of Animal House's Dean Wormer in addition to being the last name of the actor who portrayed him, John Vernon), who places them on dodecatuple secret probation.

At the parents' reception, Fry humiliates Guenter by releasing Guenter's unintelligent, feral parents from their cage. Later, Guenter expresses his unhappiness at his current life. At the 20th century history exam, the stress finally becomes too much for him, and he tosses the hat aside, jumps out the window, and flees into the Martian jungle. While Fry, Leela, and the Professor head off into the jungle to find Guenter, Robot House enters the fraternity raft regatta in a bid to lift their probation status.

When Guenter is found, the Professor offers him the hat, and Fry offers him a banana. Before Guenter can decide, Robot House speeds past with Bender on water skis. The boat's wake drags the humans into the river and towards a waterfall. Guenter puts the hat on and rescues them, but falls off a cliff. The planet express crew believe him to be dead, and go to "gather him up". They find however, that the hat broke his fall, and is now only working at half-capacity. Guenter announces that he likes the new reduced-capacity hat, and that he's decided to transfer to business school, to the horror of Professor Farnsworth. Robot House wins the regatta, and a parade in their honor is held, led by an unhappy Dean Vernon.

The episode ends with a party at Robot House, and an epilogue shown in the style of "Animal House" and "American Graffiti" where captions explain that Fry successfully dropped out of college and returned to Planet Express, Guenter went to business school to get his MBA and became The FOX Network's latest CEO, Fat-Bot caught a virus in Tijuana and had to be rebooted, Leela went on a date with Dean Vernon (and Vernon never called her again), and Bender, his job done, robbed Robot House of everything valuable it had, and ran off.

Broadcast and reception

In a review of this episode, Space.com criticized Futurama for the disconnectedness of the episodes and the lack of a large recurring cast and questioned the time spent in developing Guenter's character when it is unlikely that he will return as a major character. The episode itself was praised for its references to classic frat films such as Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds though the reference to Lite-Brite was found to be lacking. In 2006 IGN ranked this episode as number 21 in their list of the top 25 Futurama episodes. The episode was initially ranked higher in the list, particularly for its many references to Animal House and its appeal to fans of the film, it was eventually moved to 21st place and replaced by episodes with better storytelling.

Cultural references

• When Professor Farnsworth is lecturing on the effects of quantum neutrino fields the blackboard behind him includes an explanation of "Superdupersymmetric String Theory" and a diagram explaining "Witten's Dog". Witten's Dog is a parody of the classic Schroedinger's Cat paradox named after Ed Witten. Astrophysicist David Schiminovich created both the equations and the diagram basing them off "an equation that constrains the mass density of neutrinos in the universe".

• Much of the plot is a "satirical rip-off" of scenes from Animal House and a knowledge of the film enhances many humorous elements of the episode.

• The scene in which Fry fails to get Chrissy's phone number, then is taunted by Guenter (who succeeds in getting her number), is a recreation of a famous scene from Good Will Hunting.

• When the crew first land at Mars University, its motto "Knowledge Brings Fear" is visible and is in the style of the sign in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, "Arbeit Macht Frei", [Work Brings Freedom].

• The scene in which the crew take part in a raft race is based on the film Up the Creek, which starred two Animal House alums, Tim Matheson and Stephen Furst.