trackball and finds the cosmic entity by accident as he wishes out loud he had Bender back. The entity hears him and flings Bender toward Earth, where he lands just outside the monastery. Bender recounts his tale and Fry boasts they "climbed a mountain and locked up some monks", which reminds Leela that they never let them out. Fry is reluctant to return to the monastery and claims that their God will surely help them. Bender tells them that God cannot be counted on, and demands they rescue the monks themselves. The cosmic entity chuckles and repeats advice it gave to Bender earlier: "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." Production Billy West states on the audio commentary that the voice of "God" is based on Vic Perrin's "Control Voice" from The Outer Limits. Themes The episode touches on the ideas of predestination, prayer, and the nature of salvation, in what theology writer Mark Pinsky referred to as a theological turn to the episode, which may cause the viewer to need "to be reminded that this is a cartoon and not a divinity school class". By the end of the conversation, Bender's questions still have not been fully answered and like many of the conversations between humans and God in the Bible, Bender is left wanting more from the voice than it has given him. Pinsky also notes that the monks visited by Fry and Leela occupy the monastery of "Teshuvah", which is the Hebrew word for repentance. The book Toons That Teach, a text used by Christian youth groups to teach teenagers about spirituality, recommends this episode in a lesson teaching about "Faith, God's Will, [and] Image of God". Cultural references The first half of this episode explores themes similar to "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon, in which a small race of beings worship their human creator as a God, earnestly carrying out his every command. The story has previously inspired episodes of The Twilight Zone and Groening's own The Simpsons. The observatory located in a monastery is also a reference to "The Nine Billion Names of God" by Arthur C. Clarke. Reception and legacy This episode won the first Writers Guild of America Award for animation in 2003, where it competed against animated specials, long form programs and episodic animation. Series creator Matt Groening has cited it as one of the