"The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz" is the fifth episode in the third season of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 4, 2001. The episode was written by Dan Vebber and directed by James Purdum. Phil Hendrie guest stars in the episode as Free Waterfall Sr. Plot Professor Farnsworth gives the crew an "extremely controversial" mission: towing a dark matter tanker through the solar system, and dangerously near a penguin nature preserve on Pluto in order to avoid a tollbooth. Leela refuses to take part, so the Professor makes Bender the new captain. Leela joins the protesters from Penguins Unlimited. After initially failing to stop the tanker, Leela and the protesters race ahead to intercept the tanker at Pluto. Meanwhile, aboard the Planet Express ship, Bender lets his new power go to his head. Fry gets fed up with Bender's captaining, and rejects both his leadership and friendship. A distraught Bender goes on a sobriety binge, and takes the tanker on an erratic course over Pluto. The tanker collides with an iceberg, and spills dark matter across the landscape. For his part in the disaster, Bender is sentenced to community service, cleaning up the spill alongside the Penguins Unlimited environmentalists. However, when the police officers supervising his work are distracted by a round of friendly hugging, Bender dons a tuxedo and blends into the colony of penguins. Leela sets off to search Pluto for Bender, while Fry inexplicably decides to take the Planet Express ship and search for Bender in space. That night, Bender is mauled by an orca, and the damage causes him to shut down. When he reboots, his boot loader reinitializes him with penguin-like behaviors. Back at the Penguins Unlimited facility, it is announced that the dark matter has dramatically increased the penguins' reproductive speed. Whereas one penguin usually lays one egg a year, the penguins (both males and females) are now laying eggs at a rate of six eggs every fifteen minutes, which go on to hatch in 12 hours. In order to save the penguins from mass starvation, penguin hunting season is declared. A reluctant Leela agrees to take part; but her first shot hits Bender in the head, causing him to reboot into his normal personality. When the hunters arrive, Bender leads a large force of penguins in an assault. After the penguins succeed in driving off the