the "Vice Presidential Action Rangers", led by Al Gore, whose constitutional duty is to protect the space-time continuum. His group is filled out by Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, Gary Gygax, and Deep Blue. Fry explains what happened the previous night. They determine Fry was supposed to die and try to kill him. Another rift appears during the attempted murder, with Bender throwing a beer bottle at the Rangers. Nichols suggests that Fry be frozen in order to stabilize the space-time continuum. Gygax gives Fry his "+1 mace" for protection in the future. Fry suddenly smashes the tube with the mace, creating a paradox and causing the universe to collapse into a space-time rift. All that remains is Fry and the Rangers, floating in a featureless void. The scenario ends with them playing Dungeons and Dragons for the next quadrillion years. Conclusion After the end of Fry's scenario, the Professor curses the What-if machine for simulating scenarios even he found preposterous and dumps it into the trash. He judges the Fing-Longer to be a success and is congratulated by the crew. It is then shown that everything before was just a simulation by the What-if machine created when the Professor asked what would have happened if he had invented the Fing-Longer, leaving him to lament the unfulfilled possibilities. Broadcast and reception This episode guest starred Nichelle Nichols and Al Gore, who would make later appearances in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" and "Crimes of the Hot" respectively. Al Gore received some criticism for his appearance because parts of the show "conflicted starkly with the anti-violence, anti-smoking and family-values themes of Gore's campaign." Gore's spokesperson responded by stating that most viewers would recognize that the show was meant to be entertaining and that it would be taken in the right spirit. This episode is one of four featured in the Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection as one of Matt Groening's four favorite episodes of the series. In 2006, IGN.com ranked this episode as number thirteen on their list of the top 25 episodes of Futurama, noting that although the plots of the three individual segments were not the best work of Futurama, they were each considered to have "killer" comedy. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B, stating, "[T]his still feels like something of a wasted opportunity. If an episode is going to purposefully shirk its story responsibilities,