About

"I'm Going To Build My Own Theme Park With Blackjack and Hookers" is a memorable quote said by Bender in a 1999 episode of the animated TV series Futurama. In image macros and comments, variations of the phrasal template “We’ll create our own (X) with blackjack and hookers” have been used to express dissatisfaction with the status quo, suggesting that the commenter could do it better.

Origin

The phrase was first uttered in the second episode of _Futurama_'s first season titled "The Series Has Landed"^[1], which originally aired on April 4th, 1999. While on a trip to an amusement park on the moon, robotic anti-hero Bender is caught reaching through an arcade claw machine prize slot while trying to retrieve a set of lost keys and is ejected from the building. As he lands on the moon's surface, he exclaims "I am going to build my own theme park with blackjack and hookers!" After walking back to the group's spaceship, Bender sees the door close and thinks they are about to leave without him, causing him to utter the phrase again in reference to building his own lunar lander.

Spread

The quote was discussed online as early as April 2003, when a thread dedicated to it was created on the Prince.org forums.^[2] That November, the phrase was added to Urban Dictionary^[3], where it was described as a phrasal template used when someone gets kicked out of a physical place or group. In October 2007, it was used as the title of a personal blog post^[5], describing how a graphic designer created a specific lighting shader program after someone deemed it impossible. In January 2008, the phrase was used on Reddit^[6] for the first time by a Ron Paul opposer who was joking about creating a version of Reddit without any mentions of the politician. The post gained 5 upvotes but 0 points overall.

On October 29th, 2009, a Facebook fan page titled "Blackjack and Hookers"^[4] was created, accruing 413 likes as of September 2013. That year, the phrase "Blackjack and Hookers" was used as the title of an achievement in the Xbox game Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days.^[16] In January 2010, the subreddit /r/BlackjackAndHookers^[7] launched, gaining nearly 400 subscribers as of September 2013. A second Facebook fan page^[8] for the phrase was established on April 18th, 2010. Between 2010 and 2011, the phrase was used to describe people wanting to create their own mobile operating systems^[9], message board art threads^[10] and Minecraft buildings from scratch.^[11] By December 2011^[13], the phrase had become associated with an image of Bender wearing a white fur coat and several gold rings taken from the February 27th, 2000 episode "Raging Bender."^[12]

Notable Examples

As of September 2013, there are two Meme Generator pages^[14][15] utilizing the image of Bender in the fur coat with captions relating to blackjack and hookers, with more than 10,000 submissions combined.

Search Interest

External References