One Of Futurama's Most Memed Episodes Was Inspired By The Popularity Of Apple's iPhone

Fry's "Shut up and take my money" moment in the adult animation hit "Futurama" is one of the most recognizable memes of the modern era — and it was inspired by one of the most popular devices of all time: Apple's iPhone. Writer Patric Verrone wrote the now-meme into "Attack of the Killer App," the first episode conceived for the second official run of "Futurama" after its 2003 cancellation by Fox. The show always made it a point to keep its comedy current, a difficult feat in animation when projects can take a year or more to come together. But because they had been off air six years, one of several key topical elements to catch up to was the rise of the iPhone.

"So, we thought we'd do an episode about that tech development and take advantage of the pervasive cultural phenomenon that was," Verrone explained to Cracked in 2025. "Every time a new iPhone came out, there was a line around the block to get the newest model, even though it probably had very little that was new." That inspired Verrone to write the scene where the Planet Express crew goes to the Apple Store parody Mom Store to procure some new eyePhones, where, despite their inadequacies as devices, Fry shoves a fat stack of cash at the employee and yells, "Shut up and take my money!"

The iPhone had exploded in popularity in the years between the first run of "Futurama" and the second, which premiered during the heyday of the early Apple craze in 2010. The first iPhone model dropped in 2007, but the device's popularity really started to skyrocket when the iPhone 3G hit stores in 2008 and the 3GS came around a year later in 2009. The tech was new and exciting and offered more capabilities than folks had ever had in the palm of their hand — and that fed into a sense of urgency that felt primed to be canonized by this kind of enduring joke.

"There's that FOMO permeating the entire culture. I loved that Fry was so jacked to have something that he didn't give the guy a chance to talk," Billy West, the voice of Fry, explained to Cracked in 2025. "Fry is just yelling at him to take his money. We all understand that urgency concerning a few things in our lives, but this spelled it out perfectly." Though he couldn't have foreseen the response to the joke, writer Patric Verrone's comedic chops — and innate understanding of the specific humor of one of the best animated sitcoms ever made — helped to shape a major meme moment in television history.