Fry: Hey why are they hooked up like that? is it some kind of craftmatic adjustable deathbed?
Leela: (laughs) Don't be ridiculous. Their bodies are being used to generate electricity. The idea came from an old movie called "The Matrix."
Bender: But, but wouldn't almost anything make a better battery than a human body, like a potato? Or a battery?
Fry: Plus no matter how much energy they produce, it would take more energy than that to keep them alive.
Leela: I know, I know. It sounds absurd. In fact when The Matrix first came out it seemed like the single most laziest, crummiest, laziest awful dim-witted idea in the entire history of science-fiction. But it turned out to be true!
Fry: Who knew?!
Bender: Good work, writer of The Matrix.