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In Futurama, President Nixon's head gets to be president again, this time of all of Earth, and is later often seen with the headless clone of Spiro Agnew. Spiro Agnew was Nixon's vice president from 1969 to 1973. Nixon's presidency was both before my time, and in a different country. As such, I don't get why Futurama brought him back as a headless clone.

What was the joke behind the headless clone of Spiro Agnew?

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  • Agnew's intelligence was not widely respected is what I recollect from those days. – releseabe Nov 10 '19 at 4:48
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I’ve always understood the joke being, Agnew was Nixons lacky in reality, and is his lacky in the show, but in a classic evil villain style.

Since Nixon doesn’t have a body, his new Agnew clone lacky won’t have a head.

It’s a common bad guy trope of henchmen being big but Dumb Muscle, to a bad guy being small but ‘smart’.

Dumb Muscle:

The tendency for strength and intellect to be inversely proportional. The Big Guy and The Brute are usually slightly dim at the very least (with The Smart Guy and The Evil Genius at the opposite end of the scale; incredibly intelligent, but knocked over by a stiff breeze).

Agnew literally doesn’t have a head and is just a body, and Nixon who is portrayed as a villain in the show’s canon, is only a head.

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