The Math Behind the Joke
In the classic Futurama season 4 episode, "Three Hundred Big Boys" (which aired on June 15, 2003), Hermes Conrad gives his son Dwight a single leftover penny. Dwight proudly takes that penny and uses it to buy five shares of Amazon.com stock.
How much is it worth today?
If Dwight bought 5 shares of Amazon, he would have experienced Amazon's massive 20-for-1 stock split that occurred in June 2022. Because of this split, Dwight's original 5 shares would multiply into 100 shares.
Reality Check: What could a penny actually buy in June 2003?
While the joke claims Amazon stock was trading at $0.002 per share, reality looked quite different. When the episode aired in June 2003, Amazon stock was trading around $35.80 per share.
If you walked into a brokerage in 2003 with a single penny, you couldn't buy 5 shares. In fact, $0.01 divided by $35.80 means you could only afford about 0.000279 of a single share!