Futurama!

[NokturnuS]

Surfing on the net and find that Comedy Central will spawn 2 new futurama sessions starting on 2008. Great news indeed. So while we wait the new season airs again, i ask, which are you're favorite episodes of the classic futurama? mine are "jurassic bark" and "the sting" both are so touching, the final sequence of jurassic are one of the saddest things i seen on tv, since Optimus Prime Death...

Comment on...

cya!

P.D. yes, i'm an 80's yunkie... gettin' old

(forgive my VERY bad english)

[OmegaJ4]

New Futurama? At last! =)

For classic futurama, some of my favirotes have to be The Bird bot of Ice catraz, The day the earth stood stupid, Fear of a bot planet and Hell is other robots.

"Captain, i think we're not on pluto anymore, in fact i fear we may have left space as we know it!"

"Then where are we? You said you could navigate!"

"Stop yelling at me!"

(One of my favirote quotes)

[NokturnuS]

BENDER: You know, I was God once.

GOD: I saw. You did good until everyone died.

From here in, it becomes the most theological and brilliantly crafted thing about God in modern TV, or even film, history.

GOD: Bender, being God isn't easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safe cracker or a pickpocket.

BENDER: Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money.

GOD: Yes, if he makes it look like an electrical thing. If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything



... priceless!

[Lamneth]

Glad to see Futurama getting new episodes. Its a very funny and original show.

[GGG]

NokturnuS said:

... priceless!

Nietzsche said it better.

[Stealthy Ivan]

My daughter watches this show, I never really got into it, but she will be happy to hear this news! (I have to say I do like the robot, his attitude reminds me of the dog in Family guy) :)

[Technician]

This is a Fox animated series that ended on a positive note with me and I hate to see it fucked up like the newer family guys or the Simpson’s that won't die.

[OmegaJ4]

So your saying new simpsons is just fucked up now?

Although, the last episode of futurama did kind of leave you wondering, did Fry win Leela? Which i felt was a very effective ending. With a new series on the way, that might kill off that ending.

Still, i always kind of prefered Futurama over the simpsons. (Gasp)

[Sharessa]

Futurama was 100x better than either Simpsons or Family Guy. It's the only show I've seen that could make me both laugh then cry in the span of 5 minutes.

My favorite episodes were The Sting, the one about Fry's brother, and the one with Gary Gygax.

[Vile]

Good deal, I liked the show but didn't get into it until after it was cancelled, ironically enough. I didn't like the pilot at all either, at first. The audio commentaries on the DVDs are also quite a bit more entertaining than most you will hear, IMO.

[Antidote]

Danarchy said:

Futurama was 100x better than either Simpsons or Family Guy.

Read your title :).

I agree with the Simpson's part (Futurama is better than the Simpsons in all respects), but the Family Guy part I don't agree with, sorry.

[Bank]

Technician said:

This is a Fox animated series that ended on a positive note with me and I hate to see it fucked up like the newer family guys or the Simpson’s that won't die.

Yes, being that Futurama is one of my favorite cartoons of all time, I fear that it will most likely be ruined. They ended it quite well with The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings, I can't see where they're going to go except bad cliches and political/current events thinly veiled "parody."

[Isle]

family guy licks balls, it is the anti-funny.

[darknation]

counter-counter culture is where the cool kids are.

[Ralphis]

Family Guy is really funny the first time through with my brain off.

Futurama on the other hand is always quality.

[Bank]

Isle said:

family guy licks balls, it is the anti-funny.

Family Guy's humor lies in its copy-paste plots with intertwined pop-culture and current events references planted throughout the frame story. It's not necessarily that it isn't funny, it's more that its unoriginality takes things we already knew were funny and just applies them to a different situation.

Futurama on the other hand is a little more high-brow when it comes to its witty critiques of popular culture by showing what comes of it in the future, while still keeping the original plot as the main focus.

It's just that Family Guy is 80 percent pop culture and 20 percent plot/original humor and Futurama is just about 30/70 when it comes to that same balance.

I'm just afraid that without the material Futurama will just become the same as Family Guy, which would then be too redundant even for a rerun watcher like me.

[DJShrimpy]

Bank said:

It's just that Family Guy is 80 percent pop culture and 20 percent plot/original humor

You mean 99/1.

I swear I was so happy when I saw South Park's "Cartoon Wars"

[Vile]

Bank said:

I'm just afraid that without the material Futurama will just become the same as Family Guy, which would then be too redundant even for a rerun watcher like me.

I'd say that's valid... since the show was cancelled, they quickly finished up some long-running plot elements (such as Leela's homeworld) only to find that they now have more time that could have been used to build on it more.

As for South Park, I got annoyed with it in the later seasons but still find it fun to watch.

[Snarboo]

This thread got me thinking, but a problem a lot of long running series have - be it cartoons, TV series, and yes, even webcomics - is that they often lose focus of the original idea or purpose the series had at the beginning. They either become mindless drivel (Simpsons, Garfield), more about preaching the creators' political views (South Park), grossly simplified (Star Wars) or carried away with epic or bizarre plots threads (The Matrix, Penny Arcade). These are admittedly crappy examples, but this is just what I've noticed.

The best example of a creator losing focus or going crazy with their material was this webcomic I read about on Something Awful. It was called Boston & Shaun or something and it was a really tame ripoff of Calvin & Hobbs that quickly transformed into a bizarre furry epic about force feeding and situations that would make Sigmund Freud awkward.

Whether or not Futurama will suffer from this is hard to say. Would be kind of sad if it did given that it was such a great series.

[EANB]

Dammit, am I the only one here who likes all Family Guy, Futurama and the Simpsons?

And because of the way the Simpsons changed, Futurama will probably change too.

[Snarboo]

The Simpsons changed because most of the writers left for Futurama. You'll note that in the Simpsons seasons around the time Futurama debuted, there was a change in the style of the show. At least I would argue that. They claim they have most of the writers and voice actors back for the new seasons of Futurama, but this could really go either way.

[Bank]

Snarboo said:

They claim they have most of the writers and voice actors back for the new seasons of Futurama, but this could really go either way.

Well Billy West and Katey Sagal can't be too busy.

[Jello]

Cool beans, I'm sure they'll be pretty entertaining. I miss Bender. My favorite episode would probably A Head in the Polls. I always love great Nixon jokes. "We can't just let every Tom, Dick, and Harry in here you know. No offense Jefferson, Nixon and Truman." "And once I'm swept into office, I'll sell our children's organs to zoos for meat and I'll go into people's houses at night and wreck up the place."
Typical Nixon. I look forward to their new episodes. Shame they won't be on Fox, but I suppose Fox's executives have their heads so far up their asses at this point that they can see Saturn.

[Sharessa]

Not being on Fox anymore might allow them to voice their political veiws more. That kind of reminds me of this fairly recent Simpsons episode I saw that parodied Fox and they said something like "how come their news station is so conservative while their network station is full of provocative left-wing shows?" I can't remember the answer right now but it was one of the best lines I've heard on Simpsons in the last 10 years.

But yeah, I agree with what Ralphis said about Family Guy, and as for Simpsons, it seems like they keep running the same plots over and over. Seriously, how can you really stay original after 500 episodes or whatever?

[BoldEnglishman]

Danarchy said:

But yeah, I agree with what Ralphis said about Family Guy, and as for Simpsons, it seems like they keep running the same plots over and over. Seriously, how can you really stay original after 500 episodes or whatever?

That just reminded me of an advert I saw today saying Law & Order is on its 15th season :| Jesus christ I don't think any of the Star Trek's went beyond 7 but 15?! God knows how many episodes that is.

[Johnatone]

Yeah, I heard about this a while ago, and it's great and all assuming Adult Swim finds something decent to replace it with (their pick of shows here recently, especially their originals, range from bad to downright fucking horrible).

From what I understand though, most of what Comedy Central is getting was already made back when the show was ending and has just been reedited for a show format. So, hopefully, it will still kick ass.

As far as my favorite episodes...I dunno. I've seen them all at least five times apiece and still keep picking up on jokes, easter eggs and gags I missed the first times around. Let me look up the episode list on wikipedia for proper titles...

Hell Is Other Robots
A Head in the Polls
Raging Bender
How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back
War Is The H-Word
Parasites Lost
The Luck Of The Fryish
The Day The Earth Stood Stupid
Time Keeps On Slippin'
Insane in the Mainframe
Godfellas
Futurestock
Less Than Hero ("A superhero formula that comes in a cream? I thought it'd be something you had to freebase.")
Jurrassic Bark
Where No Fan Has Gone Before

Oh yeah, and to fuel the flames, the The Simpsons has jumped the shark and Family Guy has gotten way too fucking political, even to the point where it isn't funny. I loved Bill and Peter's Bogus Adventure, but Meet The Quagmires's political jokes just took it too damn far. Sure, that depends on your political bias, but at some point it's just repetitive, not funny bandwagon humor.

[Sharessa]

BoldEnglishman said:

That just reminded me of an advert I saw today saying Law & Order is on its 15th season :| Jesus christ I don't think any of the Star Trek's went beyond 7 but 15?! God knows how many episodes that is.

Yeah, but Law and Order is different from the Simpsons. They keep switching out castmembers from time to time, for one thing. None of the original cast is on the show anymore. Also, they have a pretty limitless source of material to go from because they take a lot of their plots from real-life events. I love that show. SVU is even better.

[BoldEnglishman]

Danarchy said:

Yeah, but Law and Order is different from the Simpsons. They keep switching out castmembers from time to time, for one thing. None of the original cast is on the show anymore. Also, they have a pretty limitless source of material to go from because they take a lot of their plots from real-life events. I love that show. SVU is even better.

Yeah I know, I just remembered it from the post above me :P

[NokturnuS]

Well, at least SVU have its 'core' intact. Personally i think the spinoff surpass by a mile the original. More content and more inmerssive stories.

Cya!

[DooMAD]

Erm... "Also Known As: The Futurama Movie (USA) (working title)"?

Also 2, 3 and 4?

Confused now.