WELCOME TO THE WOOORLD OF TOMORROW

March 28, 2024 11:59 AM

March 28, 1999: Futurama. It seems to go on and on forever. In fact, the pilot episode of the original run aired 25 years ago tonight, kicking off what would become one of the smartest and most hilarious comedies in TV history. So celebrate with an overview of character intros, ★ key scenes, clips, ♫ songs, and other links, why not?

♫ Extended theme and sample breakdown -

List of taglines -

[S1E1:] ★ Fry -
Leela -
Bender -
Head Museum -
Farnsworth -
[S1E2:] Hermes -
Zoidberg -
Amy -
[S1E3:] Calculon -
Apartments -
[S1E4:] Zapp Brannigan -
Zapp does Trump -
Kif -
[S1E5:] Blernsball
[S1E6:] Scruffy. The Janitor. -
Mom -
[S1E8:] Morbo -
Wernstrom -
[S1E9:] ♫ Robot Hell -
[S1E12:] Lrr -
[S2E2:] The Neutrals -
[S2E3:] The Scary Door -
Politics -
Nixon's Head -
[S2E4:] SantaBot -
[S2E6:] Past-o-Rama! -
Flexo -
[S2E7:] Car shopping -
[S2E9:] The Internet -
[S2E11:] ♫ The Bureaucrat Song -
[S2E12:] The Lost City of Atlanta -
[S2E16:] Al Gore -
[S2E17:] War is the H-Word -
Bender's Top 10 -
[S3E1:] Death by Snu-Snu -
[S3E2:] Parasites Lost -
[S3E3:] ♫ Back to Work -
[S3E4:] ★ Luck of the Fryrish -
[S3E7:] Hypnotoad -
Nibbler -
★ The Nibblonians -
[S3E9:] Not normal -
[S3E14:] The Globetrotters -
[S3E15:] Don't Date Robots! -
[S3E19:] Roswell That Ends Well -
Grandfather Paradox -
[S3E20:] Godfellas -
[S3E21:] Future Stock -
[S4E1:] Bigfoot -
[S4E2:] ★ Leela's Parents -
[S4E4:] The New Justice Team -
[S4E7:] ★ Jurassic Bark -
[S4E8:] Global Warming -
Hedonismbot -
[S4E9:] De-Aging -
[S4E10:] Past-Nastification -
★ The Why of Fry -
[S4E12:] ♫ Don't Worry, Bee Happy -
★ The Sting -
[S4E15:] The Farnsworth Parabox -
[S4E16:] 100 Coffees -
[S4E18:] ♫ The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings (full opera dub) -
"Please don't stop playing, Fry. I want to hear how it ends."

The Infosphere, the Futurama Wiki
Futurama wiki on Fandom
TVTropes: Futurama (Western Animation)

Find clips and make memes with Morbotron, a searchable database of a million screencaps and captions

Fan-O-Rama: A half-hour live-action Futurama fan film - Behind-the-scenes video

A raw version of the series finale opera cover song above the fold - or see it performed live at LA Comic Con 2022 - test your knowledge of the lyrics!

Guide to Alienese

Voice acting:

"Futurama" cast FULL live table read of "Proposition Infinity" episode

Billy West does four voices in 40 seconds - West on creating Fry and Nixon (excerpts from this 90-minute interview). Related: Just How Old is Fry, Really?

More interviews: John DiMaggio, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche, Phil LaMarr, David X. Cohen

Welcome to the World of Tomorrow - an original behind-the-scenes video from the DVD releases

Is 'Futurama' The Next Great Sleep Hack?

Episode retrospectives:

All Glory To The Hypnotoad: An Oral History of Futurama’s Mind-Altering Amphibian

An Oral History of ‘Godfellas,’ the Most Philosophical ‘Futurama’ Episode Ever

Fry's Dog: An Oral History of Futurama's Best Episode and Most Heartbreaking Moment

Futurama’s opera was a poignant final bow—until it wasn’t

Later adaptations:

The Futurama Video Game: Futurama's Official Lost Episode

Futurama Comics

Futurama: The Long and Complicated History of Cancellations, Explained

The latest: ‘Futurama’ Renewed for Two More Seasons at Hulu [Nov 2023]

Futurama previously on MeFi:

Cancelled!
...Revived?
Revived!
More revival discussion: one - two - three
The Bender Brewer Project
The Physics of Futurama
The novel theorem designed for one episode
"Robot Hell" song in TF2
Real-life Holophonor prop
The significance of the number 1729
Drawing the full cast of the show
Futurama 3D test
Fan-o-rama fan film
Morbotron

posted by Rhaomi (49 comments total)

a feeble effort, barely worth an FPP.

srsly, amazing as always!
posted by lalochezia at 12:06 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]

I love Futurama, but in my headcanon it ended with The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings.

To this day I cannot respond to anyone asking about my plans for the weekend without thinking and/or saying "I'm up for whatever!"
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:24 PM on March 28 [4 favorites]

Futurama Omnibus Encyclopedia -- City to be built around soon.
posted by y2karl at 12:27 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

Kind of crazy how you can see the immediate drop off in Simpsons quality around the exact same time Futurama starts - I think Simpsons was going into S10 which was still a half-decent season in my opinion but you really notice the decline. I've never looked into or read about whether it's connected but it does feel like the Good Simpsons Energy transferred immediately to the new baby that was Futurama...is there any truth to this in terms of writer crossover beyond just Groening and David X. Cohen? Is that common knowledge that people have actually spoken or written about?
posted by windbox at 12:50 PM on March 28 [6 favorites]

Having finally gotten around to watching Adventure Time, I now find watching Futurama difficult because it's hard watch the robot (robut?) who sounds exactly Jake the Dog do such mean things.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:01 PM on March 28 [2 favorites]

(There’s also the AT episode “Everything is Jake” featuring barely disguised voices of several Futurama characters.)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:10 PM on March 28 [3 favorites]

Remember Fry's sleep through time, the alien invasion(s), and the Second Middle Ages era? Turns out, the Second Middle Ages period was the setting of the series Disenchantment. Suddenly, the path from Dreamland to Steamland makes sense.
posted by SPrintF at 1:19 PM on March 28 [10 favorites]

Lo, these many many years later I still trot out "Fine, I'll go build my OWN lunar lander... with blackjack, and hookers! ", but obviously replace "lunar lander" with whatever I've been denied.
posted by Kitteh at 1:22 PM on March 28 [8 favorites]

I promised myself I would never forget that in the first airing of the Futurama pilot that guy says "JFK Jr. Airport" before getting into the transit tube. They overdubbed it to "Crosstown Central" when it was repeated before finally settling on "Radio City Mutant Hall" in subsequent broadcasts.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:30 PM on March 28 [4 favorites]

Needs the ShutUpAndTakeMyMoney tag.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:48 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]

Wernstrom in italics - nice!
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:43 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

There have been many times since 2016 when I have summoned Sweet Clyde to laugh derisively at one republican or another.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:56 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

This is a great post, but I have to point out one factual error: The year 1999 was about 12 years ago, not 25 years ago. Right? Right!?!
posted by FishBike at 3:53 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]

NO TIME OFF!
posted by Acey at 4:16 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

My Futurama catchphrase I looove using is “Tell them I hate them,” which Professor said about the not-Oompla-Loompas
posted by BlunderingArtist at 4:28 PM on March 28 [8 favorites]

Has any show been more cancelled than Futurama? (I'd add 'or do we need to call Guinness' but it's more complicated than that these days - alternatively, transcript or short video summary.)
posted by BiggerJ at 4:29 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

Mm-mmm, fish on a friday! And human flesh the rest of the week.
posted by credulous at 4:29 PM on March 28

I was a big Futurama fan for years and years (I even made my girlfriend a Hypnotoad cake for her birthday once, with flashing LEDS for his eyes!) but I haven't made time for the latest revival. The show felt played out when it ended last time. Was the new season any better than the Comedy Central era? Man, I still shudder when I remember that nature documentary parody one where they were all walruses. It was way too easy to picture a bunch of writers around a table going, "Fuck, we've got nothing. Jimmy, what was that walrus thing, again?" "What? I was just joking when I said that!" "We've got nothing, Jimmy."
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:00 PM on March 28 [2 favorites]

If this is a Futurama appreciation post, lemme just drop one of my favorite Futurama jokes from all the way back in S1E6:

Fry: Do you take Visa?
Cashier: Visa hasn't existed in 500 years.
Fry: American Express?
Cashier: 600 years.
Fry: Discover card?
Cashier: Ooh, sorry. We don't take Discover.

posted by mhum at 5:02 PM on March 28 [16 favorites]

"I'm getting on the bus!"
posted by audi alteram partem at 5:05 PM on March 28

Futurama is a massively significant show to me because when I was getting started with writing science fiction it showed me that good science fiction didn't have to be a didactic room-temperature demonstration of a vaguely interesting thing à la Asimov and Clarke. Sci-fi could have character and colour and comedy and heart. Ken Keeler in particular is a real inspiration to me.

The first four seasons of the show are just one unforgettable banger of a joke after another. The fifth "season" onwards... well, they have their increasingly sparse moments.

I haven't watched the latest season because I'm done with the show. It's a show about the future about the present about the past. Every show about the future is really about the present that it's made in, and that present is a late 1990s present which is now as inscrutably alien to us as the year 3000. It doesn't work anymore. It's time for something else.
posted by qntm at 6:05 PM on March 28 [7 favorites]

Excuse me, hi! Do you have a minute? I live in Jersey City and my car broke down and I need to get back because my Aunt's real sick and she needs this medicine but I need money for the bus, so I'm mugging you. Hand over your wallets
posted by qntm at 6:06 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

Just a few of my favorite moments that live rent-free in my head forever:

"If anyone needs me, I'll be in the angry dome!"
"I'm a doctor!"
"WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!"
posted by Navelgazer at 6:22 PM on March 28

Professor! Lava! HOT!!
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:27 PM on March 28

I AM BENDER. PLEASE INSERT GIRDER.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:33 PM on March 28 [3 favorites]

The "Fry's Dog" episode was both a sucker punch and a gut punch. I watched the show afterwards for a while, but I still can't think about that closing sequence. That episode needed an fn TW/CW.
posted by the sobsister at 6:42 PM on March 28 [6 favorites]

"Fry, your hands are so cold."
"AND YET HELL IS SO HOT!
...
Can I have my hands back?"
"No!"
"Aw, you're not nice."
posted by Navelgazer at 6:46 PM on March 28

So that's what would've happened if I had invented the finglonger...
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:47 PM on March 28 [2 favorites]

What's funny is that the ending of "Jurassic Bark" leaves me cold for some reason, when it should absolutely shred me (it's pretty easy for media to make me cry, I am bonded super hard with my pets such that even thinking about harm coming to them can get me emotional, etc.) But for some reason that ending just makes me feel nothing.

But, like, other Futurama endings just wreck me. See "The Luck of the Fryrish" or "The Sting" or "Time Keeps on Slippin'" or "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings." Just not "Jurassic Bark," for whatever reason.
posted by Navelgazer at 6:50 PM on March 28

I used to watch episodes of Futurama with my son when he was a toddler after I got tired of reading storybooks, which for awhile was most nights. I didn't think he was old enough to remember but turns out he was. He's now in middle school and still occasionally asks to watch The Farnsworth Parabox. What did I do to him?
posted by technodelic at 7:35 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]

the little communist greeting card... it gets me every time.
posted by logicpunk at 7:43 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]

Jam a bastard in it, you crap!

Although this has to be my favorite Mom-ism, the first time I heard it I literally couldn't watch any more of the show for a minute or so until my laughing fit died down:

If I ever see him again, I swear I'll jam a squirrel in him!

Oh man, Tress Macneille must have had SO MUCH fun voicing her characters!
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:23 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]

Your post's good and you should feel good!

...to shreds, you say
posted by ilana at 9:10 PM on March 28 [1 favorite]

A great bit from "Godfellas" that never gets enough love:

"Let us out! We cooked our shoes in the dryer and ate them. Now we're bored!"
posted by Navelgazer at 9:16 PM on March 28 [3 favorites]

I miss that show. I think it's one of the few shows of any type I've seen every episode of (the only other one I remember is Stargate, including sequels).

Futurama will forever remain my absolute favorite animated show, though.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 12:52 AM on March 29 [1 favorite]

"The Sting" is the most genuinely upsetting episode to me. It is very reminiscent of some very bad dreams I jad while in an induced coma.

For favorite lines "With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg" is pretty great.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 3:37 AM on March 29 [2 favorites]

Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct; the best kind of correct.

Guards! Bring me the forms I need to fill out to have her taken away
posted by qntm at 4:54 AM on March 29 [3 favorites]

I am definitely going to pop some moderately priced, domestic, non-vintage champagne.

("Cham-pag-n?")
posted by mrgoat at 6:13 AM on March 29

Professor: "This device will translate what you say into a thousand year old dead language."

"Hello."

"Bonjour."

The small, throwaway gags in this show are brilliant, and they never ever stop.
posted by Sphinx at 8:49 AM on March 29 [3 favorites]

Thank you for the oral history of Hypnotoad. I am glad to know the name of Danek Thomas, the guy who made the Hypnotoad sound. That is work on a level with early Lucasfilm.

Obligatory quote: "I'll be in the Chamber of Understanding." (disco)
posted by Sauce Trough at 1:27 PM on March 29

"Severely reduced pay all around!"

"The corner… of course!"

"I've *not* heard of them" remains one of my favorite line reads of all time. It shouldn't work, but Billy West… he found a way. [sorry for yarn.io link]

"She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro."

"Once again, the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor!"

And, of course, the line that was written most about me: "Alright. It's Saturday night, I have no date, a 2 liter bottle of Shasta, and my all-Rush mixtape. Let's rock."
posted by Eideteker at 1:59 PM on March 29 [4 favorites]

My only regret is that I have boneitis.
posted by Navelgazer at 3:01 PM on March 29 [2 favorites]

Oh yes, which reminds me of another genius line:

I was having whiskey with Boesky and cookies with Milken.

Well, "genius" as long as you're up on your 80s high-finance references, at least...
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:07 PM on March 29 [1 favorite]

A pogo stick!
posted by Sauce Trough at 3:40 PM on March 29

Well, "genius" as long as you're up on your 80s high-finance references, at least...

Don't you worry about 80s high-finance references, let me worry about blank.
posted by Navelgazer at 5:31 PM on March 29 [6 favorites]

A quick 25th anniversary celebration from the cast (including a very special guest)
posted by Rhaomi at 8:39 PM on March 29 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the Dog episode finished joint Futurama watching in our household. After that, my SO said "I'm out" just in case they ever showed anything similarly gut-wrenching. Has maintained a strict No Futurama policy since.
posted by meehawl at 10:05 PM on March 29

This is Earth’s most foolish program. Why does Leela, strongest of the Futuramans, not simply eat the other five?
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:24 AM on March 30 [6 favorites]

"Too many bones? Not enough cash?"

The new season just didn't work for me. I've been a big fan since forever, but somehow I've grown out of it somewhat.
posted by fridgebuzz at 5:27 AM on March 31 [1 favorite]