futurama

Futurama is an American animated television series that follows Philip J. Fry after he is cryogenically frozen at midnight, December 31, 1999, and is revived a thousand years later in the year 2999. The series, created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and David X. Cohen and produced by The Curiosity Company for the Fox Network, aired from March 28, 1999, to August 10, 2003.

Although Futurama was never officially cancelled, Fox decided not to buy the fifth season, and the program fell apart soon after.^[1] On June 22, 2006, Comedy Central officially announced that they have ordered 13 new episodes of the series.^[2] In the meantime, Futurama is syndicated in many countries around the world.

The name Futurama comes from an exhibit from the 1939 New York World's Fair of the same name. The exhibit, designed by Norman Bel Geddes, depicted what he imagined the world to look like in 1959.

Cast and characters

• Philip J. Fry (Billy West) — Fry was cryogenically frozen for one thousand years just after midnight on New Year's Day, 2000, reawakening on New Year's Eve, 2999. This makes him 1025 years old chronologically, yet physically he is merely 25. He quickly got a job at Planet Express, which is owned by his closest living relative, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. A DVD commentary revealed that Fry was named Philip after Phil Hartman, who was set to play several characters, but died before production began.
• Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal) — Leela is the competent, one-eyed (and latest) captain of the Planet Express Ship. Abandoned at birth, she grew up in an “orphanarium” believing herself to be an alien from an unknown race. She eventually learns from her parents that she is, in fact, a mutant. Her name is a reference to the Turangalîla-Symphonie (1946-1948) by Olivier Messiaen, which, like many of Messiaen's works, features the Ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument similar to the theremin and featured in many science-fiction film scores.
• Bender Bending Rodríguez (John DiMaggio) — Bender is a foul-mouthed, alcoholic, cigar smoking, kleptomaniacal, misanthropic robot originally built to bend girders. He is Fry's roommate. He has a dislike of almost all humans and other beings excluding Fry and, to a lesser extent, Leela. Bender sometimes works as the ship's cook, but he primarily assists in delivering cargo from ship to planet.
• Professor Hubert Farnsworth a.k.a. The Professor (Billy West) — Farnsworth is Fry's distant nephew, though he is in his 160s; biologically, he is older than Fry (chronologically, Fry is much older). He founded Planet Express to fund his mad scientist-like experiments and inventions. The Professor's name possibly comes from Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the vacuum tube television, which was featured at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
• Dr. John Zoidberg (Billy West) — Zoidberg is a lobster-like alien from Decapod 10, and is the staff doctor (of questionable competence) of Planet Express. He speaks with an accent most commonly associated with native Yiddish speakers, while being generally viewed with amusement and/or derision by his peers at Planet Express. His knowledge of human anatomy is woefully inadequate.
• Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) — Hermes is the Jamaican manager of Planet Express. A bureaucrat and proud of it, he is a stickler for doing everything according to regulations, especially if it involves paperwork and filing. Hermes is also former champion in Olympic Limbo, a sport derived from the popular dance, similar to the track event of hurdling.
• Amy Wong (Lauren Tom) — Amy is an extremely accident-prone intern at Planet Express, despite her not needing a job as her parents are extremely wealthy. Born on Mars, she is ethnically Chinese and prone to frequently cursing in Cantonese and using 31st century slang.

Other characters include Zapp Brannigan, Calculon, Kif Kroker, Mom, Nibbler and Scruffy (Planet Express' Janitor).

Setting

Futurama is set at the beginning of the 31st century. Many problems that exist in the world at the beginning of the 21st Century are heavily parodied in the futuristic world of the show. Global warming, inflexible bureaucracy, and substance abuse are a few of the things given a 31st century exaggeration in a world where the problems have become much more extreme, yet a part of normal everyday life. In a stab at segregation, the human prejudice against mutants is so great that the latter have been forced to live underground in the sewers. The characters' home on earth is the city of New New York, built over the ruins of modern-day New York City.

Numerous technological advances have been made by the 30th century. The ability to keep heads alive in jars was invented by Ron Popeil (who has a guest cameo in "A Big Piece of Garbage"), and has resulted in many political figures and celebrities being active in 30th century; this became the writers' excuse to feature and poke fun at celebrities in the show. Curiously, several of the preserved heads shown are those of people who were already dead well before the advent of this technology (which is presumably after the late 20th century, when the show's pilot begins). The Internet, while being fully immersive and encompassing all senses and seeming to feature its own digital world (similar to Tron or The Matrix), is still slow and consists nearly entirely of pornography, though some of it is edited to include educational material ostensibly for the youth. Television is a primary form of entertainment, though the resolution is much higher than present-day TV. Robots, powered entirely by alcohol, are commonplace, and most have free will and seem to think in the same way humans do. The wheel is obsolete, having been replaced by hovering vehicles, and transportation tubes, which people can enter and be whisked away; these are reminiscent of old-style pneumatic tubes.

Galactic politics

Earth has a unified government called the United States of Earth, headed by the President of Earth (from season 2 onwards being Richard Nixon's Head). Earth's capital is Washington, D.C. and the flag of Earth looks similar to the Flag of the United States. Residents are referred to as Earthicans.

Numerous other galaxies have been colonized or have made contact by the year 3000. Much of the Milky Way Galaxy now operates under the Earth government's sphere of influence. Mars has been terraformed, and is home to Mars University. Half of Mars is owned by the Wong family.

The Democratic Order Of Planets (D.O.O.P.) was founded in 2945 after the Second Galactic War. This organization, which has been compared both to the The United Nations and to the Federation of the Star Trek universe, includes Earth and many other worlds, though Earth sometimes acts unilaterally without the aid of other D.O.O.P. members. Omicron Persei VIII is frequently engaged in conflicts with the D.O.O.P.

Linguistics

Two alien languages that now appear often in the background. The first (called "Alienese" on the show) is a simple substitution cipher from the Roman alphabet.^[3] The second ("Beta Crypt III") uses a more complex modular addition code^[4] (officially an ancient alien language predating the universe). They often provide additional jokes for fans dedicated enough to decode the messages. Aside from these languages, most of the displayed wording on the show is in English, and most of the alien species encountered speak English.

Additionally, several English expressions have evolved since present day. For example, the word “Christmas” has been replaced by “Xmas” and “ask” is an archaic pronunciation of “aks” (pronounced axe). The French language has entirely died out, however some French loanwords maintain their original pronunciation; when Zapp refers to champagne as "cham-pag-en", Leela corrects him using French pronunciation.

Season synopses

Main article: List of Futurama episodes

While Futurama consists of episodes that are more-or-less independent from each other, some episodes are a part of a larger storyline that spans the series. Also, various episodes explore the backgrounds and relationships of the characters, especially so in later seasons.

Season 1

After accidentally falling into a cryonic freezer, Fry awakens from a thousand years of cryogenic slumber to find that the world has completely changed. He meets Leela and Bender, and after a brief period of disorientation, finds his distant grand nephew Professor Hubert Farnsworth, who employs them in his intergalactic delivery service, where they meet Zoidberg, Amy, and Hermes. The Planet Express crew travels the galaxy, interacting with its strange and colorful inhabitants. During one mission Leela "rescues" Nibbler, a small creature with an enormous appetite relative to his size (Nibbler is revealed in later episodes to have been stationed on Vergon Six by the ruling council of his homeworld, specifically in order for Leela to pick him up).

On that same mission, she also has a brief sexual fling with Zapp Brannigan, forming the basis of a running theme of the series: Zapp often refers publicly to the incident, wanting to repeat it but Leela is embarrassed and disgusted by him. Fry develops a strong friendship with the robot, Bender, and moves into his closet (which is the size of a normal apartment while Bender's apartment as small as a closet). Also in this season, Amy meets Kif for the first time.

Season 2

The Planet Express crew continues to deliver items throughout the galaxy, and love is in the air as Fry, Leela and Bender embark on a series of short lived romantic trysts throughout the season. Despite this, Fry's feelings for Leela begin to become more apparent though his overtures are always swiftly rebuffed.

Bender's character is developed intensely during this season, with a few missions centering around him. We see his journey to overcome his lack of human emotion, his brief stint as an Ultimate Robot Fighter, his career with the Robot Mafia, and his transformation into the evil Were-Car. Early in the season Richard Nixon's Head is elected President of Earth and reappears in this role throughout the rest of the series. This season also contains the first Xmas episode and the first Anthology Of Interest episode, both of which have follow-up episodes in season 3.

Season 3

Fry's feelings for Leela continue to deepen, even though they both have romances with other people throughout the season. Amy also begins her relationship with Kif which will span the rest of the show.

Huge leaps in the advancement of the story are made with the discovery of Nibbler's intelligence and Fry's strange immunity to the Brainspawn's attacks. This also is followed up in later episodes. We are given a glimpse of what Fry's life was like back in the 20th century (in flashbacks) as well as a look at his grandparents' lives (via a hole which Fry tears in time).

It emerges during this season that Fry is his own grandfather, which is again followed up on in later episodes. A great deal of strong continuity is established during this season, which is possibly the strongest in terms of recurrent themes.

Season 4

After a chance encounter, Leela discovers the truth of her heritage. The importance of Fry is finally made clear when he discovers the true reason he ended up in the 31st century (this was set up over the previous three seasons. We learn that much of the continuity established throughout earlier episodes links back to this one secret).

The relationship between Kif and Amy is sorely tested, but they weather the crisis and their love remains strong. And despite Leela's continued rejection of Fry, he does not give up on her, going so far as to risk his life for her and even making a deal with the Robot Devil in an attempt to win her love. Unfortunately, this marks the final episode produced to date, and despite a hopeful ending, there is still no surefire answer as to what happens after this.

Show status

Mid-way through the production of the fifth season of Futurama, FOX decided to let Futurama go out of production and told the writers and animators to look for new jobs.^[5] A Fox spokeswoman told website Zap2it that "Fox has decided not to order more episodes at this time, but we may do so in the future." Fox's decision to stop buying episodes of Futurama led Rough Draft, the animation producers, to fire its animators.^[6] According to Ain't It Cool News, FOX did not like the show and had started giving it a secondary status, running it and dropping it sporadically. They also did not show several episodes between seasons 3 and 4.^[7]

In October 2005, Comedy Central picked up the exclusive cable syndication rights to air Futurama's 72-episode run at the start of 2008, following the expiration of Adult Swim's current deal.^[8] It was cited as the largest and most expensive acquisition in the network's history.

Currently, Futurama is still syndicated around the world by many TV stations. See List of syndicated broadcasters of Futurama.

Future and DVD movies

On April 26, 2006, the parody newspaper The Onion's real-life entertainment section, "The A.V. Club", published an interview with Futurama co-creator Matt Groening, in which he discussed plans to create four straight-to-DVD movies. Groening noted that co-creator David X. Cohen and numerous writers from the original series would be returning to work on the movies.^[9]

On June 22, 2006, Comedy Central announced that 13 new episodes were to be produced, to air with the reruns in 2008. Comedy Central also confirmed that Billy West, Katey Sagal, and John DiMaggio would return for the new episodes, with a 2008 debut planned.^[2]

The first movie, currently under the working title Futurama: Bender's Big Score, is in production with an as-of-yet unknown release date. The film is written by Ken Keeler and David X. Cohen, and will include return appearances by the Nibblonians, Seymour, Barbados Slim, Morbo, Santa Bot, the "God" space entity, Al Gore, and Zapp Brannigan.^[10]

Awards

DVD releases

Full season releases

Note: The box sets in Region 2 and 4 are marketed as "Season" rather than "Volume".

"Best of" collections

Futurama in other media

Comic books

Main article: Futurama Comics

First started in November 2000, Futurama Comics is a comic book series published by Bongo Comics based in the Futurama universe. The comic is the only part of the Futurama franchise which is still being published to date. While originally published only in the US, a UK version of the series is also available. Other than a different running order and presentation, the stories are the same in both versions.

Much like the TV series, each comic has a caption at the top of the cover. For example: "Made In The USA! (Printed in Canada)". Some of the UK comics have different captions on the top of their comics. Both series contain a letters page, artwork from readers and previews of other Bongo Comics coming up.

It should be noted that the Futurama comics are not "canon" in the Futurama universe, and have no effect on the established continuity of the show, although they draw from it.

Toys and figurines

While relatively uncommon, several action and tin figurines of various characters and items from the show have been made and are being sold by various hobby/online stores. The collectible releases include a set of bendable action figures, including Lieutenant Kif Kroker, Turanga Leela, and Bender. There have also been a few figures released by Moore Action Collectibles, including Philip Fry, Turanga Leela, Bender, and the Planet Express Ship.

Toynami has recently announced new Futurama figures which are currently to be released in 2007.^[13]

Video games

Main article: Futurama (video game)

On September 15, 2000, Unique Development Studios acquired the license to develop a Futurama video game for the next generation consoles and handheld systems. Fox Interactive signed on to publish the game.^[14] Sierra Entertainment later became the game's publisher, and it was released on August 14, 2003.^[15] The game was subsequently cancelled on the GameCube and Game Boy Advance in North America and Europe.^[16]

References

External links

• Futurama at the Internet Movie Database
• Futurama at the Open Directory Project
• Alien Language Translations - A site with comprehensive alien language translations for each episode and other Futurama related media.