[Cuteness Overlord]

[classicswim]

I know I’m saying “remember 1999” yet again. But in 1999, Futurama did a throwaway joke about beanie babies being 20th Century junk left stranded on a meteor shaped landfill in space.


And now in 2024, there’s a... beanie baby craze episode. Which, benefit of the doubt, the episode ends with their rendition piling Earth landfills. And it’s not like I have a major grudge against the subject matter itself... but it’s Futurama doing it. It’s old hat, and probably the 4th or 5th time they depended on weaponized cuteness for a plot line.

I also just didn’t find the toys in the episode especially cute. Cute for their world, but for the average viewer more or less? Just more drawings. Those live alien popplers the Planet Express crew got everyone to eat? Those were cute, and they had the trademark Groening printed pupils that this episode felt like jabbing.

^ To add to that, I was gonna completely write off the Bart Simpson gag as them yet again wanting to reference for reference sake, but then Brannigan at least made an “eh, fine” follow-up. They were a bit hackish about this shit with that Simpsorama crossover as well. Both shows are proclaimed masters of the silhouette, and in spite of that, there’s just not much nuance to be had when they wanna poke fun at their appearance. 

I felt last week’s show did Hermes right. This week’s made Amy suck.

It... happens sometimes with Amy, though. This revival’s given her wayyyy more genuine material than Leela which is fucking ass-backwards, and it shows every time they can’t write Amy properly.

The Orphanarium’s return was as comedically sad as I expected, but I liked how they got their “we’re poor” jibblings out and then let Mandy be friends with a niche Futurama character whose sole punchline is to be sad.

Is it anything that special? Maybe not, but it’s the only major praiseworthy thing in the episode.

They had a thing going with Zapp & Kif in the episode as well that was sorta short-lived. Which is weird because the episode built up their importance and they still couldn’t make do with those two on a fucking 24 minute run-time with slog pacing.

Comments

[matt_zimmer]

I thought the Orphanarium stuff was too mean. And I recall it was mean on the original show too. I guess I've outgrown shit like that, and Futurama has not.

I'd feel warmer about Mandy and Sally's friendship if I remotely believed it would be explored in the future. I do not believe it will be.

[matt_zimmer]

I will also say this. The Simpsons has had its periods of lows over the past decades, but it is willing to reinvent itself when things get stale and keep things fresh for modern viewers.

Futurama has been around for over 20 years, and it's the same idea even now. I'm wondering if it's even poor writing at this point. It could simply be the show is not equipped to deal with future problems in the current present that has already arrived.

I'm thinking new, younger, more in-touch writers could help, the same way they did The Simpsons. But Futurama stubbornly refuses to evolve and change, even when audiences have. I think that's the actual problem.

[classicswim]

People have been complaining about modern Simpsons since Futurama was brought up. And even well before that point.

It stings extra hard for Futurama since the quality of Simpsons was widely believed to be abandoned in favor of Futurama.

FOX might’ve treated the sister show like shit all throughout, but it was a step in brand new territory regardless.

For me, it’s not a matter of shitting on The Simpsons, or begging the point that Futurama’s superior. But that’s supposed to be sort of the point. Simpsons is written to be very simple and one dimensional in comparison to Futurama and its layers.

But now Futurama has neither the layers, nor the charm it’s had before. And mind you, Futurama’s show bible was meant to have a multitude of things to explore.

[matt_zimmer]

They've run out of topics. So they go with... Beanie Babies. Do I have that right?

[classicswim]

The even larger picture overall is that Futurama of all shows has absolutely no business running out of ideas. It’s Futurama.

Like if The Simpsons decided to do a Beanie Babies episode right now, a subset of people would look the other way because it’s in the nature of The Simpsons to rehash and be out of touch with trends.

Futurama’s set 1000 years into the future, with every possible thing in it’s disposal to hint it’s in the future... and it’s doing these types of episodes.

It’s a genuine waste of a palate.

[matt_zimmer]

It's science fiction and they're doing Teen Titans Go shit. For real.