classicswim | Entries tagged with futurama

I did a pre talk last week, so I’ll jump right in.

This was good. Fairly good.

I guess I’ll be in the one-man camp of wishing we got THIS for the first episode debut last year. Or at least an episode that actually delivered decent clarity to fans, instead of fucking repulsively unfunny “we gotta satire this.”

The introduction to Hulurama was sooooo bad. I just couldn’t shake it off. We couldn’t even get anything on par with Rebirth... and this ep objectively clears that.

I’ll probably not win anyone over with that take, but I’d even argue this has nothing to do with ‘potentially’ ending the show on another high note.

Making just only one episode that you’re proud to have your name on, and saving it for very last is not the same thing as ending on a high note.

There’s a part of me that finds Fry’s stance in the episode detestable.

The generic Planet Express ship update served as a metaphor for unsavory new change. Fry rejected the new ship presumably as much as the viewer should have.

The messaging of already treaded ground and being afraid of change is disingenuous because Meanwhile WAS change!

It’s moot now thanks to Hulurama (and a extended 20 episode pickup!), but yeah. People were rooting for Fry and Leela to marry long, long ago. And we got it! Over ten years ago, we saw the most emotional, extensive look at the couple sharing all the time in the world together. The. Show. ENDED.

You have Kif and Amy’s kids from just last season to show the type of change and opportunity this series is meant to be capable of. Notice how the entirety of this first order forgot that Zoidberg found someone, too. They pretty much just noped that from existence.

I don’t know how many more goddamn baby steps you really need for Fry & Leela’s romance story when we already saw how it ends. Billy West is now 72 years of age. I just feel like if you’re gonna unnecessarily revive a show after a decade, then at some point you have to stop with the cocktease.

Last season they had Leela move into Bender’s apartment with Fry when the point before was for him to get OUT of that apartment. I’m hoping whatever they do next will actually get some wheels rolling. The return overall has been far too irredeemable for cynicism not to pour out even with this, but we had a good closer here. I fuckin’ hated last year’s finale.

With yesteryear’s anthology show, all the other episodes sucked so bad that I gave “The Prince And The Product” fake extra points.

The quality was so horrendous, I gave a pity freebie to an episode where the main characters were toy cars stuck in a parody of The Ring.

One thing about anthology/non-canon episodes in Groening shows is how they’re supposed to have some passable grace to them even when they’re terrible.

• Abe’s mutated into a dinosaur for a retirement home version of Jurassic Park.

• Homer’s farting on Lisa for four minutes after a poisonous spider bite.

^ I can at least cut my losses there and go “well, Simpsons was unfunny on Halloween again. Whataya gonna do?”

(Bear in mind that Treehouse of Horror has typically been my one ticket to checking out recent Simpsons in over a decade. Just for tradition sake.)

No one would bat an eye if Futurama stopped doing anthology shows because there was no real incentive for Futurama to do those in the first place.

“Anthology of Interest” lucked out two times because they put the humor and vibe of the actual show itself over them just wanting to do a Treehouse of Horror counterpart.

Centralama & Hulurama’s done it wrong to where they think making the characters a thing (and only a thing) is the only joke to be had.

Sometimes they’ll give you a premise and then omit entirely what makes a worthwhile execution.

You could say right now that I’m about to do the pity thing again, but no. I do believe this episode’s an exception.

Even if the jokes didn’t hit well, I can’t deny the art department stepping up this week. The FryFry segment’s the clear as bell winner. Again, not a laugh riot by a stretch, but I’m not gonna deny enjoying that bit even a little.

This is only disappointing if you really stop to think what Futurama would’ve done with this episode when they still had the proper steam. I say the anthology stuff holds no incentive, but them wanting to riff Nancy Drew sounds like the most Futurama thing on paper when you think about it. They would’ve nerded this the fuck out.

I’m not gonna praise Neil deGrasse Tyson because it’s not 2013 anymore and fuck that guy. But his delivery in the episode shows me again that this was one they surely had in the chamber.

- - - - - - - - - -

Next week is... you know.

“Meanwhile” was the VERY FIRST THING that immediately sprung to mind the millisecond I saw Futurama was announced for Hulu.

”Meanwhile” was an episode I remember by the televised bug crawl timer, the meaningful closing of a chapter, and the poetic transition to a Space Pilot 3000 rerun afterward.

Of all else, that TV finale has lived on as the gargantuan elephant in the room for fail, after fail... after fail that this revival wound up producing.

Futurama in just one year became the strongest candidate for why shows should be allowed to die. Before that, Futurama was still immensely paraded around in the 2010s as the adult animated comedy that’s smart! And also knows math! :D

Is it melodramatic to say this order’s done quite a bit to ruin the overall series’ reputation? Possibly, but it’s kind of true. Not even just to be shitty. I think many are much less eager now to praise the show as they had before.

“Quids Game” broke me in such a way where I forgot about this being just around the corner.

I’m not gonna play up hoping and begging for any cancellation, but I also feel like they’re just gonna ride on the ratings for awhile longer anyway. When there’s nothing else really going on, I can’t say it’s in that much danger of anything yet. Everything indicates that they’re proud of Futurama this time around, so I really don’t know.

I just never thought I’d see a day where I’d be neutral/careless on new Futurama existing or not. That’s the irreparable damage.

That being said, I’m gonna be as patient as can be with this upcoming finale. I’m gonna hope that it goes well.

But I can tell it’s not gonna make or break anything.

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.

Hermes Conrad by definition is a brilliant character.

And not because of that Bender origins episode from Comedy Central which everyone highlights.

I mean, in general. Hermes went from being at risk of meeting the chopping block, to being one of the most greatly developed anti-stereotypes ever to be seen in a scripted comedy.

Have I complained about Barbados Slim? Yes! Last season! Only because that type of plot should’ve died after Bender’s Big Score. Otherwise? I try to welcome any story with Hermes thrown my way.

It took a whopping 7 episodes of this shit season before I could finally - - at last - - encounter an episode I thought was relatively good.

I internally groaned sooooo fucking hard during the worker strike bit because goddamn just fucking please. Not tonight. And finally, modern Futurama knows when to end a not so funny joke rather than senselessly regurgitating. But that was the only real bit of strife this week.

I can’t be biased about Kyle MacLachlan’s 5-10 second cameo because I mentioned how Bill Nye was phoned in last week. So was Kyle, but it’s fine. They got him to say the thing. (1997 Homer Simpson still has no idea what’s going on.)

I like how fair they were with Hermes. Usually when a TV dad dies, there’s a grieving character who has to sulk about being a disappointment, never meeting up to satisfaction or approval. Only, this is Hermes Conrad. So you’re spared that for a change and are given something more dignified and blunt than usual.

And very rarely am I able to appreciate the role of Hermes’ family alongside Hermes. Dwight and LaBarbara actually didn’t stink. Hermes being able to recognize his hypocrisy as a shitty inattentive dad made for a very decent bite.

You can criticize the episode for showing plenty of the dumb coffee shit, but not enough of core flashbacks between Hermes or his dad or both. I don’t think there was much to be desired with Hermes’ father besides him dying. The closure near the end delivered and was about all that was needed for that dynamic. I thought it was handled well.

Whole episode was a shitpost.

A nauseous, relenting shitpost with a failure of an ending and an even bigger failure of an overall story.

One celebrity’s so phoned in you barely notice (it’s Bill Nye) and the main guest star’s someone I don’t even fucking know (it’s whoever Cara is.)

I’m not gonna dunk on Disenchantment when it doesn’t deserve it and I stopped on the second order, but Cara strikes me more as a Disenchantment character than a Futurama character. She’s a real life person, but I just mean the performance. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Disenchantment’s grossout is a smidge more archaic than Futurama’s. Or I’m just a prude. More of an observation than a critique, but whatever. She was there.

It took half the fucking episode for Zoidberg to finally put an interesting angle into the episode and then he also becomes no help at all.

They refrain from having Bender repeat the infamous “do a flip” line, only to basically say the exact same joke twice within the very same minute, and much less enthused.

I’m just at a loss because usually even the most shitposty of sitcom episodes can hold some type of momentum together, but that episode had none of that. It just simply wasn’t coherent or funny.

This episode made me feel like I’m suffering from a concussion that I can’t even place.

Friend and forum colleague Matt Zimmer has said recently that Hulurama’s destroyed, or has at least attempted to destroy Leela’s character.

As explosive as I’ve been shitting on these episodes, and as little attention there is for me to give Leela; that’s exactly the point from my depth perception.

Besides the current show itself being well below mediocre, Leela being as non noteworthy as she has for these past two seasons might just be the single most underwhelming thing about this revival.

Series wise, Leela’s supposed to be Captain. The secondary, or even third wheel when more voice-of-reason oriented. She’s been none of those things since the show came back.

Hell, they’ve given Amy more in her place. Amy! The one you’re not supposed to try too hard for!

With the ongoing discussion of voice cast getting too old, Katey Sagal’s not part of that. Katey Sagal sounds exactly as Katey Sagal ever was Katey. Sagal...

Leela being worthless isn’t just shitty for the purpose of her character. Sagal only has that one voice, and it’s absolutely fucking amazing and unique to specifically her.

You cannot blame range nor pacing on Turanga Leela. You SHOULD be getting your money’s worth on that lead, but you’re not. It’s heartbreaking.

Now, Matt probably has his own list of reasons as to why he’s specifically disappointed with that character. But I just listed my own take... in my own bubble... not forcing a debate to be had or a foot in my mouth.

You see, Neo Ultra Mike? THAT’S how you tackle an opinion that isn’t yours.

You let someone’s words stand (as they should!) and you build your own train of thought instead of relentlessly piggybacking like a stupid fuck with nothing real to say.

Moving on.......

I can’t lay into this episode too hard. I mean, it’s not really good, but I was expecting worse off the bat.

They were trying to say something real profound about Fyre Fest. I guarantee you that not a single viewer was on the edge of their seat wondering what Futurama’s social commentary on that could possibly be. But luckily, it’s the best part of the episode as it’s fairly inoffensive, and par the course for the show’s usual short outings to go wrong.

Leela’s chatbot wasn’t an overbearing ai quip. Chelsea/Phoebe are predictable from the ground up and don’t really say anything at all. It’s another “robot personality gone bad” episode. That’s it. Yet another thing the show did before way back when, and more thought out way back when.

Basically the only parts of the episode with substance are that throwaway festival scene and the guys dicking around with books. But you also have to ask yourself why Futurama characters are that bored that they have to perform dry dialogue bits you’d see on American Dad. I mean... this show can fucking fly to planets on the regular... but alright I guess.

Two jokes I chuckled at, and within close proximity.

1.) Hermes using his limbo skills only to get crushed. Was one of the most predictable things you could’ve thrown at me, but the execution on that was still fairly good. A loud yelp would’ve enhanced it.

2.) The slot gag. It being as stupid as it was made it funny. Then they had to ruin the already fine joke by doing a nonsensical callback near the end. Instead of just making another joke. Futurama of all shows today just can’t let sleeping dogs lie.

Can’t really argue with a LaMarche announcer either. Not saying I pissed myself or anything, but Maurice was clearly doing all the heavy lifting.

I saw Matador Bender and was worried there’d be more thinly veiled gimmick bullshit to sit through. Which, yeah. Pretty much that. Plus an overall story that I guess you can follow on Buggalo’s sentience/intelligence.

Marquita’s extended name gag was unbelievably corny. Can’t believe that was a “joke” Futurama felt obligated to repeat over and over when it was on the dire negative of ever being funny the first time. This show has a half-wit’s interpretation of what even makes my culture funny.

I’m a little more indifferent to Bender’s specific portrayal in the episode than I was expecting.

By all accounts, the ending of the episode got his character right. But there’s plenty of the same old drowning bits throughout that remind you of just how tiring they made his schtick.

Bender went from being one of television’s greatly written assholes - - to a shameless, fanservicy catchphrase machine.

Neo Ultra Mike, knuckle-dragging fucking moron, and burden to society: DUHUHHHH DAE SHOW ALWAYYYYS POKE FONN AT DIS. I EAT Crayons on both ends. DUHHHHH!

Why, yes! Thank you, fucking inbred waste!

”Bender Should Not be Allowed on TV” as an episode was satirizing all things Bender naturally became. The true failing was the staff later not recognizing what made Bender work, why that previous commentary was useful to the show’s core; and what a shame it is to water down what some see as your bread and butter.

Today’s Bender isn’t burning down huts with a flamethrower, or kidnapping koalas with the head of Mike Francesa. Today’s Bender can only emptily repeat to the audience that he’s great for the jillionth time, and also make sure you’ve heard those same catchphrases, again... for as long as they’re not cancelled. Again.

Bender being so sappy in this episode was pointless. You know right away he wants to bang Marquita, so why write scenes where he’s pretending to not know what feelings are?

He’s very famously celebrated in previous episodes that he has no feelings or remorse. The episode clearly tells you from the start that his motives are still relatively selfish, so what’s with all the pussyfooting to conjure up a barely reverent romance story?

Nobody needs Bender to be faux likable if he can just be naturally funny. Even when giving Bender a flame, it shouldn’t be that hard to not get lost in the weeds like they did here.

The show likes repeating to you like you’re five years old that Bender’s narcissistic and egotistical and yet they can’t fully go the way. Presumably because they think Futurama has to always follow ordinary sitcom cues instead of being Futurama.

This isn’t a retreat. Although, it could probably be seen that way.

What I mostly said last time was that I don’t need to watch new Futurama anymore. And that’s the truth. I don’t.

Toonzone was where I said the show didn’t need to come back. I’ve never backed down on that thought. I was unjustly hounded for it, and the incessant whiteknighting played a big role in how much disgust and contempt I have for usual suspects. Nothing I said was wrong.

I realize at this point, me saying “fuck this,” and even thinking of watching yet another wreck makes me moot and foolish. The fact is not only do I not need to watch what they’re apparently calling Futurama these days; I’d be the better person altogether for having principles and not wasting my time in this way.

I wouldn’t shame anyone else for liking these episodes. I was shamed for hating it because criticizing cartoons at face value is illegal to some very sheltered people. And honestly? They deserve new Futurama. If the recurring quality is what they’ve really wanted all along, why argue with them?

Now, I’m not gonna hype up this week as anything putrid. It was aggressively okay, which for this revival on average is a miracle in of itself.

The most fun the episode had was at Lyrr’s event. In other words, the beginning of the episode. It failed to regain that momentum for anything else.

I thought about something as I was watching. In the prime Adult Swim days, I’d be watching reruns where I’d still get caught up in the goofy suspense of an adventure even if I’d already seen it before plenty. That’s one of the things to really define what Futurama was for myself and a lot of other people. With the Hulu batch, you don’t get that even with the episodes that are decent-to-passable. That’s something fundamentally gone from this series.

This episode followed the basic steps to actually write the show proper, but the stakes still never feel like they’re present. Show’s almost 30 years old. I get it. Last week tanked so foul because they stopped caring about boundaries and what makes something decent for air.

This episode even did something I was itching to see explored in some way. Taking advantage of the timeline. Fry’s indeed spent a quarter of his life in the 31st Century.

Was the end result interesting? Hell no. They just referenced an old episode you should very much be watching instead. I’ll give them that it definitely was in line to how they handled callbacks even when still on FOX. But there was no real purpose to a tiny section of the episode being 3001 other than “oh yeah. We’ve existed for quite awhile.”

The Temp hinges on the “don’t you assholes remember me” comedy trope that Futurama’s probably done well before in innocuous doses. The show’s very much not equipped to perform that trope in the way Always Sunny and countless others have mastered it. You know this because this episode just has the characters dopily repeat the punchline of the joke over and over. A good few times without the subject even in the same room. And when it is in the same room, the reaction isn’t good enough.

David Herman yet again. He could’ve done more to make Frank remarkable. It’s not like Herman’s voice is shot compared to the some of the others. Frank didn’t have to be Roberto but he also didn’t have to be a samey David Herman show villain either. He wasn’t weird or anything, he was just safe-weird.

It only becomes watchable at the 6 minute mark. Within the first minute it’s practically already telling you “stop watching. Stop watching now.”

Danny Trejo’s getting more voiceover checks.

Bender being Spanish in the old show was always just a one-note random joke I guess to prevent the thought of the loudmouth robot also being racist.

And specifically there, they did that in the middle of the FOX run. Before that, Bender used the robot version of a Jewish holiday in one episode and kept doing a black/white - human/robot parallel because that was just their writing in 1999.

Me actually being Spanish, I just didn’t care. It was always a hardly grin-worthy bit that they didn’t take seriously either.

*John DiMaggio lovvvvvvved his black voices. **

To actually see Bender’s old family was cool for a few minutes. I’ll admit that Bendejo was a pretty good line.

I saw the sacrifice betrayal coming a mile away. It was something they had already done before which really mattered even less here. His family were set plot devices that fucked off before and after Bender escaped because they were evidently that meaningless as characters. Just something Bender could say he saw for a few minutes.

It’s funny because in that episode where Hermes brought Bender to the world, they also just... didn’t exist. Because they were always a joke concept.

The B story is barely worth paying attention to in comparison. Complete waste of time.

*Pic taken by yours truly*

An obvious understatement would be that this idea could never work for an endless amount of reasons.

The concept would have a shot at a very specific frame of time, but mostly as a miscellaneous project to air. As opposed to being a full fledged TV show.

____________________

Origin: Robot Chicken premiered its second season with a cold opening sketch involving Peter Griffin (Seth MacFarlane), Space Ghost (George Lowe), and Master Shake (Dana Snyder) as Adult Swim’s own council supported by Mike Lazzo.

The sketch itself happened to be riffing Superman, with the cameo/setup being an admirable tribute.

_____________________

Non-Official Title: [as] Council

Summary: Lead role characters from Adult Swim’s comedy block are in fact Williams Street suits working under Lazzo in Atlanta, circa 2006.

The series would follow Family Guy’s patriarch, ATHF’s drink cup, Ghost Planet’s hero-for-hire, and occasionally the rebellious bending unit with 1 expiring contract.

Blending stop motion animation with real life environments (potentially thinking Robot Chicken meets IFC era Greg The Bunny), these characters will get to explore the inner city, as well as share a glimpse of everyday life under poorly managed corporate ladder.

____________________

Series Goal: This would be a network dream come true in terms of cross promotion. It’d be something they wish they could plug at every Upfront.

As an ASMBer, it would’ve been a nice thing for our community. Probably have a big contest surrounding it. Episodes could write in one of the characters logging on to a staff computer and arguing with a couple of the users.

The network angle would be a touchy, unwanted subject now. Williams Street is no longer the lively place it once was thanks to WBD.

The series in any case would not have been bombarded with Dilbert level quips about corporate suck. For most part, it would all have been the general fan’s imagination of how Adult Swim runs, as we used to have fun ideas thanks to what staff used to share with us SwimPunks.

____________________

Writing Chops: There would guaranteed be some setbacks to this.

The series would ideally be produced at a time when Family Guy wasn’t considered low IQ Meme City by younger internet tastes. And even then, there’s still an undeniable cheese factor with how these crossover products are presented.

”Ehehehehehe ayyy Mastah Shake, whaddaya doin’ here?!”

^ Basically, none of that shit would be allowed.

I’d have to be very selective with how the main characters interact with each other, as I can’t really have them on a name basis. For that group pairing especially, I think it’s more authentic.

I’m also not gonna get anything out of these popular cartoons “roasting each other” like every bad Deviantart and Facebook wet dream.

I’d have Shake & Space Ghost occasionally punch up about how successful Griffin is doing, but I wouldn’t have Peter do any jabs against the in-house productions. I wouldn’t reduce him to the worst possible stereotype of casual Swim viewers just ‘cause he spoke to them the most. I’d want it to be something that all fans of the demographic could enjoy.

I made a little stop motion video years back titled “Peter & Shake.” It was nonsensical and less than 30 seconds long, but I had a good idea of how they’d bullshit each other as I was making it.

Wouldn’t have Shake talk to Peter the way he does to Carl. That’d be predictable as well as extremely lazy. I don’t think I’d even write for Shake to be as jerky as he is typically. Aside from wanting Dana to rant like hell.

It’d be the same thing with Space Ghost. All you’d have to do is get George on the mic and you’re set.

I’d have the hardest time writing for Bender on this show because the nature surrounding [as] Council would be difficult to add in his... tendencies.

With Peter, I’d just imagine him being written more shy, but also 100% prone to fucking everything up in the process. Basically the one who shouldn’t be the straight man, but just naturally is because no one else possibly can.

I’ve uh... I’ve never talked about this one idea extensively before ever. Nothing could ever come of it, but still seemed fun to do.