Futurama is an animated American sci-fi sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox network. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, who after being cryogenically frozen for a thousand years, finds employment at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company in the 31st century.
In the United States, the series aired from March 28, 1999 to August 10, 2003 on Fox before ceasing production. Futurama was then aired in reruns on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, from January 2003 to December 2007, when the network's contract expired. It was revived in 2007 as four straight-to-DVD films; the last of the four was released in early 2009. Comedy Central entered into an agreement with 20th Century Fox Television to syndicate the existing episodes and air the films as new episodes in an episodic format.
Comedy Central began airing Futurama on January 2, 2008, with new episodes starting on March 23, 2008. On June 9, 2009, producing studio 20th Century Fox announced that Comedy Central had picked up the show for 26 new half-hour episodes scheduled to begin airing in mid-2010.
Cast and characters
Further information: List of Futurama charactersFuturama is essentially a workplace sitcom whose plot revolves around the Planet Express interplanetary delivery company and its employees, a small group that doesn't conform to future society. Episodes usually feature the central trio of Fry, Leela, and Bender, though storylines centered on the other main characters are common.
Futurama has numerous recurring minor characters, many of them voiced by regular cast members Billy West, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, David Herman, and Maurice LaMarche.Setting
Futurama is set in New New York at the turn of the 31st century, in a time filled with technological wonders. The city of New New York has been built over the ruins of present-day New York City, referred to as " Old New York." Various devices and architecture are similar to the Populuxe style. Global warming, inflexible bureaucracy, and substance abuse are a few of the subjects given a 31st-century exaggeration in a world where the problems have become both more extreme and more common.
Numerous technological advances have been made between the present day and the 31st 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"), which has resulted in many historical figures and current celebrities being present; 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; one of the most prominent examples of this anomaly is frequent Earth president Richard Nixon, who died in 1994. The Internet, while being fully immersive and encompassing all senses – even featuring its own digital world (similar to Tron or The Matrix ), is slow and largely consists of pornography, pop-up ads, and "filthy" (or Filthy Filthy) chat rooms. Some of it is edited to include educational material ostensibly for youth. Television is still a primary form of entertainment. Self-aware robots are a common sight, and are the main cause of global warming thanks to their alcohol-powered systems. The wheel is obsolete (no one but Fry even seems to recognize the design), having been forgotten and replaced by hover cars and a network of large, clear pneumatic transportation tubes.
Environmentally, common animals still remain, alongside mutated, cross-bred (sometimes with men) and extraterrestrial animals. Owls and golden lion tamarins are often shown to have replaced rats as common household pests, although rats still exist. Earth still suffers the effects of greenhouse gases, but these have been somewhat mitigated by the dropping of a giant ice cube into the ocean, and later by pushing Earth farther away from the sun.
Futurama' s setting is a backdrop, and the writers are not above committing continuity errors if they serve to further the gags. For example, while the pilot episode implies that the previous Planet Express crew was killed by a space wasp, the later episode "The Sting" is based on the crew having been killed by space bees instead. The "world of tomorrow" setting is used to highlight and lampoon issues of today and to parody the science fiction genre.
Society and culture
Earth is depicted as being multicultural to the extent where a wide range of human, robot, and extraterrestrial beings interact with the primary characters. In some ways the future is depicted as being more socially advanced than Fry's, and thus the audience's, reality. However, it is often shown to have many of the same types of problems, challenges, mistakes, and prejudices as the present. Robots make up the largest "minority". While a few are depicted as wealthy members of the upper class, they are often treated as second-class citizens. Most robots are self-aware and have been granted freedom and self-determination. However, in times of crisis, robots may have their free will removed when their "patriotism circuits" are activated, forcing them to serve humans or to serve in the military in times of war. Sewer mutants are mutated humans who must live in the sewers by law. They hold urban legend status and are regarded as fictional by some members of the public.
The prevalence of suicide booths, the use of soylent food products, the ease with which one may acquire a license to kill, and other aspects of Futurama society indicate that human/sentient life is not valued very highly. In The Problem with Popplers , for instance, it is revealed that although dolphins are recognized as sentient people, it is considered acceptable to eat them if they were remarkably stupid in life. In My Three Suns and The Cyber House Rules , it is implied that one can, with little effort, purchase human meat for culinary purposes. In The Sting , Fry speaks casually about having acquired a new spleen from an recent accident victim. Zapp Brannigan's willingness (if not eagerness) to sacrifice hundreds of lives (on both sides) in even the most insignificant conflict may also reflect this trend.
Religion is still a prominent part of society, although the dominant religions have evolved. A merger between the major religious groups of the 20th century has resulted in the First Amalgamated Church, while Voodoo is now mainstream. New religions include Oprahism, Robotology, and the banned religion of Star Trek fandom. Religious figures include Father Changstein-El-Gamal, the Robot Devil, Reverend Preacherbot, and passing references to the Space Pope. While very few episodes focus exclusively on religion within the Futurama universe, they do cover a wide variety of subjects including predestination, prayer, the nature of salvation, and religious conversion.
Earth has a unified government headed by the President of Earth – Richard Nixon's head is elected to the position from season 2 onwards. Earth's capital is Washington, D.C., and the flag of Earth is similar in design to the flag of the United States, with the western hemisphere (described by Prof. Farnsworth as "the best hemisphere") of planet Earth displayed in place of the fifty stars. Fond patriotism still exists in some former countries such as Jamaica; Futurama' s canonicity is heavily focused on American soil, and other places on the world are rarely shown. English is shown to be the primary language of the known universe.
The Democratic Order Of Planets (D.O.O.P.) is a fictional organization in the Futurama universe that has been compared to both the United Nations and the United Federation of Planets of the Star Trek universe. Numerous other galaxies have been colonized or have made contact by the year 3000. Mars has been terraformed and is home to Mars University, Mars Vegas, and tribes similar to Native Americans.
Language
There are three alternative alphabets that appear often in the background of episodes, usually in the forms of graffiti, advertisements, or warning labels. Nearly all messages using alternative scripts transliterate directly into English. The first alphabet consists of abstract characters and is referred to as Alienese, a simple substitution cipher from the Latin alphabet. The second alphabet uses a more complex modular addition code, where the "next letter is given by the summation of all previous letters plus the current letter." The codes often provide additional jokes for fans dedicated enough to decode the messages. The third language sometimes used is Hebrew. Aside from these alphabets, most of the displayed wording on the show uses the Latin alphabet.
Several English expressions have evolved since the present day. For example, the word Christmas has been replaced with Xmas (pronounced "EX-mas) and the word ask with aks (pronounced axe ). According to David X. Cohen it is a running joke that the French language is extinct in the F
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