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Television Media

Matt Groening's "Futurama" featured in Salon 53

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
kruegz writes "Here's an article in Salon about the new Matt Groening (creater of The Simpsons) animated show on Fox. Futurama t akes place in the year 3000 and has lots of spoofs of sci-fi as well as that Simpsons aesthetic we all know and love. In the year 3000, our era is known as "The Stupid Ages" which sounds about right. " This article is just my excuse to ask what people are thinking of the show? I'm gonna watch it just 'cuz its Groening.
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Matt Groening's "Futurama" featured in Salon More

Matt Groening's "Futurama" featured in Salon

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  • Futurama must be the reason that the Simpsons has gone down in quality. As many Simpsons viewers know, that past season and a half have had a serious lack of the same satirical quality the older episodes did. Hopefully, Futurama won't suffer the same slide the Simpsons did...
  • I think they violated the spirit of the thing when
    they brought Kochanski onboard. I mean, the whole
    idea of the show is a bunch of guys trapped in
    deep space with no women or other reason not to
    behave like, well, guys. Now in season eight they
    ruin the basic idea even more by...
    [Deleted so as to not spoil it; you'll know what I
    mean when you see it]

    Season VI was probably the best one, but they've
    been sliding downhill since then (although the
    beginning of the Season VII Ace Rimmer episode was
    so great it almost killed me). Ever since they
    started explaining major plot twists with more
    than just a line in passing...

    ----

  • This level of hype is not unusual. All new TV shows, especially midseason launches like this one, get hyped more than Win2000. When taken out of context (as .ram files from the Futurama Archive) the previews look very good, and I trust Matt Groening to make another great show. Too bad they won't leave it in the 8:30 Sunday (ET) slot...
  • How can it not be good? Matt Groening, Sci-Fi, 1-eyed chicks voiced by Peg Bundy. Sounds like a winner to me. At worst, it'll be still be better than most of the drivel on network TV. I'm looking forward to it.
  • Posted by Fleeno:

    Just like The Simpsons, it will only be *really* funny after about the first season, when other writers start helping!

    Hopfully I won't cringe when I see a first-season Futurama rerun, like I do with The Simpsons.
  • It looks like a pretty funny show and even has the voice talent of the woman that played Peggy Bundy on Married With Children hehehe (she does th voice of the 1-eyed chick) What the Simpsons did for social commentary, look to see Futurama spoof scifi movies and show as well as poke fun at stupid primitive humans in the 20th century (look at the way we think of 10th century people and their Dark Ages etc)
  • "Bender getting sloshed on "Olde Fortran" malt liquor"

    Heh... The robot, Blender, get's drunk on something called "Olde Fortran".... Uh, am I the first one here looking forward to these kinds of jokes, or am I just old, and everyone here can't remember Fortran?

  • "Olde English" is a cheap beer that usually only get's purchased by people who are broke and wanna get sloshed.

    English is a human language, Fortran is a computer language. The Robot is a Drunkard (as seen it the previews). Thus, drinking something called "Olde Fortran" is a pun.

    If Futurama is chuck full of these little (usually un-noticed) puns, it will be like the true classics in the cartoon world, where there is humor going on at many levels, and watching something the second time (in a diffrent frame of mind) makes even the re-runs really funny.

  • Fortran isn't as disgusting as Olde English! ;-)
  • I hope futurama has better writers than the Simpsons has had recently. The Simpsons is not as good as it has been mainly due to the poor writing, poor plots, and the characters becoming one-dimensional. I'm hoping that Futurama will have have the good writing, and great complex characters that made the Simpons so great. Even the name itself is pretty funny. "Futurama" sounds like something out of the 1930's world fair.
  • Considering that South Park will start here in about half a year I dont wanna know how long I'd have to wait for that one then (I've given up on Dilbert anyway).
  • I can't watch it because I'm in England. We probably won't get it until the year 3000.

    Look on the bright side. You guys get to watch the new Red Dwarf episodes about a year before we do (although, I must say I haven't been impressed with the last two seasons of Red Dwarf).

    -Eric
  • Season Eight was a disappointment, so don't get your hopes up. The only really funny eps, IMHO, was the two part story with the "time wand" (they discover the time wand in the first 5 minutes so I'm not giving anything away). The last good season, in my opinion, was VI.

    -Eric
  • I agree with everything you said. Also, am I the only one who is disturbed by the fact they changed actresses for Kochanski? Additionally, it one of the season 8 episodes, K. mentions that Lister got to see her naked when they were going out, but in the first few seasons of RD, it is mentioned repeatedly that Lister never had the courage to ask K. out. Or am I misremembering?

    Anyway, maybe I'm being anal retentive, but obvious continuity errors really bug me.

    -Eric
  • On on of the ads, the guy from the past is in a space ship with the one-eyed female pilot and asks if he can do the countdown, she says "sure", so he turns around and starts counting down from 10 in a dramatic voice. Meanwhile the pilot takes off and by the time the countdown gets to "7" they've already arrived. Funny stuff, I think the show will be a winner.

    -Eric

    PS - Salon sucks.
  • I think anyone who loves the simpsons should watch it.. I mean it's on right after the simpsons anyway.. just keep sitting there and don't change the channel =)

  • ... I also love how characters have evolved, with Marge loosening up some and showing her cruel side.. Fox should thank its lucky stars that the show has stayed as good as it has for as long as it has..

    Not bad character development for a show whose players haven't aged a year..

  • Has anyone noticed how cynical most of the sohisticated humor of our times is?

    The Simpsons, The Onion ... it seems that it is not so much that we can laugh at ourselves, but that is all we can do. If one looks at the humor of previous generations, you really don't see these sentiments.

    Homer wouldn't be so funny if he weren't so true!

  • Generally when big buinsness promotes the crap out of a new show or movie, it's because it can't stand on it's own two feet when it actually debuts. This one's been hyped more than any TV show I can remember. I heard about it nearly a year ago, and it's been in countless publications since the Wired issue earlier this year.

    I'm a fan of Groening and The Simpsons (maybe more than the next guy), but I'm not gonna hold my breath over this one. My guess is that if you've watched a few hours of Fox primetime over the last weeks, you've seen the funny lines from the first episode. Hopefully it'll be good, and not crash and burn in it's own hype like South Park did. But enough talk - watch it Sunday and make your own decisions.

  • I guess it's incorret to say that Fox itself has been hyping the show a lot. But Simpsons fans sure have. Twenty or thirty of them have devoted time into creating a site for a show that hasn't even began yet. That, combined with the one-year advanced warning I (along with many others) got on the show, and a lot of media attention (Wired Magazine, and local papers, etc.) ...

    I just think that a lot of people are expecting a lot out of this show, and some of them are gonna be disappointed. And being that I'm expecting much less, come X-Files at 8pm, I won't have a sinking feeling in my stomach ... saying "That's it?"

  • Sky One have picked it up for its first showing. I saw it suggested that it would only be a few weeks behind the US, but autumn now seems more likely.
  • It got _really_ played out. The same old predictable jokes time and time again. I wonder if Futurama will continue this? As for the simpsons, it would have been better to stop it while it was still funny. Now it's just stupid.
  • For some reason, Channel 9 only shows Voyager (ugh) these days and not DS9 or B5. They were halfway through the fifth season of B5, and it just stopped. What is with that? Oh well - the fifth season looked like it sucked anyway.

    DS9 hasn't been on TV for ages. Is it on Foxtel? They stopped laying cable long before it reached my neighbourhood... and I'm not paying for satellite just so I can see nothing but sport and old movies.
  • I believe Futurama makes some joke about the Simpsons still being on the air...

    I still get a kick out of the Simpsons. It's not as good as it once was, but still better than 90% of everything on TV. I'm sure Futurama will be better than the Dilbert show.
  • watch near the robots feet during that line of the promo... Even better than the line if you actually notice it.
  • OK, Lets take a tired old formula, give it a facelift and market it as something new. Introducing Homer3000...Just like todays Homer except he's a different color.

    Cmon guys - this is Microsoft marketing in the animation industry.

    Bring back the original uncut Ren and Stimpy!!

  • Not really - Red Dwarf VIII started airing in the UK in mid-February. My local PBS station here in Milwaukee will start airing Red Dwarf VIII on the 28th, same day as Futurama, and not much more than a month later.

  • Oh, yeah. That's the thing you have to set to '3' to make the VCR work. But who in their right mind would watch TV when they could be writing code? ;-)

    Yes, I am kidding. I code at work. At home I recompile my kernel and swear a lot. Hmm... maybe I should schedule my kernel compiles for when Futurama is on. (How's that for coming back on-topic?)

    P.S. Juliet, love the .sig - I think you're trying to provoke a riot!


  • Now that was a cartoon that was original, crude and DAMN funny!

    "The only thing left to do now, is to go get my blood alcohol and IQ to the same level."

    --Duckman
  • The first season of the simpsons was a low budget affair produced in a mad rush. It isn't fair to lay blame for its quality on Groening's shoulders.

    Futurama is different. First, it is well funded, which means Groening is starting out with the assistance of skilled writers. In addition, he has what, 10 years of experience now.

  • I have been waiting for him to do another series. Why the Simpsons are very good, better than most television surely, I think that his "Life in Hell" comic is better. I hope that this program will let us see some of the aspects of his humor not as prominent in the Simpsons.
  • fortran is evil

    Perhaps... but better than the "competition"... (aka: COBOL).
    --
    - Sean
  • I think the downfall of the Simpsons was/is the dumbifying of Homer to the extreme. He's always been a bit on the slow and ignorant side, but over the past few seasons it's just gotten worse and worse. And the show has been relying on it as a vehicle for laughs more and more, it seems.

    Writer 1: What do we do this episode?

    Writer 2: I dunno. Let's just have Homer do something stupid.

    It gets old, really fast.

    That frothing out of the way, I am holding high hopes for Futurama. Perhaps the Simpsons' slow decline towards mediocrity is because Groening has been concentrating on Futurama for quite some time? Yeah. That must be it. ;)


    --
  • Too bad you can't do two polls at once. Not very many people have responded to the password poll, but a Futurama poll would tell the tale!
  • I think Futurama will take the Simpsons feel to the next level. I expect we'll have to look more closely at what's going on in Futurama to get all the gags. For example, if you've seen the preview where the cop says "We have you partially surrounded", you'll notice that Bender shits a brick, literally. At first I had no idea what he was doing, I thought he was droping a weapon or something, but after seeing it a couple times I caught on. It's stuff like this that I find as pure genious, and it's a good way to get past the censors with various things. I expect there will be a lot of stuff like this (since Groening actually said so in a recent Wired interview), which I can't wait for.
  • From what I've seen so far, the show looks very funny (on dec 31st 2999 Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve 3000 is on tv). It also seems like Groening and crew are putting a lot of thought and effort into making a world set in the year 3000 make sense, or at least be as interesting as possible. Can't wait!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • So when are those of us in the UK going to get to see this (assuming any UK broadcaster has picked it up)?

    And on a related subject when is the Dilbert cartoon due over here (assuming it hasn't turned out to be rubbish - I haven't seen any comments on any bar the first episode)

    Kithran
  • As someone who has followed Groening from before the Simpsons (look for the various _*_is_Hell books and _Akbar_and_Jeff_ if you haven't seen them already) I am wildly excited about Futurama. I still watch the Simpsons faithfully and find their latest shows are still funny although some of the later seasons were a bit mediocre.
  • I'd rather see Futurama than The Phantom Menace. Will that get me banned?
  • From the previews, that line alone will be worth it.

  • Don't stop the social commentary (Score:4)

    by DavyByrne ( 30170 ) on Friday March 26, 1999 @08:07AM (#1962279) Homepage
    The great thing about the Simpsons is its social commentary and willingness to poke fun even at Fox and itself. I just hope the tradition continues. I don't mean to say that I hope Futurama is just The Simpsons transposed into the year 3000, but just that I hope the essence is maintained.
  • The Simpson's really did get played out, but The new setting and characters will be enough (imho) to get the creative juices flowing again. Their biggest pitfall lies in what path the show takes; Will it be a comedy in a sci-fi setting or will the Science Fiction overshadow the humour?

    We can only wait and see, And I can certainly give it a chance.

    Why I laugh?

  • Has there been a poll about the rabidity of fanness of /.ers for the Simpsons. Something along the lines of "I watch X Simpsons episodes a week."

    (10-12)
  • then they did an episode ABOUT the dumbifying of Homer in the extreme. Or at least paid lip service to it (Lisa wants to go the Isis exhibit, on yesterday in CO)
    Still the best on TV (although "Mr. Show with Bob and David" is pretty close)
  • You have to admit that we are, if nothing else, funny. Maybe I'm a cynic.

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