In 1989, Matt Groening launched The Simpsons.
Ten years later, he created another animated comedy classic: Futurama.
The series centered around a late-20th-century pizza delivery boy named Philip J. Fry who
gets stuck in a cryogenic freezing pod on December 31, 1999, and wakes up in the strange,
futuristic world of New New York in the year 3000.
Futurama had a devoted audience that stuck with the show for over a decade.
And now?
"Good news, everyone!"
Here are some amazing stories you might not have known about Futurama.
A different name
Futurama was, in retrospect, the perfect title for a show about the amazing world of tomorrow.
Still, creator Matt Groening had some other names that he liked better.
On the first season DVD director's commentary, Groening says that his first ideas for the
show's name were Aloha, Mars, and Doomsville.
But both titles were met with indifference.
The title they eventually settled on was lifted from the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair,
where visitors lined up for the General Motors Pavilion and its exhibit called "Futurama."
Fairgoers were welcomed to "the world of tomorrow" — a glimpse into the far-off, futuristic
year of...1960.
"Welcome to the world of tomorrow!"
"Why do you always have to say it that way?"
"Haven't you heard of a little thing called showmanship?"
Fry & Homer
On Matt Groening's first show, The Simpsons, several of the main characters were named
after Groening's immediate family — for example, Homer and Marge Simpson got their
names from Groening's parents.
Futurama's lead character, Philip J. Fry, was also named after Groening's father — Philip
was his middle name.
This means that Homer Philip Groening, who died in 1996, had the unique distinction of
lending his name to two major cartoon characters.
The voice of Bender
Bender Bending Rodriguez, the sociopathic, alcohol-fueled bending robot, is probably
Futurama's most beloved character.
"Bite my shiny, metal ass!"
"It doesn't look so shiny to me."
"Shinier than yours, meatbag."
Voice actor John DiMaggio discussed his inspiration for Bender's voice on The Kevin Pollak Chat
Show:
"It was part drunk at the end of the bar.
It was part, uh, Slim Pickens.
'What in the hell in the wide wide world in sports is goin' on?!'"
"What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here?"
"Throw that in there and then you throw, there was a guy my friend Ralph Calamino used to
do in college, and it was this Charlie the Sausage Lover Guy."
"He loved sausages.
We have all kinds of sausages.
We have brat sausages, we have hot Italian sausages, sweet Italian sausages, hot Italian
sausages."
"We have wursts!
All kinds of wursts.
More and more sausages.
It was ridiculous.
You throw that all in a blender and that's how you get Bender."
Interestingly, DiMaggio also said he auditioned for the role of Professor Farnsworth with
the same voice:
"Good news, everyone!"
Of course, he didn't get the part.
Probably for the best.
Why not Zoidberg?
Voice actor Billy West pulled from two major old-timey inspirations to create Doctor Zoidberg:
actor and host George Jessel...
"I certainly want to thank Bill for that warm introduction.
I was listening to it for a minute and I thought I was dead."
and actor Lou Jacobi…
"Why?
I just caught the 7:45 elevator down from six!"
Both of those inspirations definitely give a Jewish and Yiddish flavor to the character,
which West says he thought was appropriate, given the traditionally Jewish "-berg" suffix
of the name.
"Zoid," meanwhile, is a futuristic, alien-sounding word that has personal significance for Futurama
producer and writer David X. Cohen, who, while in high school, created a computer game named
"Zoid."
He submitted it to Broderbund Software, which not only rejected it, but spelled "Cohen"
wrong in the rejection letter — which seems like something that could happen to Dr. Zoidberg.
"Woot woot woot woot!"
Casting Phil Hartman
The late, great Phil Hartman specialized in playing characters both obnoxious and oblivious,
such as Bill McNeal on NewsRadio.
He also voiced sleazy lawyer Lionel Hutz and washed-up actor Troy McClure on Matt Groening's
other show, The Simpsons.
So it makes perfect sense that Hartman had been cast to provide the voice of obnoxious,
Captain Kirk-esque spaceship captain Zapp Brannigan on Futurama.
But after Hartman's tragic murder in 1998, Billy West stepped into the role.
He'd once talked with Hartman over their shared loved of old time radio announcers that had
big, booming voices, as well as a huge sense of self-importance.
So, West performed Zapp Brannigan in that style as a tribute to Hartman, or at least
how he thought Hartman might've done the voice.
"Why's it still blurry?"
"That's all the resolution we have.
Making it bigger doesn't make it clearer."
"It does on CSI: Miami."
"...ugh."
It's the Beastie Boys
Futurama's producers really wanted to line up one of the most popular rap groups of the
20th century, the Beastie Boys, to play themselves in the 31st century.
Too bad it never actually happened.
According to the DVD commentary for the episode "Hell is Other Robots — in which Fry, Bender,
and Leela go see the heads of the Beastie Boys in concert — writer/producers Ken Keeler
and David X. Cohen went to New York to meet with the Beastie Boys, but never managed to
connect.
Eventually, the band members were recorded doing their vocals separately.
Well, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz and Michael "Mike D" Diamond recorded their tracks.
Adam "MCA" Yauch had a scheduling conflict, so Adrock just did his lines for him.
Even after all that, the group wasn't entirely happy with the material that Futurama writers
had prepared.
In the finished episode, the Beastie Boys perform a portion of their 1994 hit "Sabotage"
a cappella
"Oh my, it's a mirage."
"Tell you all, it's a sabotage!"
They'd initially been asked to do their 1987 hit "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To
Party)" in this style, but refused.
Nevertheless, there were apparently no hard feelings because the group gave a bit of a
shout-out to Futurama on their 2009 single "Too Many Rappers."
One of the song's lyrics says that they'll still be in the rap game "until the year 3000
and beyond."
The sad truth of Seymour
Futurama was always meant to be a comedy, but some episodes would occasionally touch
on Fry's sadness and loss at being stuck in the future, having left his life and loved
ones behind.
The 2002 episode "Jurassic Bark" is one of those episodes.
While visiting a museum, Fry discovers the fossilized remains of his 20th century dog,
Seymour.
Professor Farnsworth tells Fry that he could feasibly take some of Seymour's DNA and create
a clone.
During the cloning process, Fry learns that Seymour lived to be 15.
He figures that after he'd disappeared in 1999, Seymour must have lived a long, happy
life without him.
And then, the saddest flashback ever broadcast on television appeared: Seymour didn't move
on — he waited for Fry outside the pizzeria where he used to work for more than a decade.
The episode ends with Seymour closing his eyes, passing away, and everyone watching
in tears.
Amazingly, this episode could have been even sadder.
As revealed in the episode's DVD commentary, the writers' toyed around with Fry finding
the remains of his mother, and then considering, but ultimately dismissing, cloning her.
That didn't stop them from taking a tear-jerking dive into Fry's mommy issues in another episode,
of course:
"I can't stand to see him like this.
I'll push him off the roof."
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