Many of the writers for Futurama are quite intelligent and let's say overeducated. The
writing staff held three PhDs, seven masters degrees, and collectively had more than 50
years at Harvard. Because of this, many of the secrets, jokes, and easter eggs hidden
within the show are incredibly elaborate and complicated. As an example, these symbols
can be found at random points throughout the show. Keen eyed fans noticed a pattern and
soon figured out that the symbols weren't just random nonsense but rather an actual
language. Well technically more of a ciphered form of English but still. When the creators
learned that fans had deciphered the first language they of course created another, more
complicated language. But it didn't take long for dedicated fans to crack the code on that
one as well. Now some fans believe there's a third language hidden within the show which
has yet to be discovered.
The name Futurama comes from an exhibition at the New York World's Fair in 1939.
The exhibit was presented as a possible model of what the world could potentially look like,
20 years in the future. A sort of envisioning of the world of tomorrow. Before the name
Futurama was chosen, names like Aloha, Mars! and Doomsville was considered.
Owls. In Futurama, they are seemingly everywhere and can often be seen lurking in the backgrounds.
But why though? Is it just a weird thing they added for fun? Actually, they have a
pretty good justification for their existence. At some point before the events of the show,
the city had a problem with animals like rats and pigeons. To solve this problem, they released
thousands owls into the streets. But instead of solving a problem, they only replaced it
with another.
Even the opening sequence have some pretty obscure easter eggs that can only be seen
if you pause at the right moment. For example, there are three signs with those strange alien
symbols we talked about before. They read Rent a human, 3D Rulez, and Tasty human burgers.
There's also this guy reading a newspaper. The paper says MOON PIE FIGHT IN MARS BAR,
which is of course a reference to the snacks Moon Pie and Mars candy bars.
Benders apartment number is 00100100. And as I've mentioned, the writers are clever so
this is most likely not random. If we take this number and convert it into ASCII we get
the dollar sign ($). This is obviously a reference to Benders greed and obsession with money.
In a similar fashion, Leela's apartment is named 1I.
The episode Jurassic Bark is for many one of the most sad, depressing, and overall emotional
episodes. It ends with a flashback showing that after Fry was frozen in the Cryogenic-Chamber,
his dog Seymour waited for him to return for 12 years before dying of old age. The original
idea however was to have the episode focus on Fry's mother. It would have been his mother
waiting for who knows how many years until she finally just passed away. But they soon
realized, that might push the depression factor a bit too far and decided to replace her with
Fry's dog instead. Speaking of, the dog and this whole plot point is actually based upon
the true story of a dog named Hachikō. Much like Seymour in Futurama, Hachikō waited
for his deceased owner at a train station for almost 10 years, until he eventually passed away.
The episode The Prisoner of Benda revolves around a machine called The Mind-Switcher.
Essentially a device where 2 people can switch minds with one another and thus take control
of the other persons body. Now here the thing. One of the writers, Ken Keeler, happens to
have a PhD in applied mathematics. So he decided to create a real-life mathematical theorem
for this fictional mind switching technology. The theorem basically proves that regardless
of how many mind switches between two bodies have been made, they can still all be restored
using only two extra people, provided these two people have not had any mind switches
beforehand. In short, it's complicated. The point is that it's the first time a theorem
has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment in a TV show. It's simply called The Futurama Theorem.
In the episode The Why of Fry it's revealed that Nibbler was responsible for Fry falling
into the cryogenic chamber. This plot point, along with Nibbler himself, was actually planned
from the very beginning because in the first episode, this shadow can be seen briefly as
Fry falls into the chamber. The shadow is of course that of Nibbler, which means it
took 64 episodes before the meaning of this shadow was revealed. I wan't to say foreshadowing.
The character Cubert was first introduced in the episode A Clone of My Own. As the title
suggest, he is the clone of Professor Farnsworth. But the character is far more interesting
then what meets the eye. While Futurama is in many ways a very consistent show, it's
also in many ways not. They constantly break the laws of physics and really every law in
the universe. And because it's an animated show, trouble with consistency are more or less
impossible to avoid. Seriously, it's a fucking knot! But if you're like me and probably like
90% of Futurama's audience, who the fuck cares right? Well, the other 10% of course do care.
And this is where Cubert comes in. The character was always planned to be included from the very beginning,
but they never fleshed out his personality until his introduction in the middle of season 2.
They decided to give him this aggravating personality who criticizes everything and
everyone, as a sort of payback and reflection of this annoying and specific group of fans.
When the writers created Hypnotoad, I doubt they though it would become such a fan favorite
and even spreading across the internet to eventually become a meme. In the Futurama
world, he is responsible for the most popular television series of that time simply titled
Everybody Loves Hypnotoad. Of course, this is only because he hypnotizes everyone who
starts watching. And while the show serves as a show within a show, there's actually
an entire real-life episode almost exclusively featuring Hypnotoad for 22 minutes. It's called
Everybody Loves Hypnotoad: Amazon Adventure and was included as a special on the DVD release
of Bender's Big Score.
I mean seriously though, it's such a stu-
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!