Talking Futurama - The Late Philip J. Fry
Added 2024-12-09 05:00:46 +0000 UTCIt's the final Talking Futurama of 2024, and we're ending this year with a bang by covering this Emmy-award-winning highlight of the Comedy Central Era. When an experiment with a time machine backfires on Fry, Farnsworth, and Bender, the hapless trio have no choice but to keep plunging ahead to find a solution to their problem exists somewhere in the distant future. If you like complex time-travel plots, episodes focused on Fry and Leela's relationship, and civilizations ruled by busty babes adept at science, this is the podcast for you!
Comments
One of my favourite uses of the Zager and Evans song is in a Sam Raimi-produced show called Cleopatra 2525, which was part of a back-to-back block with the Bruce Campbell series Jack of All Trades. It turns what was originally this depressing vision of the future into this pumping techno-rave thing singing about how these three women are gonna fight for the freedom of humanity: Groening's hatred of the Smurfs is extra-funny since Hank Azaria actually played Gargamel in the two live-action Smurfs films Sony made in the early 2010s. That version of the character's even become a minor meme through the infamously bad Wii shovelware game Smurfs Dance Party, where he sings about taking down the "Smurf Cartel", which has many bizarre implications.
Harry Thornton
2024-12-18 13:45:08 +0000 UTCI'm not 100% sure that Futurama was the first ever depiction of a forwards only time machine, but the concept felt incredibly novel when I watched the episode and it was the only one of the Comedy Central era that really stuck with me through the years. Everything about it was just so clever. Not only does it neatly solve the paradoxes you mentioned from their previous time travel adventures, but it also side steps the first and most obvious problem with time travel as a real world concept: if it's possible, why hasn't anyone ever met a time traveler? It's a surprisingly grounded and effective take. Unfortunately for our heroes, if time travel is possible only going forwards they'd probably be doomed. The current working theory for a cyclical universe relies on a big contraction, or Big Crunch, that follows the heat death of the universe resulting in a new Big Bang. All evidence is heavily against that happening as galaxies are accelerating away from one another, rather than being slowed down by gravity as we'd initially predicted. Don't give up just yet though. If Homer is right and we are in a donut shaped universe (which is a real possibility still), then it may be the case that the reason galaxies appear to be accelerating away from each other is that they're actually being pulled back together at the donut's center. In that case it should create just the collision Farnsworth and crew need to make it back to the future themselves. Food for thought.
Ron Sterling
2024-12-17 02:46:51 +0000 UTCSomething mildly interesting about the Big Bounce/universe reset in this episode, is that there it technically a SECOND set of Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth living (presumably) a parallel life as our "prime" Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth. Because Farnsworth accidentally "missed" the second timeline, the trio from that timeline therefore went on to do the same thing "our" trio did. They saw the end of their universe, then attempted to stop at the time they left (which, ironically, would have killed our Trio), but they missed it and went into an unseen FOURTH timeline, and crushed that timeline's trio. So therefore from here on out, we could technically be watching a second set of Fry, Bender, and Farnsworth in a FOURTH universe.
Andrew Bouvier
2024-12-14 01:29:25 +0000 UTCOn the topic of logos on clothing; I’m 28 and I have avoided logos for basically anything other than bands for about 8 years. It felt weird at a certain point in my life because It felt like I was paying to be a walking advertisement.
Aidan fleming
2024-12-12 07:01:15 +0000 UTCNice to hear some Chris Gethard talk here. A few years back I had the honor of playing the harp on his last public access series and subsequently was plunged into the vast Geth-head community. He’s a good guy with a positive and welcoming fan base. Also, as someone who never got rid of their flip phone, I can say that it’s just nice to not always be “connected.” The only drawback is that it takes forever to text anything, but on the plus side, people also don’t expect me to immediately respond to them.
brian bonelli
2024-12-11 02:04:42 +0000 UTCI’m less familiar with what MVNO’s like Consumer carry admittedly. Their flip phones have FM radios, that’s a real throwback feature.
Brian Hortin
2024-12-11 01:45:55 +0000 UTCConsumer Cellular is a huge business selling older models of phones to older people. Got my dad a flip-phone from that!
SilkiePJ
2024-12-11 01:17:35 +0000 UTCI'm glad I waited until this dropped to revisit this episode. I feel like I saw it so many times on Comedy Central that its charms ceased working on me. With a critical eye, I do think there is a little too much padding with the time travel song so it starts to feel long for me, but the payoff is indeed sweet and a bit unexpected. And I love Fry's casual "He's dead now," which finds a funny way to end the episode without undermining what transpired. I don't know if it cracks my Futurama top 10, but it's definitely among the top 3 post Fox episodes. As a manager of people myself (boooo, hiss!), I will say that lateness for work is one of the things I care about the least. As long as it's not absurd or people are missing deadlines, I say spend as little time on the job as you can manage. In my personal life I detest lateness. I'm of the mind that communication is among the easiest things we can do to at least feign courteousness, so if someone is going to be more than 10 minutes late and they don't even let me know then I get really irritated. I'm the sort of person who gets to where I need to be early and it's a remarkably easy thing to do. Even with kids, so don't try that excuse with me.
Joe Hodgson
2024-12-10 20:39:37 +0000 UTCLol yeah, there is a segment that wants these to have less screen and social media time or just be a hipster. Also for the really cheap pre-paid market.
Brian Hortin
2024-12-10 15:31:00 +0000 UTCYou can still buy feature phones that resemble vintage phones with modern network connectivity. Heck, if you want a Nokia brick phone they'll happily sell you a modern 3210.
Dan Vincent
2024-12-10 15:04:04 +0000 UTCThey still make dumb flip phones, called feature phones in the industry. Here is a Barbie 4G flip phone https://www.hmd.com/en_us/hmd-barbie-phone?sku=AHM2850USA01BB1 You are correct to assume an old flip phone probably should not work anymore. In the U.S. at least most if not all 3G and earlier service is no longer available.
Brian Hortin
2024-12-10 14:54:54 +0000 UTCBBC's Sherlock creator Stephen Moffat has always been an object of morbid fascination for me. Much like JJ Abrams, he has a knack for reinventing dusty old IP to feel exciting and new again but crashes and burns when tasked with creating further adventures or a conclusion to wrap things up. His Sherlock lives on as an escape room which debuted in 2018 featuring new footage from the main cast when it seemed a given the show would continue but after the disastrous reception to the most recent season in 2017 and Cumberbatch becoming a full-time movie star, it now exists as the final addition to the shows canon. I was tempted to visit when I was in London last year but couldn't justify wasting my friends time and money on a purely ironic activity. PS. My preferred substitute birthday song is KOTH's 'Someones Got a Birthday; I Wonder Who?"
Joshua Marchant
2024-12-10 02:59:31 +0000 UTCStarcraft 2 is notable to me as my girlfriend at the times Korean Family Man stepdad disappeared for a month after it came out and I realized he had been spending the entire time playing it. The joke that starcraft was the “national sport” of South Korea was not a fabrication and I was tickled this middle aged dad who had shown no interest in games prior felt the need to disappear into Starcraft 2 for a while. I like Bob fell off of rick and morty after season 3. When I checked back in to see what I had missed I saw the newest episode starred Elon Musk playing a thinly veiled version of himself named Elon Tusk and I decided my time was spent better elsewhere.
marathedemon
2024-12-09 17:54:09 +0000 UTCNever watch bbc sherlock, it's not good.
EliFox
2024-12-09 14:31:02 +0000 UTCSo does that mean there's a point where the trio goes to the Simpson timeline to start the happy little elf movies, since elfo and his kind are now apart of both Futurama and disenchanted?
That Guy, Joe
2024-12-09 14:16:07 +0000 UTCI'm learning info about the kids from this podcast I'm only 28.... I can feel grandpa Simpsons finger pointing straight at me. It's happening to me too...
Deveno
2024-12-09 12:24:18 +0000 UTCI am part of the anti-logo crowd i just like plain clothes
Aleen Tins
2024-12-09 11:51:08 +0000 UTC
