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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 22, 2006 15:04:07 GMT 1
The Daily Buzz
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 22, 2006 19:26:24 GMT 1
The Steve Harvey Show
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 22, 2006 23:25:02 GMT 1
King of the Hill
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 22, 2006 23:28:28 GMT 1
Summerland
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Post by The Great JT on Jun 23, 2006 3:41:55 GMT 1
Futurama
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 23, 2006 10:20:17 GMT 1
Family Guy
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 23, 2006 23:35:12 GMT 1
One Life To Live
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Post by The Great JT on Jun 23, 2006 23:54:24 GMT 1
The Simpsons
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 24, 2006 0:09:19 GMT 1
King of Queers
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 24, 2006 7:57:38 GMT 1
Next
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Futurama gets new life on Comedy Central
20th Century Fox will produce at least 13 new episodes of the animated series Futurama, scheduled to air on Comedy Central in 2008. Futurama, an animation from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, was canceled by FOX in 2003.
Comedy Central has recently acquired the rights to the back catalogue of 72 Futurama episodes and any eventual new episodes.
“We are thrilled that Matt Groening and 20th Century Fox Television have decided to produce new episodes of ‘Futurama’ and that Comedy Central will be the first to air them,” announces Comedy Central senior vice president for programming David Bernath.
Voice actors Billy West (Fry, Professor Farnsworth), Katey Sagal (Leela) and John DiMaggio (Bender) are all contracted to return. copyright wikinews
Futurama is an American animated television series that follows Philip J. Fry after he is cryonically frozen at midnight, December 31, 1999 and is defrosted a thousand years later in the year 2999. The series was created by Matt Groening who co-developed the show with David X. Cohen, and produced by The Curiosity Company for the Fox Network, on which it aired from March 28, 1999 to August 10, 2003. On June 22, 2006, it was confirmed that the show would be returning for a run of at least 13 episodes on Comedy Central, to air beginning in 2008.[1]
The name “Futurama” is named after an exhibit from the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The exhibit Futurama, designed by Norman Bel Geddes depicted what he imagined the world to look like in 20 years time (1959).
The setting is first and foremost a backdrop for humor, and the show is not above committing continuity errors if they serve to further the gags. The capabilities of many things vary according to what is most appropriate for the situation at hand.
The visually retro-futuristic world of Futurama is not a utopia but neither is it a dystopia. Unlike past cartoons like The Jetsons, which showed an efficient, clean, happy future, Futurama portrays a less idealistic view, with humans still dealing with many of the same basic problems of the 20th century. The show’s vision of the future is very similar to the present in many ways: the same political figures and celebrities that we know today survive as heads in jars (a method invented by Ron Popeil), television remains the primary means of entertainment, the Internet is still slow and filled with pornography (”A Big Piece of Garbage”), problems such as global warming (”Crimes of the Hot”), inflexible bureaucracy (”How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back”), and substance abuse (”Hell Is Other Robots”) are still pressing issues. This is probably due to human civilization being virtually wiped out and replaced twice while Fry was frozen, along with many other events including various enslavements of humanity and nuclear wars.
Race issues in 3000 are now centered around relations among humans, aliens, mutants, and robots. A common clash between the first two groups is alien immigration plaguing Earth.{see episode A Leela of Her Own} Humans find it hard to treat aliens with respect because of their differences, as is seen with the Decapodians, who probably evolved from something resembling a lobster, and because of various invasions and/or obliterations of Earth’s civilization in the past.
A specific issue on Earth is the large population of super-intelligent/super-incompetent robots (homeless robots and orphan children robots, like Tinny Tim); they are generally lazy, greedy and/or surly (with few exceptions, such as the sycophantic super-efficient Robot 1-X), and often unwilling to assist their human creators. Almost all robots are fueled by alcohol-based substances (”Crimes of the Hot”), leading to widespread environmental pollution. Robots are treated as independent beings - indeed only three times in the series are robots referred to as property (in “The Route of All Evil” Hubert refers to Bender as “company property,” in “Bendin’ in the Wind”, when Bender is crippled, Farnsworth is told “You’ll have to get a new one”, and in “The 30% Iron Chef” the Professor shouts “That’s my robot! I own him!”). In fact, over the years robots have developed their own culture, with publications, music, and religion (much of this seems to be similar to African American culture in contemporary society).
Despite this, Futurama’s world also showcases numerous technological advantages that have been developed by the year 3000. Wheels used in transportation have been made obsolete by hover technology, to the point that 31st century characters do not know what a wheel is (”Mother’s Day”). Among the robots, spaceships, and floating buildings, Professor Farnsworth introduced many memorable new inventions such as the Smell-o-scope (”A Big Piece of Garbage”) and the What-If Machine (”Anthology of Interest I”). Less inspiring 31st century innovations include coin-operated suicide booths, and Slurm, the highly addictive green ooze of questionable origin which is advertised at every opportunity on Futurama, whether in conventional television ads, or on giant blimps flying past in the background. Medical technology has also taken a huge leap, as the maximum lifespan for a human has been increased by at least 40 years from 120 to 160 (”A Clone of My Own”). Professor Farnsworth is one notable example.
Large companies hold a massive amount of power in the year 3000, in particular Mom’s Friendly Robot Company, which builds and controls every robot on Earth (”Mother’s Day”). Advertising is everywhere (”A Fishful of Dollars”), and people often buy products not knowing or caring what goes into them or who manufactures them - for example, the unrestrained human consumption of the bite-sized “Popplers” which turned out to be alien young (”The Problem with Popplers”).
Some of the show’s humor comes from passing references to historical events of the past thousand years. For example, in the time that has passed, formerly endangered owls and marmosets have emerged as the primary urban pests, at the expense of rats and pigeons.(”I, Roommate,” “The Honking”) Los Angeles has become a wasteland, with Fry mistaking it for a post-apocalyptic New New York in the year 4000 after believing he had been cryonically frozen for a further 1000 years (”The Cryonic Woman”). Atlanta, after being moved to sea, sinks due to over-development and becomes a “lost city” (a parody of the story of Atlantis); its residents evolve (with the help of caffeine from the Coca-Cola factory) into mermaids (”The Deep South”). In another episode, Pamela Anderson mentions that she won an Academy Award for Baywatch: The Movie, the first ever movie to be filmed entirely in slow-motion (”A Fishful of Dollars”).
The suicide booths are not the only sign of a devaluing of human life. Murder is discussed casually, as if there were little or no penalty for it (Hermes: “Could you pick me up a license to kill?” Leela: “Sure. Bare hands or weapons?” Hermes: “Hm. What does piano wire count as?”) (”Less Than Hero”). Grievous bodily injuries are shrugged off or treated with a sort of mild uncaring, perhaps in reference to the highly advanced medical technology as well as the general disregard for the lives of others or oneself. This sort of indifference to death and pain may be partly a mockery of the reactionary trend of citing rising crime statistics as a symptom of human life losing its value, partly on account of the failure to take proper precautions or care of themselves because of the availability of medicines and operations, and partly callousness (such as Fry’s happy declaration that his organ transplant came from a guy who liked to ride motorcycles.
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Post by The Great JT on Jun 24, 2006 23:17:56 GMT 1
Mythbusters
They're trying to see if a toy car can outrun a real car, and they're finding it a possibility.
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 25, 2006 1:55:44 GMT 1
Drake & Josh
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Post by The Great JT on Jun 25, 2006 2:03:50 GMT 1
^Love that show.
Naruto
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 25, 2006 15:50:46 GMT 1
Pimp My Ride
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 26, 2006 20:06:16 GMT 1
Gargoyles
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 26, 2006 20:36:35 GMT 1
The Parkers
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 26, 2006 23:00:02 GMT 1
City Confidential
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 27, 2006 23:16:23 GMT 1
Moesha
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 27, 2006 23:43:06 GMT 1
The Simpsons King of the Hill
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 28, 2006 17:40:59 GMT 1
BET Awards
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Post by The Great JT on Jun 28, 2006 18:02:17 GMT 1
SportsCenter's NBA Draft Special
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 28, 2006 18:09:33 GMT 1
Scarborough Country
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Post by The Great JT on Jun 28, 2006 18:11:05 GMT 1
Jerry Springer
God I am bored.
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Post by Faster Pussycat! on Jun 28, 2006 18:30:32 GMT 1
The Daily Show
And Maury, in 30 minutes.
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Post by ChadClassic on Jun 28, 2006 19:59:00 GMT 1
Full House
Yeah...
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