Futurama Facts You Never Knew
Futurama continues Thursday nights on Comedy Central, and has a list of eleven secret fun facts from the Futurama universe you never knew!
Bender's Magnificent Functions
Ever the useful robot and a product of a thousand years of design advancement, Bender has come in handy for just about every occasion, always with a solution tucked away in his limitlessly spaced compartment, or with some new unforseen function.
To date, we've seen his antenna alone function as: an antenna, a timer button for his internal digital camera, a beer pump lever, a measure of his manhood, a popcorn butter dispenser lever, a pager vibrator, a flushing lever, a cooking timer, an alarm clock snooze button, a voice mail alert light, a voice mail "delete all" button, "little Bender", a cap for a beer still, and an audio tape dispenser button.
And that's not even counting the multiple conflicting percentages of his composition! The easy answer? Bender represents an ever-evolving structure of nano-bots that conform to any need. Maybe.
The writers actually had Cubert in mind since the beginning, as a character who gave voice to nitpicking fans by pointing out the many plot holes and inconsistencies of the series.
However, the writers never saw fit to introduce the character before the second season, and despite his many nitpicks during his first apparance, Cubert never ended up fulfilling the role the writers had set out for him, becoming a more normal boy from then on out.
In the third season episode "Luck of the Fryrish," Fry takes advantage of the solitude found in the old New York ruins underground to scream things he's always wanted to say, in this case "Howard Stern is overrated!"
Billy West, who provides Fry's voice (and many others) was a regular presence on the Howard Stern radio show for years prior to Futurama.
Believe it or not, while her fellow castmates voice multiple characters throughout the Futurama universe, Katey Sagal herself only provides the voice of Turanga Leela, and no other.
Then again, we know Sons of Anarchy tends to keep her pretty busy.
While Futurama famously derives its name from the 1939 World's Fair exhibit, do you know it wasn't the original choice for the title? Not even Futurella?
In fact, "Aloha, Mars!" and "Doomsville" were the earliest-considered monikers of Philip J. Fry's adventures in New New York.
After all, what's in a name? We'll tell you! Fry was given the first name of "Philip" to honor the late, great Phil Hartman, who had earlier been cast in the role of Zapp Brannigan. Matt Groening himself admited to naming Bender after John Bender of The Breakfast Club, and Leela's full name Turanga Leela is a reference to French composer Olivier Messiaen's 1948 "Turangalîla-Symphonie," an 80 minute work in ten movements for piano, ondes Martenot and orchestra.
But that's not all! Professor Farnsworth himself is named for inventor and television pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth, who held an exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair from which Futurama derives its name!
Sure, we've seen Matt Groening make plenty of reference to Futurama on The Simpsons, and vice versa, but the line between both get's a bit muddled. Each seems to exist as fictional properties in the others universe, yet we've seen Simpsons signature fish Blinky appear in the waters of New New York, and even Bongo, another of Matt Groening's creations from Life in Hell, shows up in a NNY pet shop!
Matt Groening has confessed that the idea for Futurama fell upon him while listening to the song "Robot Blues" by a group called The Incredible String Band, a "psychadelic Scottish folk band" from the 60s. We're not sure we get it, but judge for yourself:
While it may seem like bit of simplicity in character design, the lovely lady Leela's tight tank top actually carries with it a long line of sci-fi history.
Sci-fi action girls are typically depicted wearing form-fitting and allowing tank tops, from Lara Croft to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the trend is believed to have originated with Ellen Ripley from in Alien.
Just what should an incompetent space crab physician sound like, anyway? Well, according to Billy West, Zoidberg was inspired by Lou Jacobi's performance in The Diary of Anne Frank. He imagined Zoidberg to have Yiddish mannerisms because of his last name, and he also admitted he was attracted to the idea of a doctor that was poor!
It's hard to say just how much of the arc was plotted out at the time, but from the very first episode a brief glimpse of Nibbler's shadow was seen beneath the desk from which Fry first falls into the freezer. The easter egg has been re-visited from time to time, as we've seen Fry's shadow added to flashbacks after "The Why of Fry" sent the delivery boy back through time to the same moment.
But did you know that other Easter eggs have popped up, such as Leela's parents appearing in a background shot a full two seasons before their real introduction? Makes you wonder what else we might have already glimpsed....