Welcome to the world of tomorrow!

The first episode of Futurama aired, oh I don't know some time in 1999. It was created by Matt Groening and a bunch of other people not nearly as important as he is. Whatever, if you came here looking for facts and maturity, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. You're free to leave, thanks for boosting my view count. Now if you want to see what a fan of animation has to say about it, or want to read a bunch of stuff I think is funny, welcome. This is the first installment of Not Just For Kids (that's what the headline says for those of you who can't read Futurama alien language number one. I know I can't.). I'm going to do my dest to crank one of these puppies out a week, with wach one being about a different animated series, short, or feature film. I decided to write my first one about futurama because it's one of my favorite shows and one I know pretty well. This is sprt of a test run, so I reserve the right to write another one about Futurama once I know what I'm doing. OK, enough with the disclaimers, on with the talking about the show.

This is Bender. He has something shiny and metal he'd like you to bite, possibly his ass. Don't blame me, I'm just passing on the message.

I like Futurama a lot. It bugs me that Fox never really gave it much of a chance with all the schedule changes and football games keeping me from watching it (Yes, I believe that football is part of an elaborate plot to keep me from watching my favorite shows). That actually made me hate football. I'd sit there not caring who won in overtime just as long as someone ended the stupid game. Cartoons in general are way more important to me than sports. I hardly ever watch sports on TV, just hockey really and I only watch that during the playoffs. Oh, before I forget, I promised Mxy something so here it is: Naked people!

For the fellas:

For the ladies:

And for Mxy:

Now, with all the naked people, I think it's pretty clear that this show is intended for an adult (if not mature) audience. There are some other examples of this such as the Evil Robotic Santa character and the episode where Fry became his own grandfather:


Philip J. Fry just before learning he's his own grandfather.

It never should have been shown as early as it typically was. I'm going to save most of my ranting about Fox for another cartoon though (the Tick), so I'm not going to go much further into that here. I wish Futurama would have been given a better chance though. It lasted a long time under the circumstances though.


I'm really only including this picture in the hopes of getting some free Slurm. That's some good worm juice!

Futurama really has three main characters. The "main" main character is Fry who was frozen just before the turn of the millennium and then woke up in the year 3000 (I'm pretty sure everyone bothering to read this knows that already, but I'm playin' it safe). And forthiose of you wondering; yes, Fry is dumber than Homer. Trust me, I'm writing a collumn so I'm an expert.


It's the fight of the 31st century, today!

Leela is the one eyed starship captain who's a mutant even though everyone (including her) thinks she's an alien. Don't go whining about spoilers, the show was cancelled a long time ago. I can't hear Katy Segal's voice anymore without Leela being the first thing that comes to mind.


"Hey, baby. You wanna kill all humans?"

Bender is my favorite character on the show. He can get away with anything because he's a robot. He smokes and drinks constantly not to mention all the stealing. OK, I will mention the stealing. There, I did. I particularly like the episode where he sings a song about how he loves stealing ("I love stealing. I love taking things.").


Those jerks in parallel dimensions are always showing off their cowboy hats

Futurama has a great supporting cast too. Zoidberg in particular is funny among the others who work for Planet Express. It's not that I don't like the other characters. I guess you just don't see as much of Hermes and Amy. The professor is funny, but not as consistantly as the other characters.


Boldly exploring the universe in search of hot alien tail.

Not all the supporting cast works for Planet Express. You know who they are; Zap and Kif who are like exagerated versions of Kirk and Spock. There are really too many to list, but a couple of my favorites are Lrrr and Morbo, two aliens who appear in several episodes. Lrrr is the ruler of the Omicronians who threaten the Earth in one episode because they want to see the last episode of a cancelled TV show and on another occasion because humans have been eating Omicronian children as fast food. Morbo is another evil alien type character, but he's a newscaster. I always enjoy the way his newscasts have occasionsal genocidal threats against all humanity.


Captain Yesterday, Superking and Clobberella. I wonder who they really are...

The first three seasons of Futurama are available on DVD (they go by the production schedule, so the episodes may not be exactly what you rememeber for each season). I own all three that have come out here (the lucky people in Australia and the UK can already get the fourth season). The DVDs are great, I highly reccomend them. The commentaries are informative, and they're also a lot of fun to listen to. A lot of the time, the voice actors are just goofing around and that's some of the best stuff on them. There are deleated scenes from many of the episodes.


"KILL ALL HUMANS! KILL ALL...line?"

You can also see Futurama as part of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network (At least THEY get the fact that Futurama was never intended to be a kids' show). There's goign to be a special week in May (From Sunday the 23rd to Thursday the 27th) where Matt Groening will chose and present his favorite episodes of Futurama.

www.gotfuturama.com is a great source for imformation, sounds and images from Futurama. I got most of the pictures I used from there. It's also where I got the few actual facts I used. I want to thank you for reading. That's all I have to say for now. Hopefull there'll be some conversation I can join in on from here. Also, please let me know if there's a specific cartoon you'd like to talk about in upcoming editions of "Not Just For Kids" and any specific, constructive criticism you may have (Just telling me I suck won't help. People say that to me so much i don't hear it anymore). Don't worry, it'll only get better from here.






P.S. You will comment and read future editions of Not Just For Kids. The power of the Hypnotoad compells you!