I loved that bit too. I'm also thinking it was an homage\parody, but I can't place where it might be from.
I thought it was a solid episode—maybe not their best, but it got some big laughs out of me, and the plot was fun.
FUTURAMA: Rebirth
- Thread starter tharpdevenport
- Start date
I loved that bit too. I'm also thinking it was an homage\parody, but I can't place where it might be from.
I thought it was a solid episode—maybe not their best, but it got some big laughs out of me, and the plot was fun.
I don't know if they were referencing anything specific other than if being a riff on a generic romance movie cliche, only now with the added absurdity of it being a robot in another's body.
I know what you mean. It seems like they are going back and forth with it. Then again, TPTB have been wishy-washy with their relationship since the beginning of the series. Anytime Fry/Leela have some progress, it is usually forgotten about by the next episode. Though this season has been showing them to be casually involved, I suspect TPTB won't fully commit to it until the last episode.
If memory serves, Comedy Central ordered 26 episodes total. However, those episodes are going to air in 13-episode halves, with the second half not airing until early/mid 2011. I suspect they are going to wait until the first half finishes airing in a few weeks to see how successful the ratings were before placing another order.
They ordered 26 eps, and it was pointed out to me much earlier in the thread that those would be split into 2 groups.
Now what I wonder is, will they have a 6 month (or so) gap before the next batch, or will they wait a full year?
They have an X-Mas episode in the back half of the season, which certainly implies what time of year the writers were expecting it to air. (Hopefully that doesn't mean December 2011...)
We get 12-13 episodes this year. We are at episode 10.
This December is the 3 mini holiday stories episode.
Next summer 12-13 episodes. The last one being a 3 mini story episode too, but not a Tales of Interest (I have no clue why not).
Another terrific episode! Beats Farscape's mind-switch episode for sheer volume of mind-switching and the need to invent new algorithms to explain what's happening, but Farscape still wins for sheer comic anarchy. Vastly better than the other puny efforts in the category, such as from Stargate. I call this a draw.
Although I've never seen the movie, the scene made me think of Brokeback Mountain. Don't know if it was a nearly word-by-word remake.
Although I've never seen the movie, the scene made me think of Brokeback Mountain. Don't know if it was a nearly word-by-word remake.
If it were a parody of that, they would have used the "I can't quit you" line (which by this point has gone past the point of funniness into groan-worthy territory).
I Googled some of the dialogue from the scene. Scruffy's "before I beg you to stay" is a lyric from the 60s song Go Away Little Girl, but that's about it. It's probably a pastiche of several cinematic scenes, but it isn't a direct parody of anything I could find.
I didn't like the cat episode or the evolution one very much, but thought the body switching one was a return to form. Especially in the last few minutes when they kept piling on the wackiness. From the moment Frydberg blew up he and Bender's apartment to the end I was laughing almost non-stop.
I'm so impressed with the consistency of this season. I think it's been just as solid as any of the pre-cancellation ones: there's a healthy mix of strong episodes, very few clunkers, one of those super touching ending episodes ("Lethal Inspection") and a total classic in "The Late Phillip J. Fry". When I saw Ken Keeler's name on "The Prisoner of Benda", I knew it would turn out well. This is the guy who wrote "Time Keeps On Slipping", so clearly he knows how to write the hell out of a wacky "Futurama" episode!
I'm so impressed with the consistency of this season. I think it's been just as solid as any of the pre-cancellation ones: there's a healthy mix of strong episodes, very few clunkers, one of those super touching ending episodes ("Lethal Inspection") and a total classic in "The Late Phillip J. Fry". When I saw Ken Keeler's name on "The Prisoner of Benda", I knew it would turn out well. This is the guy who wrote "Time Keeps On Slipping", so clearly he knows how to write the hell out of a wacky "Futurama" episode!
^Normally I'd be in favor of that, but with so many different switches going on, we needed the voices to make it easy to recognize who was who.
Besides, with a case like Fry (Billy West) in the body of Zoidberg (Billy West), it's kind of a moot point.
Besides, with a case like Fry (Billy West) in the body of Zoidberg (Billy West), it's kind of a moot point.
Having the "wrong" voices with the bodies was surprisingly funny, given how damn easy a joke it was. 
Someday they're going to have to come up with an excuse for the various characters trying to mimic the voices of the other characters.
Someday they're going to have to come up with an excuse for the various characters trying to mimic the voices of the other characters.
That's really hard to do. I was watching this documentary about Mel Blanc in which Hank Azaria talks about why one of the reasons Blanc is so legendary is for the time he managed to convincingly voice both Bugs Bunny doing an impression of Daffy Duck and Daffy Duck doing an impression of Bugs Bunny in the same cartoon. It really was an incredible achievement and according to Azaria, he and other voice actors have tried to do that with the multiple characters they voice and found it impossible!
Then there was the Teen Titans episode where Raven (Tara Strong) and Starfire (Hynden Walch) had their minds switched. The original plan was to have the actresses play each other's characters, i.e. to keep the voices with the right bodies and just change the personalities. But Strong and Walch sound so similar, and are both such excellent mimics, that Strong's Starfire and Walch's Raven sounded almost exactly like Walch's Starfire and Strong's Raven anyway. The average viewer wouldn't have been able to tell that the actresses had switched characters; it would sound like the voices had switched along with the minds anyway. So they abandoned that plan and just had the actresses play their usual characters -- Strong as Raven in Starfire's body, Walch as Starfire in Raven's body.
Still, I regret they didn't stick with their original plan. I think I would've been able to tell the difference, since I have a good ear for voices. And I would've loved to hear the actresses playing each other's roles.
Still, I regret they didn't stick with their original plan. I think I would've been able to tell the difference, since I have a good ear for voices. And I would've loved to hear the actresses playing each other's roles.
One of the commentaries ("The Route of Evil", I believe) had Billy West, Maurice Lamarche, and John DiMaggio do dueling Zoidbergs. Maurice and John's Zoidbergs were pretty convincing.
That said, I think they chose the right way to do the episode. It would have been more confusing, and not everyone on the show is as skilled at impersonations as those guys.
That said, I think they chose the right way to do the episode. It would have been more confusing, and not everyone on the show is as skilled at impersonations as those guys.
"Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences" was another good one. Lots of good gags, including the Comic-Con stuff. I even caught the really inside joke where Sergio Aragonés's head told Fry he liked the margin doodles in his comic book (Aragonés is known for his doodles in the margins of MAD Magazine's comic strips). And they found an excuse to let Maurice LaMarche do his Orson Welles impression!
I loved the twist that for most of the episode it was a character comedy about a guy on the outs with his wife and a wacky sitcom plan to reunite them, and then it suddenly became an epic about the conquest and enslavement of the human race!
Except it seems that Omicron Persei 8 has improved its TV reception, because it's now getting Earth programs in real time rather than a thousand years late. (Which was really clever when they established that back in "When Aliens Attack," because Omicron Persei really is about a thousand light-years from Earth.)
Hm, that's interesting. Lrrr first appeared in the penultimate episode of the first production season, and now he gets a focus in the penultimate episode of the first post-revival broadcast season.
I loved the twist that for most of the episode it was a character comedy about a guy on the outs with his wife and a wacky sitcom plan to reunite them, and then it suddenly became an epic about the conquest and enslavement of the human race!
Except it seems that Omicron Persei 8 has improved its TV reception, because it's now getting Earth programs in real time rather than a thousand years late. (Which was really clever when they established that back in "When Aliens Attack," because Omicron Persei really is about a thousand light-years from Earth.)
Hm, that's interesting. Lrrr first appeared in the penultimate episode of the first production season, and now he gets a focus in the penultimate episode of the first post-revival broadcast season.
Similar threads
