How many shows can say they're better than the Simpsons and get away with it?

kitteh_harbls

Not many, mind you. Not many at all. Since its debut in 1989, The Simpsons has been a blessing: comedic work of extremely high quality. The Simpsons has had some of the best double entendres, sly shots at celebrities, tappings into pop culture personalities and events, genuinely funny and creative material and some of the most recognizable and lovable characters TV has ever produced.

Wanna know what Futurama is? Take those factors and double them. No, triple them.

I'm not kidding. It's really that good. Matt Groening is a certified genius, and his magic touch turns anything into comedy gold. He can take the most sinister and disturbing of subjects and have you split your sides laughing at them. Not many people can do that.

Futurama is one of my all time favorite shows. I rank it right up there with Scrubs, Arrested Development, Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Da Ali G Show. Again, it really *is* that good. Groening's work focuses a lot on building the characters of his shows, and where the Simpsons were one yellow family with distinct personalities and demeanors, the differences in Futurama are much greater, transcending not only gender and ethnicity, but even species and (heck) time itself! Let's take a look at the characters:

Professor Farnsworth: old and wrinkled. REALLY old and wrinkled. Unofficially trademarked the phrase "Good news everyone!" in his own trembling old man's voice, in a reference to some random invention he came up with in just about every episode. Morally ambiguous at times, and clearly immoral at others, he lives to invent lots and lots of weird, random stuff (to give you an idea: the smell-o-scope) that serves to be some of the episodes' background story.

Bender: one of the most popular TV characters of all time - an amazing feat since Futurama was mostly a cult favorite rather than mainstream. He's a robot that doesn't give a crap about you, anyone or anything. He's got attitude coming out his shiny metal wazoo. And speaking of that, search for the phrase "bite my shiny metal ass" and see how many results come up. (Great line at that)

Leila: one-eyed, purple-haired, sexy-in-a-tank-top, ass-kickin', human-lookin' alien. The leader and the brains of the group that Professor Farnsworth sends out to do some missions.

Fry: Beavis and Butthead's long lost cousin. Not really, but seeing how big of a dumbass he is, one might conjure up that guess. A lovable idiot.

Dr. Zoidberg: a big blobby crab, obviously the group's own doctor, even though he knows as much about medicine as much as Fry knows about...anything.

Captain Zapp Brannigan: ahh, here we go! Aside of Family Guy's Quagmire, I can't think of a funnier character on an animated sitcom. No, ANY sitcom at all, actually. One of the most HILARIOUS characters you'll ever see. This guy is just insanely funny. He's arrogant, he's self-absorbed, extremely egotistical, oblivious to his own failings and glaring incompetence, indulgent in pampering himself with metrosexual treatment every now and then, has an eternal (1) grin and (2) crush on Leila, and never stops torturing his poor alien subordinate Kif who (1) does the real work all the time, (2) gets credit none of the time and (3) takes the blame every time Zapp screws things up (which happens quite often). One of my all time favorites, and once you see this show, he'll be one of yours too. I GUARANTEE this! Too bad he's not a main character.

This show is pure quality. It's creative every way a show *can* be creative, and it's funny as much as any show CAN be funny. Sadly there are no more than 10 stars in IMDb's rating system, so I have to rate it verbally: I give it the highest possible recommendation.

score 10/10

kitteh_harbls 26 January 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1585458/