Going to the World of Tomorrow 07.01.08: Anthology of Interest I
Posted by Jerome Cusson on 07.01.2008
Time to rip off "Treehouse of Horror." Let's see if it's as funny.
Billy West ... Philip J. Fry / Prof. Hubert J. Farnsworth / Dr. Zoidberg
Katey Sagal ... Turanga Leela
John Di Maggio ... Bender
Tress MacNeille ... Deep Blue
Maurice LaMarche ... Narrator
Al Gore ... Himself
Stephen Hawking ... Himself
Nichelle Nichols ... Herself
E. Gary Gygax ... Himself (as Gary Gygax)
Lauren Tom ... Amy Wong
Phil LaMarr ... Hermes Conrad
David Herman ... Scruffy
Kath Soucie ... Cubert Farnsworth (voice)
Frank Welker ... Nibbler
The Simpsons has their Treehouse of Horrer and other not-so-lame pretexts for doing episodes with three stories instead of one. Family Guy has also done this a couple times as well. So I won’t be running down a detailed plot summary for this episode since it’s really three different shorter episodes. I’ll sort of explain the contexts of each and the funniest moment from each. I’ll withhold my usual giving of the worst moment since these shows are even less logical.
Opening Subtitle: Painstakingly Drawn Before a Live Studio Audience (my personal favorite gag of all time)
Farnsworth shows off his finglonger. Oh, the jokes that come to mind. Anyway, Farnsworth turns on some sort of machine that he was a great distance from. As it turns out, it’s another of his latest inventions, the “What If?” machine. All someone has to do is pose it a question and the thing will generate an answer through video simulation. Get it? Good. I’m not even going to take the time to think about impossible this is. I’ll just move on to talk about the first scenario.
Bender wonders if he was a giant, and this pretty much turns into a parody of The Iron Giant. I wonder what former Simpsons creator Brad Bird thought of this episode if he has seen it. Fry plays the boy who is an outsider in the future. The government sees Bender as a threat and begin to attack him. One of the interesting things about this episode and other episodes like these are they tend to be way more violent with lots more killing. The crew of Planet Express, excluding Bender and Fry, wonder how they can stop this giant Bender. The answer is turning Zoidberg into a giant as well using an enlarging ray. And then these two giants battle like two titans after Zoidberg tries to get on the robot’s action. Just when things look their worst, Bender is killed by Zoidberg. Fry is heartbroken and and he finds out what Bender’s purpose, to kill all humans.
Rando announcer voice tells us to stay tuned for more Tales of Interest. Why the hell didn’t they just call the episode that.
Funniest Moment: MMMBop is played.I literally couldn’t believe it myself when I saw this episode many a year ago.
Leela gives the machine a whirl by asking what would happen if she were more impulsive. Fry proves how impulsive he can be eating cereal off his head. With Leela more impulsive, it somehow leads to Leela killing everyone. Farnsworth makes Leela his soul heir, and this whole deal spirals downhill with Hermes being killed next after he discovers what really happened to the professor. Bender begins asking questions, and then he’s next on the killing dock. Leela kills Amy for being a bitch. Zoidberg gathers everyone who’s still alive in one room. Leela then slowly kills Scruffy, the janitor as well as Qbert, Nibbler, and even Zoidberg. Leela has sex with Fry, but we’re not sure if he gets killed or not. You know, there’s a lesson to be learned from all this. Don’t make one person your heir while standing in front of man-eating any-eaters.
Funniest Moment: Zoidberg as a detective and in that stupid hat is always good for a laugh.
Fry asks what would happen if he had remained in the past. Well, there’s no way that could happen according to the this episode because it would seriously disrupt the space time continuum. Some of the greatest minds of our time and Al Gore decide to run some interference because Fry disrupted the contimuum. The others include Stephen Hawking, Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek, Gary Gygax, the inventor of that nerdy Dungeons and Dragons game. Because of quantum fluctuation, Fry not going into the chamber could destroy the universe. I guess I know what they’re trying to across in this segment, but I would have much rather have saved Al Gore’s first appearance for later and see what life actually would have been like for Fry in the past. Ultimately, because Fry won’t get in the chamber, the universe is destroyed.
Funniest Moment: Al Gore has a Vice Presidential ranger action team.
Farnsworth comes in at the end that he only asked the “What If?” machine what would happen if he invented the finglonger. Good solid ending right there.
The 411: This certainly had its’ moments and a lot of very funny moments. I guess on this latest viewing, a lot of the flaws came flying out. There are a ton of leaps of logic and it seems like the last story’s potential was wasted as an excuse to get all those celebrity voices in. Still, I enjoyed the episode for the most part and think Leela’s story in particular is worth checking out.
