Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
TIMESTAMPS
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20120104030113/http://tv.ign.com:80/articles/716/716663p1.html
On June 9 it was confirmed that Futurama would be taken out of cancellation and given new life on a new station. Comedy Central has ordered 26 new episodes, to begin airing in mid-2010.
Much like recent television programming with the same situation (Terminator: TSSC, Pushing Daisies, etc.), critical acclaim and a cult-like following could not save Futurama from being cancelled early. Even though Futurama lasted five seasons, Matt Groening and co. have been able to produce 20 seasons of The Simpsons - and it seems as though it will never end. With that in mind, five shorter seasons of, let's face it, Groening's smarter, edgier, and dare I say... funnier animated program doesn't seem fair.
As a way of celebrating the news of the resurrection of one our favorite shows, we have arduously watched the entire series and compiled a list of the best episodes from their first run. So without further ado, here is a list of our 25 favorite episodes.
Kicking off the list at number 25 is "A Fishful of Dollars." In a spot that had heavy contention, we felt that this episode deserved the list more than others because it had a great sense of humor that included many great nods to the '70s and '80s (including watching Sanford and Son when he gets depressed). The story focuses around Fry becoming a billionaire when he goes to take money out of the bank after a thousand years of interest. After receiving all the riches he could ask for Fry tries to buy back his 20th century life, only to find that there is no reason to dwell on the past, when he has friends and a life to live where - or when - he is at.
In this trippy episode, Leela, Fry and Bender head off to collect honey from a large asteroid inhabited by giant bees. After bringing a baby bee aboard, Fry and Leela get stung by the bee, impaling Fry to death and just scratching Leela. After a series of odd dreams Leela begins to believe that Fry isn't dead at all, leading to a mess of psychedelic dreams. "The Sting" was aired near the end of Futurama's original run, but it includes some great humor, and more importantly it advances the relationship between Fry and Leela.
Episode Number: 405 | Airdate: February 17, 2002 | Writer: Kristin Gore
Futurama was best known for the laughs and off-the-wall humor, but the show was fueled by the characters. In order to make these characters more interesting and relatable, episodes such as "Leela's Homeworld" were created in order to give new dimensions to the members of our favorite interstellar delivery crew. Obviously focusing on Leela, this episode explained her past and showed how she ended up at the orphanage where she grew up. Later on in the episode Leela finds out the truth about her parents, and learns to accept what she and her parents are. These character-centric episodes deliver less laughs than a normal episode, but contain great character-driven drama that is just as entertaining, if not more so, than the normal joke-a-second pace the rest of the episodes have.
Episode Number: 309 | Airdate: March 4, 2001 | Writer: Dan Vebber
Around the middle of the series Futurama was showing more of the random humor episodes that contained some really strange premises for episode plots. This created some real average episodes, but occasionally they strike gold, as was the case with "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz." Calling out environmentalism, this episode was based around the crew delivering oil, but in order to make their delivery they would have to go through environmentally sensitive areas, such as a penguin sanctuary on Pluto. After Leela refuses to captain the mission, Bender takes over and eventually drives sober (or drunk for robots) into an icecap and spills the oil on all the penguins. Bender is forced to clean up his mess, but instead tries to duck out by disguising himself as a penguin, only to have his memory erased, and actually believe that he is a penguin himself. This absurd storyline is funny enough on its own, but between environmentalist Free Waterfall Sr. and the penguin overpopulation, this episode reaches a level humor that makes it worthy to be on the top 25.
Episode Number: 202 | Airdate: October 3, 1999 | Writer: J. Stewart Burns
Initially placed higher on the list, but later demoted for better-told stories in other episodes, "Mars University" is one of the funnier episodes in the second season. The episode has a couple stories going at once, and both are hilarious. One story follows Bender as he goes back to his old fraternity, only to find it filled with nerds! Not able to accept this, Bender pulls every trick in the book to get 'Robot House' known on campus. The story plays out with almost exact satirical rip-offs of scenes from Animal House leading to a great boat race at the end. The other story follows Fry as he deals with his new roommate, and Dr. Farnsworth's new experiment, the talking intelligent monkey named Guenter. Angry at being outdone by a monkey, Fry does his best to get rid of his obnoxious roommate. Once again, this episode is hilarious (especially if you have seen Animal House), and contains some memorable quotes that will stick with you.
