Bender's Big Score?

[Andy]

They're trying to resurrect Futurama, a show that was cancelled by Fox in 2003. It was a comedy that took place in the future...and I've been watching it ever since I've been able to stay up and watch it in college. :D

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tvguide/341289_tvgif27.html

They're going to make 4 new movies for DVD, and then air them in bits as new episodes.

Anyone else a fan of it?

[Nyx]

Wooo new Futurama episodes, I love that show..

[Rafael Domination]

What's it about?

[Crocolyle]

This guy named Fry is basically a loser. He's in his 20s I think and he works as a pizza boy for Panucci's pizza. In the year 2000 he is sent to deliver a pizza to the abandoned Applied Cryogenics - but it turns out to be a crank call. He sits back, gets trapped into a stasis tube and wakes up in the year 3000, where he becomes a delivery boy for Dr. Hubert Farnsworth's [his great-great-great-grandnephew (or something like that)] package delivery company that he uses to fund his research (he's like a 140 year old scientist).

Also on the crew is Leela a 1-eyed mutant and pilot of the ship, Dr. Zoidberg the ship's lobster-like doctor, a chain-smoking, dishonest alcoholic Robot named Bender [he's designed primarily to bend things], a Rastafarian bureaucrat named Hermes, and Amy, a spoiler Asian rich kid from Mars. There's also a janitor named Scruffy. It's a funny, animated outerspace Simpsonsesque (Matt Groening is the creator) sitcom.

[Rafael Domination]

Sounds interesting...

[Shaun]

It's an alright show. I don't dislike it, but it never really wowed me either. But that's me, and I'm into Family Guy and American Dad, so it's sort of a taste thing...

[Nyx]

I'm the opposite:D Family Guy's the one that fails to wow me...

[Shaun]

Yeah, that's just a difference of taste I guess. I don't mind Futurama. I can watch it and on occasion it is really hilarious, so by my account it is better than at least 75% of other television, but it doesn't do for me what Family Guy does. But some people don't like Family Guy but love shows like the Simpsons or Futurama. Just a difference of opinion. :P

Now if you didn't like Invader Zim...well...I might have to ban you :P

[Crocolyle]

I actually like Simpsons/Futurama and Family Guy a lot (American Dad can be funny, but I think sometimes it just comes across as being contrived. Like when it tries to have a moral or a message, it is sloppily implemented usually in my opinion. Like in its effort to have Stan Smith have a revelation and become more liberal, it loses credibility.) Both are extremely funny, and I like how Family Guy has a little more random humor, but I think the show is in a lot of ways indebted to the Simpsons and derivative of the Simpsons. That being said, I think it's come around at the right time, I think the Simpsons despite its consistently good writing has jumped the shark and just isn't what it used to be.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d7/Mad_0905.jpg/180px-Mad_0905.jpg

My favorite though would probably be South Park.

EDIT: And I forgot to mention that Invader Zim was awesome. I always thought it was cool how everything on Earth looked bleak and dirty, almost as if exaggerated that way, because that's how Zim, thinking himself superior, would see it. I'm not sure if Vasquez was going for that... but that's how I (perhaps wrongly) interpreted it...

[Shaun]

The interesting thing about American Dad is that a lot of people don't get it. The point you made about it being contrived is exactly what they were shooting for. When Stan has those moments where he becomes 'liberal', they're intentionally made that way to show the true hypocrisy of people who share is world view. If anything the show is a representation of the worst of the conservative party and the worst of the liberal party, all wrapped in a lovely box of a talking Nazi fish, an alcoholic/sugar-addicted alien, and a Clooney-hating wife. Almost everything is intentional in that show and if you take it that way it will make a lot more sense.

South Park is pretty good too. Sometimes it's not so funny. I really liked the Alcoholic episode...

[Crocolyle]

I'm not sure if you understand exactly what I'm complaining about. Like in a lot of episodes it follows a formula where in part A he has the conservative standpoint, part B he swings entirely over to the left, and then in part C kind of balances out to a slightly more liberal view when the action is resolved.

For example, let's take the log cabin republican episode (I'm doing this from memory, forgive any inaccuracies). It starts out with Stan being completely opposed to homosexuals (part A), then he temporarily becomes a homosexual (part B), and then in part C at the end he and Gary (It's Gary who's Republican and not Terry right?) make out and Stan doesn't feel anything and then settles for a slightly liberal view, but not crazy liberal, but far from his original conservative standpoint. It is part C to me that feels contrived, the part that isn't supposed to be. I like Klaus and Roger and the show has it's moments, but the writing could be much better. When South Park or the Simpsons - or even Family Guy - follow that formula or a similar one, I think they pull it off much more smoothly.

[Shaun]

All of that was intentional, to show the hypocrisy of the right viewpoint because in the end Stan will always be a right-wing nut. That's the point. American Dad is brilliant and misunderstood...which is sad.

[Crocolyle]

I have my doubts. Do you have a source?

[Shaun]

Why do I need a source for that? It's clearly written in that way. Stan's character is deliberately designed to be a hypocritical character. The way the acting is done, the interaction with other characters, the lines he says. It's all there.

[Crocolyle]

Yes, he's designed to be hypocritical, but often times the resolution I think is sloppily implemented. I don't think part C is supposed to come across as being poorly written. This has little to do with the fact he has a role reversal or that he's a hypocritical character, but more to do with how it's done. It's not like in Moral Orel where there is a twisted fake moral at the end; American Dad typically has a real moral (in the episode I cited - tolerance of homosexuals) but the way it's realized comes off as weak. I think it's more a weakness in the writing and not because they intentionally want the justification of their moral to be weak.

[Shaun]

Maybe it's a difference of opinion. I see what you're saying, but I just don't see it when I watch the show. Then again I've been a fan of the show since buying the first season, so maybe I'm a little blind...