"Space Pilot 3000 (1ACV01)" Episode Capsule Part 1
Jordan Eisenberg
============= THE FUTURAMA CHRONICLES ==== EPISODE CAPSULE =============
========================================================================
Official Title: Space Pilot 3000
Episode Number: 1ACV01 (#1)
First Airdate : Sunday, March 28th, 1999
Written by : David X. Cohen and Matt Groening
Directed by : Rich Moore, Gregg Vanzo
========================================================================
= Additional tidbits =
Opening theme promotion : IN COLOR
Opening theme cartoon : "Little Buck Cheeser" (MGM, 1937)
28-Mar-99 Neilsen ranking: 11th place
MPAA rating : TV-PG
Length minus commercials : [21:49]
========================================================================
= Foxworld Synopsis =
After an accidental cryogenic freezing, Fry awakens at the dawn of
the year 3000. With the help of his two new friends, a degenerate
robot named Bender and a beautiful one-eyed alien named Leela, Fry
defies his life assignment as a delivery boy. He tracks down his
great-great-great-etc. nephew, Professor Farnsworth, who hires the
three to work for his intergalactic delivery service. It's a brave
new world and Fry is in for the ride of his life.
========================================================================
= Minutia =
- Even though the show is supposed to begin in our time (1999), it is
still in the future. (It premiered in March, showing December.)
{ec}
- Panucci's Pizza does not want you tipping the delivery boy. {dh}
- A sign on the street says "AKBAR." (Akbar is a character in Matt
Groening's "Life in Hell" comic strip, and the name of a Simpsons
font.)
- Applied Cryogenics is on the 64th floor.
- The Pope is counting down to the millennium in Roman Numerals. {dh}
- A medieval civilization rose and fell during Fry's hibernation. {dh}
- The cryonics chambers used low-tech minute timers. {hl}
- Upon learning the date, Fry comments "Wow, a million years!" when
it's actually been only a thousand. He obviously doesn't have very
good math skills, because this is too large a goof to actually _be_ a
goof.
- The ceiling pipe has band-aids on it. {dh}
- They're still using dot-matrix, tractor feed printers in 2999.
[According to {tjm}, "those government offices are so slow in
updating their equipment."]
- The probulator's dot matrix printer is also tractor-feed. {ds}
- Leela's computer keyboard has an antenna on it. {ds}
- When Fry says he's going to be more than just a loser, a buzzer
sounds, as if he'd just given the wrong answer in a game show.
- Did you notice the squeaking sound to the holographic monitor? {dh}
- The man in Leela's poster, who gives a thumbs-up, has five fingers
on each hand. Most people in Futurama's universe have four. [{tpe}:
"Maybe, not unlike Leela and her one eye, he's an alien? Hmmm...
It's just crazy enough to work!"]
- Twice, the cryonics chambers immediately set themselves to "1000
years." It must be the default setting. {dh}
- After being crushed so many times in the Star Trek-like doors, at one
point Fry actually STOPS in the doorway, waiting for it to crush him
-- which it does, sideways. {ec}
- There was a flying billboard -- one of the kind with the rotating
triangles, to show 3 different ads -- and one of the panels didn't
rotate. {jj}
- One of the billboards in the future shows Angelyne, a real-life busty
female entertainer that has billboards hanging around the Los Angeles
area. In the cartoon billboard, she's hooked up to some sort of
respirator. {aa}
- There's a Ralph Wiggum-like character when Fry rides the "travel-
tube." {dh} [That's actually a woman.]
- Next to her, there's a man who's dressed like an Orthodox Jew, only
with a futuristic slant.
- In the intro, the Statue of Liberty holds a gun in her torch hand;
during the episode, she holds part of the transport tube.
- One of the fish underwater is a robot. {dh}
- The Circle Line ship is shipwrecked under New New York Harbour.
- There's a corpse in the Circle Line shipwreck. {pm}
- Apparently there is an easy way and a clumsy, newbie way to exit the
tube system. {ds}
- All the people in line before Fry select the "quick and painless"
method of killing themselves, with a simple zap and they're gone.
It's also more courteous to the people behind you.
- A "life" is worth two bits. {dh}
- The knife in the suicide booth is programmed to thrust forward then
twist. {ds}
- Did you notice the Simpsonish music while the suicide booth is trying
to kill Fry? {dh}
- The suicide booth is called a Stop-N-Drop. {dh}
- In 1999, Fry rides his bicycle past O'Harrison's Pub. In the future,
O'Zorgnax's Pub looks quite similar.
- Bender libation is "Old Fortran Malt Liquor" -- FORTRAN is a
programming language.
- when Bender motions with his hands the various degrees he can bend
girders at, none of them are close to being accurate? (In fact, his
motion for 32 degrees is more acute than his motion for 30.)
- Leela is Officer 1BDI. (say it outloud) {dh}
- Dec 31, 2999 is on a Tuesday, sure enough. (Bender says the museum
is free on Tuesdays.) {pb}
- Bender drags Fry up the Museum steps. {dh}
- The uniform worn by the feeder at the Head Museum looks a lot like
the ones worn by employess of Hot Dog on a Stick! {tpe}
- Matt Groening's head is floating in a jar in the Head Museam.
- The top shelf presidents are displayed in chronological order from
Nixon through Clinton; to Nixon's right is some gray-hair I didn't
recognize (not LBJ); to Clinton's left was Warren Harding. (Harding
in 2000?) {pb}
- There are two heads of Grover Cleveland on the presidents' rack,
with Harrison in the middle. {pb}
- One of the policemen says he going to "get 24th century on his ass";
"get 24th century" has the same meaning as "get medieval." And
partway through Fry's suspension, say the 24th century, there _was_ a
medieval-type period, with New York rebuilt as castles before being
destroyed again and rebuilt as the futuristic city. {tjm}
- The Criminal room of the Head Museum can be locked from the inside.
{dh}
- Bender and Fry hide out in the Head Museam a lot longer than it
seems, because it's dark out once they escape.
- There's a Chevy Building in the New York ruins. {pm}
- Bender keeps booze in his chest cavity. {dh}
- In the future, poor-sighted people still need eyeglasses. {dh}
- Professor Farmsworth has an old-fashion TV set, complete with rabbit
ears. {dh}
- The brick dropping out of Bender as the peace officers come a-
knocking is supposed to symbolize him "shitting a brick."
- When the different countries count down to the year 3000, France uses
_English_ "seven" (not "sept"). {jj2} [{yd} guesses that French
culture has been eliminated.]
- Japanese society has been replaced by aliens. {yd}
- The Great Pyramid (of Cheops) hovers off the ground and spins. {dh}
========================================================================
= Parallels to Science Fiction =
+ "Babylon 5" (TV series/movies)
- People have chips implanted in their hands. {ds}
+ "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" (movie)
- When they go underground to the old New York. _Right_ from the
movies! {jj2}
+ "The Caves of Steel" (novel)
- The way Bender swallowed his empty liquor bottle reminded by of
a robot in this Isaac Azimov book.
+ "Doctor Who" (1996, Fox TV Movie)
- The countdown to the millennium occurred at the same time all over
the world. {db}
+ "Final Fantasy VII" (video game)
- The underground old New York City is similar to the slums
underneath the city plates in Midgar. {jg}
+ "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (TV series/novels)
- Similar premise (sans cyrogenics). {hl}
- Cynical Bender much like the manic depressive Marvin the robot.
{hl}
- The coffee machine in Professor Farnsworth's ship may be a
reference to "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe," in which
a spaceship's specialty was producing hot drinks.
+ "Logan's Run" (TV series/movie)
- Implanting a 'fate chip' in the palm of your right hand. {meh}
+ "Sleeper" (movie)
- Pretty much the same premise. {hl}
- Suicide Booth: similar to Sleeper's Orgasmatron. {hl}
+ "Star Trek" (TV series/movies/novels/other)
- Theme played with the video game. {ds}
- Fry's comments on the automatic door. "Just like on Star Trek!"
(Then he gets hit by the door.) {jg}
- Leonard "Spock" Nimoy says that he no longer does the Vulcan 'live
long and prosper' sign. {hl}
- Other Star Trek Sound Effects. {hl}
- I was wondering if the whole head museum was a subtle Trek
reference. The rows of jars containing heads, with the one jar
containing Nimoy's head in front to greet people, reminded me of
the original series Star Trek episode ("Return To Tomorrow" I think
it was called) where the alien minds were preserved in glowing
spheres, with Sargon in the one sphere in front. {tjm}
+ "Star Wars" (movies)
- Lightsaber clubs. {jk}
- Other possible reference is the way New York is set like Coruscant,
mostly in the opening theme song, and Farnsworth's ship in the seem
song seemed to be a parody of the Millenium Falcon's entrance into
Cloud City in ESB. {pm}
+ "The Time Machine" (movie/novel)
- The time-lapse lapse of civilization was a nod to the George Pal
film of "The Time Machine." {ah}
+ "War of the Worlds" (movie)
- The space ships destroying the cities were similiar to the ones in
the 60's "War Of The Worlds." {jlm}
+ "Young Frankenstein" (movie)
- The scene with all the heads in jars and the two live ones in the
middle ... and then the camera shot doing a double take ...
classic. {jj2}
========================================================================
= The Picking of Technical Nits =
>> The Time Zone Game
Many people pointed out that, even assuming all civilizations go by our
Gregorian calendar (which they don't), the many time zones of the
world would not be counting down to New Year's Eve at the same exact
time. One solution was posted:
Theodore Jay Miller: Maybe the countdown WASN'T simultaneous. Maybe we
saw "10" happening somewhere, "9" as it happened a few hours earlier,
"8" from a few hours before that, "7" from a few hours later, etc.,
all edited together later on.
Todd Paul Emerson: Am I the only one who noticed that the western
hemisphere was shown in complete daylight, which would hardly
correspond with Fry being in NYC at midnight?
>> What's wrong with the crogenics lab?
The cryogenics lab shouldn't have survived the numerous alien attacks
against New York City. (Many people saw this error as well.)
Brian Leahy: If they were really blasted all the way back to the dark
ages and had to start over, it's surprising that the Cryonics
building - including it's apparently kick-ass self-contained power
system - wasn't raided for parts and materials. Maybe the medieval
look was just in fashion for a while...
Michael R. Flavin: Also, how come when Fry first showed up in 1999 with
the pizza, the Cryogenics lab was a huge room filled with blinking
lights and machinery, but when he comes out, it is simply a regular
sized room with a table and a chair?
Patrick Dolan: Well ... My guess is that the cryo tubes were moved from
their original building and moved into the new one, thus explaining
why the room changed and why Fry didn't wind up underground.
Of course, that doesn't explain the view out the window for 1,000
years ... Maybe time flew by so quickly, we simply couldn't see the
pod being moved around, or it was moved between alien attacks.
Brian Leahy: It's interesting that, despite two devastating attacks,
they never had a fatal power failure in the cryonics lab. They must
have one hell of a backup system...
It must have been many stories shorter afterward, and the corpsicle
room must have been near the top floor.
Denizen Auberon: Well it's also less-than-believable that they would
have a free Cyrogenics facility completely unmonitored, and yet fully
maintained for 1000 years, and that if it's as simple as turning a
dial to change the suspension period (as we saw with Fry's kind-
hearted 5-minute thawing of Leela), then surely someone would have
noticed Fry missing, and the Cryo guys would have seen some strange
delivery boy in the freezer ... I mean they had a THOUSAND years to
notice.
>> Did Fry really wake up too early?
Chris Simmons: 1000 years from Midnight, January 1, 2000 (The countdown
had already ended as Fry was falling into the Cryo booth) equals
Midnight, January 1, 3000, NOT December 31, 2999. He actually was
frozen for only 999 years, 364 days. And to be even more nit-picky,
he "awoke" during the day; he was frozen 2-3 secs after midnight.
Darrel Jones has a possible explanation. Leap-seconds: "The solar year
is not a precise multiple of the solar day, so "leap days" have been
introduced to fill out the extra time. Our current calendar would
take millinea to even get a day off, but is still not 100% perfect.
So scientists have introduced an occasional "leap second" to fill out
the time. My theory is, in 1000 years enough leap seconds will have
been added to push the calendar back several hours. That's why Fry
woke up several hours before Midnight, New Years Eve 3000."
Andrew Gill: One problem -- the Gregorian calendar lasts 365.2425 days,
and requires an extra leap day once every 3333 years, since the solar
year is 365.2422 days.
And since we don't adjust seconds, since the Earth's rotation is
constant. Why do you think that we change to Spring at a different
time every year?
Although you could take the standard opinion and claim that the timer
was just a little off (which is still a hugely respectable degree of
error), see the end of this section for the final word on this
conundrum.
>> That blimp _wasn't_ accurate.
Andrew Krupowicz: At the end of the episode, were people cheering the
start of year 3001? If they were celebrating the start of year 3000,
then how come the blimp said "3000" after he was defrosted? Part of
a longer message that got cut out?
>> Who ordered the babelfish?
It's unlikely that language, accents and slang have gone unchanged in
1,000 years. Leela's boss spoke in an Indian-American accent similar
to Apu's from The Simpsons, but no such speech pattern could be
retained for so long. (Unless he himself was unfrozen not long ago.)
I'm surprised 20th Century English is still so predominant at all.
One peace officer, as he's trying to shoot down Our Favorite Crew,
remarks "Ah can't see nuttin'. Pretty, yo." -ed
Nathan Mulac DeHoff: While this is quite true, it would be unlikely
that the average "Futurama" watcher would be able to understand the
language spoken in 3000. It reminds me of a comment made by Terry
Pratchett. Someone mentioned that the Discworld couldn't have
"gypsies," since they were named after Egypt, and the Disc equivalent
of Egypt is Djelibeybi. Terry stated that, if he changed the entire
language to fit the Discworld, the books would only be enjoyable to
the kind of people who like to learn Klingon.
Chris Sobieniak: Perhaps by 3000, there English becomes the dominant
language, while the others just fade away (like Latin). Who knows?
I can't say what would be the driving force for such a momentary
change in language by then. I didn't really gave it much thought
myself. Though I assume there's still a few of us that like to
wonder at the use of Japanese in Gothan City on the WB toon Batman
Beyond (pretty much a Blade Runner rip-off).
Andrew Gill: Oh, and one comment about this. English used to be a very
lax vulgar (=common) language. Then the grammarians came along and
decided that to now split infinitives would be wrong, &c. In fact,
spelling didn't truly come along until the printing press.
With this in mind, it's not hard to believe that English -- as she is
spoke -- will become even more firmly cemented in our culture, to the
point that it won't change after mid-2300, I guess. {ag}
>> Bender: Cheating when cheating isn't cool.
Theodore Jay Miller: MY question is, why did Bender bother pulling back
his quarter with a string? He was in the booth to commit suicide;
what good will keeping the quarter do him when he'll be dead in a
minute?
Todd Paul Emerson: Perhaps, as a robot, Bender can't be killed in the
same way that humans can? He seems like the kind of character that
would enjoy going into the booths on a regular basis to be "killed,"
then he just gets repaired and everything is back to normal.
Considering his contempt for the human "skin tubes," repeated use of
a suicide booth is just his way of mocking us.
Therefore, reusing the same quarter just adds more fuel to his fire.
Or, even though he thought he was going to be dead in a minute,
perhaps the ol' string-on-a-quarter bit was his way of symbolically
sticking it to The Man. "I may be dead, but at least I didn't have
to pay!" Fight the power!
Reznic de Bergerac: I agree with the latter. After all, Bender did
voice his obvious distaste for the booths ... that is why he quit his
old job. Although I think that was at least partly intended to set
up the next gag.
Curtis Gibby: It's the principle of the thing, or perhaps his
programming told him to do it.
Nice Guy Eddie leaves us this thought: "He didn't die, did he?"
>> Speaking of the Suicide Booth...
Chris Cosby: Anybody notice how Fry and Bender probably should've been
vaporized before leaving the Suicide Booth? You see a flash of light
after the guy who goes in before them, which I assume was him getting
vaporized so the next customer wouldn't have to deal with a messy
corpse in their way. How come Fry and Bender weren't disinigrated?
Are we to believe that this was some sort of ... magical suicide
booth?
There was some debate over this in USENET, and the conclusion was
reached that, although the man in front of Fry was probably killed
"quickly and painlessly," some vaporization still should have occured
as 'cleaning.' That means Fry or Bender did something wrong (yanking
the quarter back; opening the door too soon), causing the machine to
malfunction.
>> The Time Zone Game Deluxe
An error from the beginning reappears, as the world once again counts
down to the new millenium simultaneously. So the question is
reinstated: can this really happen?
Idaho Runner: Yes it CAN happen. Since any sort of time scale is
artificial and arbitrary, why can't the planet have decided on a
single standardized time rather than having "time zones" and
convuluted things like that? Say everyone decided to set their
watches to Greenwich Mean Time. It would be "midnight" during the
middle of the day for some people, but so what? You would just
associate "midnight" with lunch rather than associating "noon" with
lunch.
And since Fry was locked in the cryonic chamber at 12:00 midnight
_Eastern Standard Time_, that would explain why it was not 12:00
midnight when he arrived in the future. New New York no longer uses
EST. Problem solved.
========================================================================
= Other Goofs =
- Fry didn't have the noisemaker until he needed it. {dh}
- Before Fry enters the "travel-tube" it went up and sideways not
straight up as we see later in the next scene. {dh}
- They misspelled "Barbara" Streisand. It's actually Barbra. {aa}
- When Bender snapped the bars in the hall of criminals, there were 2
bars left on each side of the window, but a quick close-up showed
THREE bars left on each side, and then the scene resumed with the 2
bars... {dr}
- Bender's arm seemed to tear off as in break, not just the whole arm
segment falling off, so they couldn't be re-attached. {pm}
- Leela wasn't wearing a ring prior to the handholding scene with Fry.
{dh}
- Prof. Farmsworth's slippers change color and shape from one scene to
the next. {dh}
- Bad framing error when Bender was carrying Farnsworth onto the ship.
{pm}
- During the Countdown at '9' when they showed Egypt, the people didn't
seem to resemble Egyptians. {pm}
========================================================================
= New Things Revealed/Explored in this Episode =
- Applied Cryogenics (no power failures since 1997)
- New New York City, in all of its futuristic glory.
- Slurm (seen only in advertisements)
- New New York Tube System
- Stop-N-Drop, America's #1 suicide booth since 2008
- O'Zorgnax's Pub
- The Head Museam
- Characters: Fry, Terri, Leela, Bender and Professor Farnsworth
========================================================================
= Freeze Frame Fanaticism =
>> Video game {dh}
Monkey Fracas Jr.
>> Clock on wall of pizza place {dh}
11:35 PM (25 minutes to midnight)
>> Pizza Box {pm} (slightly modified to align the edges)
______________________________________________
I PANUCCI'S I
I PIZZA ____________I
I ____________________ I I
I I Do not tip I I [PICTURE I
I I the Delivery Boy! I I OF ITALIAN I
I ==============O I CHEF] I
I O I I
I________________________________I____________I
>> Neswpaper headline {dh}
2000! DOOMSAYERS CAUTIOUSLY UPBEAT
>> Sign on door {dh}
APPLIED CRYOGENICS - NO POWER FAILURES SINCE 199[7]
>> Countdown Sequence {pm}
10- New York
9- Paris, Eifel Tower Backdrop
8- Rome, Pope on Balcony turning "Calendar" of Roman Numerals
7- Egyptian Desert, Sphinx and the other three Pyramids as backdrop.
6- Athens, Acropolips as backdrop, two highlights next on the sides
of it
5- Great Wall Of China
4- Taj Mahal, some people counting down in Water
3- Minute African Village
2- Tokyo, very similar to New York shot except for the Japanese
Handwriting font
1- Shot of the Earth from Space
>> Things seen in Fry's "Wow, the future" lecture {pm}
- A Rocket taking off, white exhaust trailing
- A Metro System, rails connected by towers, green Metro trains going
along
- A few starships being moved by propellers, some designs similar to
WW1 fighters
- A few blimps
- A line of traffic going as if there was an invisible road, some
things going random
- A Flying Saucerer of Earth religion, seen stopping in the
reflection on the window
- One of the "Bachelor Chow" Ads, women holding a bowl of it, the
food looks similar to refried beans
>> When Fry exits to the street he sees... {dh}
- A rocket-propelled dog chasing a rocket-propelled cat.
- An old guy wearing goggles, driving a rocket-propelled chair.
- A couple wearing clear plastic with black strips covering the
naughty bits.
- A rocket-propelled cyclist.
>> Side of the suicide booth {dh}
SUICIDE (Stop-N-Drop -
BOOTH American's favorite suicide
25c booth since 2008)
>> SUICIDE BOOTH - Modes of Death {dh}
- Chainsaw
- Band-saw
- Knife
- Drill
- Electric shock
>> Bender's libation {pb}
- Old Fortran Malt Liquor
- Jordan Eisenberg -- <http://members.aol.com/JEdraw/Simpsons/>
- <JEd...@aol.com> -- ( S1.2 OFF+++ APU# MAU! OTT@ f+++ )
- ( n++/+++ Ilpswo $+++ 7G12, 9F09, 9F15, 1F06, 2F16 M1983 )
- "And then I sped away without anyone seeing my license plate."
[Part 2 coming soon]
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