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Episode
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Trivia[]

  • This episode won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program, making it the 2nd episode to win the award after "Roswell that Ends Well".
  • The Professor's time machine has design similarities to both the device in the 1960 film The Time Machine, as well as the apparatus in the 1979 film Time After Time.
  • The control switch for the time machine resembles a steamship engine order telegraph, or chadburn.
  • In the year 10000, Bender throws three books into the fire:
  • Hitler says "Betrachten Sie meinen Schnurrbart", which translates to “Look at my mustache”.
  • When Farnsworth attempts to kill Hitler a second time and misses, it references the time paradox legend about killing Hitler.
  • When homing in on the destination time, the crew see:
  • When the date is shown in the Time Machine for the first time the current day of the year displayed is July 29th the current time is 10:05. This episode first aired July 29, 2010 and that particular scene of the episode aired at 10:05 PM.
  • Ironically, if Bender had just waited until the evening after to use the backwards time machine that the women's civilization had invented, he could have used it to travel back only as far as the era of robot war, with Fry and Farnsworth going all the way back to where they had begun to travel. But, instead, he decided to skip over that era by millions of years. Bender is just that petty.
  • It seems the Time Machine can travel through time, but not through space, since Farnsworth gives up at the death of the Earth, rather than trying on other planets. However to note that the sun revolves around the galaxy as Earth to the sun, the galaxy would not have have been in the same place in the universe and therefore, by extension, Earth would not have been in the EXACT same place in the universe for it's lifespan.
  • This episode introduces several unusual time travel paradoxes not frequently mentioned in science fiction. Due to the cyclical nature of the timelines and the fact that the time machine cycles through three complete big-bang-big-rip scenarios, we are left wondering what happens to the Fry/Professor/Bender who depart in the time machine in the middle cycle? In the third, they are killed before they take off by the initial iteration of the time machine falling on them, so do they skip ahead two cycles as well and kill the trio again in the fourth cycle? Would they see other iterations of the time machine 10 feet above them if they looked out the windshield, as each universe seemed to be "lower" than the last? And what is the time-machine made of that allows its subatomic particles to maintain their integrity beyond the decay of the last proton? The writers are incredible to pull off such magnificent imaginings!
  • When Fry loses the birthday card, we briefly see Future Leela outside the time machine. Later, we see the same moment in-universe, as the time machine passes Future Leela, and the card flies out and hits her.
  • In the season 1 finale of Disenchantment, which is a sister show of Futurama, Bender, Fry, and Farnsworth could be seen in the time machine, while Luci viewed previous events in a crystal ball. This could possibly mean that Futurama and Disenchantment are in the same universe, and that the time machine may have been in Dreamland up to 15 years before current events there. This could possibly mean that the time machine may have stopped there after time restarted.

Allusions[]

The Flintstones[]

Once the time paradoxes are fixed, Bender exclaims, "Yabba Dabba Doo!", which is the popular catchphrase of Fred Flintstone from the vintage cartoon The Flintstones.

Mr. Magoo[]

Bender says "Gimme the keys, Magoo!" to the Professor. This line references the classic cartoon character Mr. Magoo, who was old like Farnsworth, and known for being near-sighted, often getting himself into crazy situations because he didn't wear glasses.

The Time Machine[]

In the year 5000000, the world has been split into two races: the small land dwellers, and the Dumblocks, who live underground, exactly like the Eloi and the Morlocks in H. G. Wells' book, The Time Machine.

  • However by the year 10000000, they have merged again in one being.

Back to the Future[]

Professor Farnsworth said they will go 1 minute into the future which is a reference to the 1985 movie Back to the Future.

Restaurant at the End of the Universe[]

Fry, Bender, and the Professor sit back with beers to watch the world end. This possibly a reference to Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.

Planet of the Apes[]

The various Statues of Liberty with different animals is a reference to the 1968 movie Planet of The Apes.

In the Year 2525[]

The song playing during the time-travel montage, In The Year 2525, is an adaption of the 1969 hit song with the same name, "In the Year 2525" by Zager & Evans. Similar to the time in the episode, the song tells tales of later and later centuries and finally concludes with the first verse again and fading out.

Terminator[]

The year 10000000, where robots enslave and or kill humanity, is a reference to the 1984 movie The Terminator which also features time travel.

Continuity[]

Footnotes[]

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