Space Pilot 3000
From Futurama Wiki
| Space Pilot 3000 | |
|---|---|
| |
| Episode | 1 |
| Production Code | 1ACV01 |
| Air date | March 28, 1999 |
| Running Time | 30 minutes |
| Directed By | Rich Moore Gregg Vanzo |
| Written By | David X. Cohen Matt Groening |
| Guests | Dick Clark as himself Leonard Nimoy as himself |
| Followed by | The Series Has Landed |
Space Pilot 3000 is the first episode of Futurama, and introduces most of the core concepts and main characters that would be featured in the series.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
When Philip J. Fry, a New York pizza delivery boy falls for a prank call (delivery to I.C. Weiner at the Cryogenics lab, who is actually Nibbler trying to preserve Fry) on December 31, 1999, he realizes his life has hit rock bottom; his girlfriend is cheating on him and he has no prospects. As he unenthusiastically rings in the new millenium, he accidentally falls backwards into a cryogenic tube and is frozen for 1000 years. He is defrosted and wakes up on December 31, 2999 in New New York, a city built on the ruins of New York City. He is welcomed by the cryogenics lab workers, and meets his fate assignment officer Turanga Leela; whose job it is to analyze defrostees and implant appropriate Career Chips in their hands.
Fry finds his permanently assigned job is to be a delivery boy; before Leela can implant the chip, Fry flees the cryonics building and takes to the streets of New New York; Leela gives chase. Fry attempts to call his great, great etc. nephew, Hubert Farnsworth , but mistakes a Suicide Booth for a phone booth. Into the booth walks Bender; the two only narrowly escape death. Bender steers Fry to a nearby bar, where he explains that he doesn't care whether he lives or dies since he found out that the bars he worked at bending were used for suicide booths. When Leela and the cops URL and Smitty find them at the bar, the fugitives duck into The Head Museum, where they meet Leonard Nimoy's Head. When Leela finds them in the Museum, Bender is convinced to override his programming and bends window bars to allow their escape. The two go underground to the decaying ruins of Old, New York.
When Leela finally catches up with Fry, and he surrenders, she realises she had always wanted to quit, and abandons her job in the cryonics facility. Fry suggests they visit his distant relative Professor Farnsworth, who verifies Fry's identity with a genetic test. They escape the law yet again in the Planet Express spaceship, at the very turn of the millenium. Farnsworth removes their fugitive status by hiring the three as the new space ship crew for his package delivery service and giving them the last crew's career chips; Fry is once again a delivery boy.
[edit] Memorable quotes
- "Let me show you around. That's my lab table and this is my work-stool! And over there is my intergalactic spaceship. And here's where I keep assorted lengths of wire!"
"Whoa! A real live spaceship!"
"I designed it myself. Let me show you some of the different lengths of wire I used!" - ―Professor Farnsworth, and Fry[src]
[edit] Appearances
[edit] Characters
- Philip J. Fry
- Mr. Panucci
- Michelle
- Turanga Leela
- Terry
- Bender
- URL
- Smitty
- Richard Nixon's Head
- Professor Hubert Farnsworth
- Leonard Nimoy's Head
[edit] Technology
[edit] Other
- Slurm (billboard)
- Bachelor Chow (billboard)
- Olde Fortran Malt Liquor
[edit] References
- Fry is playing a video game called Monkey Fracas Jr. at the pizza place, narrating it as he plays. The game starts out as a space shooter similar to Asteroids and/or Defender, then approaches a Saturn-like planet at the end of the level. At that point, the planet breaks in half, and an ape resembling Donkey Kong emerges. The ape throws barrels at the spaceship and destroys it. The game's name itself is a parody of Donkey Kong, Jr.
- Fry's narration is a parody of the opening narration that appeared in both Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation.[1] "Space: The Final Frontier..." becomes "Space: It seems to go on and on forever...".
- When Fry is frozen in the cryonic chamber time is seen passing outside the window until the year 3000. New York City is leveled by aliens, rebuilt as a medieval city, leveled again by aliens and rebuilt as New New York. This is a parody of the scenes in the film The Time Machine[2] based on H.G Wells' novel when the inventor pushes the lever forward on his Time Machine and sees the world, and time, moving very rapidly.
- When Fry walks out of the lab, an ad on a taxi behind him reads "Got protoplasm?", a reference to the series of "Got Milk?" advertising slogans.
- During Fry's "Cross Town Express" trip through the pneumatic tube transport system, he passes the three eyed fish Blinky from The Simpsons as the tube passes underwater.
- In the bar, Bender drinks "Olde Fortran Malt Liquor, referencing Old English Malt Liquor. Fortran is a computer language, English a human language...
- When Fry knocks over Richard Nixon's Head, he says "You just made my list", a reference to his Enemies List. [3]
- The two policemen who try to arrest Fry at the head museum are using weapons which visually are similar to lightsabers used in the Star Wars[4] series, however they are functionally more similar to nightsticks.
- Just before the theme song begins music similar to the Star Trek theme song is played.
[edit] Foreshadowing
- Before Fry falls into the freezer, a scene shows a strange shadow cast on the wall behind him. It is revealed in "The Why Of Fry" that the shadow belongs to Nibbler, who intentionally pushes Fry into the freezer as part of a complex plan. This is proof that the creators of the series always had the idea of Nibbler's importance from the very beginning. However, "The Why Of Fry" shows in the same scene Fry's own shadow alongside Nibbler's indicating a subtle yet ultimately-profound change in the timeline.
- During the countdown scene at the end of the episode (in the year 2999), France is shown, yet the inhabitants there use the English language instead of French. It is assumed that French in the future is a dead language; this idea is supported in a later episode where Professor Farnsworth invents a universal translator that can only translate into "an incomprehensible dead language".
- Fry's full name, Philip Joshua Fry, can just be seen on the computer screen when Leela is assigning his career, but his first name is not spoken in dialogue until "The Problem With Popplers".
- At the very end of the episode, Professor Farnsworth offers Fry, Leela, and Bender the Planet Express delivery crew position. When prompted about the last crew, the Professor says "Oh those poor sons of B...B-But that doesn't matter now, the point is I need a new crew!". The Professor then produces an envelope labeled "Contents of Space Wasp's Stomach" which contains the necessary career chips. In The Sting, Fry, Leela, and Bender visit the hive of a swarm of space bees to collect honey, and the fate of the previous crew is revealed when the original Planet Express Ship is found with the black box intact.
- In Bender's Big Score we find out that the alien ships destroying the city behind the cryogenically frozen Fry are controlled by Bender.
[edit] Trivia
- The countries and their cities in the first countdown scene appear in this order: New York; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; Cairo, Egypt; Greece; China; India; a tribal village in Africa; Tokyo, Japan; and the entire Earth.
- While Leela is looking for Fry in the head museum Matt Groening's head is shown on one of the shelves.
- The countries, their cities, and places in New New York in the second countdown scene appear in this order: The Planet Express spaceship; New New York, New New York, USA; Cairo, Egypt; Paris, France; an alien home; the Applied Cryogenics lab in New New York; the Head Museum in New New York; and the Planet Express spaceship
- Originally, the first person entering the tube network declared J.F.K., Jr. Airport as his destination, a pun continuing the idea that in the future, New New York would have similar landmarks that were in old New York City. This was inspired by the flurry of streets and institutions across the United States being named and renamed after his father, the Former and Late President John F. Kennedy, shortly after his infamous assassination in 1963. However, after John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s death in the crash of his private airplane, the line has since been redubbed on all subsequent broadcasts and the DVD release to Radio City Mutant Hall. The original version was heard only during the pilot broadcast and the first rerun a few months later.
- As Bender and Fry escape from the head museum, shortly before entering the remains of Old New York a scrawling on the wall reads "Venusians Go Home" in Alien Language 1.
- Leela's official designation is "Officer 1BDI" which, when said fast, becomes "one beady eye".
[edit] Goofs
- Although Fry entered the freezer at midnight on January 1, 2000, he wakes up early on December 31, 2999. There are many different explanations for this, the simplest being that the freezer clock is not accurate enough to accommodate a thousand years. A more complex (and more likely) argument involves the difference between a Gregorian year (which averages 365.2425 days per year) and a tropical year (which averages approximately 365.2422), leading to a discrepancy of 0.3 days or 7.2 hours... placing Fry's "awakening" at 4:36pm, December 31, 2999. Another possibility is that the freezer was programmed for 1000 Gregorian years, or 365242.5 days, which means he would be awakened at 12 noon on December 31, 2999, which is consistent with the daylight shown outside the window when Fry awakens. [5]
- The Radio City Mutant Hall overdub (see above) is inconsistent with the series describing mutants as needing a pass to even venture above ground. However, the Washington Redskins is not a team composed of Native Americans, nor are the Vikings all Danes or Swedes; the building could well be called "Radio City Mutant Hall" to obtain a reflected glory in much the same way.
- Bender bends the bars in the Criminal Room of the Head Museum. In the next scene with Bender in the foreground the bars are back to the original position.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ The Star Trek series and films
- ↑ The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
- ↑ Nixon's Enemies List
- ↑ The Star Wars film and book series
- ↑ Gregorian year and Tropical year
