At the end of the last century, namely in 1999, the Fox channel management decided to try to launch an unusual animated series. He talked about the life of people in the future, after a thousand years and was called "Futurama."
However, its plot was radically different from most other projects that describe the future. This cartoon ridiculed all modern ideas about a possible future. And although people do not like to be bullied over them and their hopes, the satirical characters of Futurama, her unusual plot and constant self-irony quickly found millions of fans around the world.
Cartoon "Futurama"
The creators of Futurama were David Cohen and Matt Groening - people who became famous for having come up with the animated series The Simpsons, which for more than two and a half decades has continued to be loved by viewers across the planet. Futurama was their next brainchild to be released on the same Fox channel.
Whereas in The Simpsons, Groening and Cohen ridiculed all the shortcomings of the modern culture and worldview of the Americans, constantly beating all the latest in all areas of life of modern people, in Futurama its creators applied the same technique to the distant future and did it very skillfully. The name of the new series is a kind of pun, meaning "panorama of the future."
Like The Simpsons, the first season of Futurama consisted of thirteen episodes, and the next one had a greater number of episodes. Initially, Futurama successfully appeared on the Fox channel for four seasons. However, soon the interest in the project at the channel was lost, and it was closed. Many fans around the world have protested this decision. Due to the fact that interest in the project has not faded away, in 2007 the first full-length cartoon “Futurama” was released. Over the next two years, three more such projects came out.
At the same time, the Fox channel sells Comedy Central the rights to Futurama, and soon the series “moves” to the new channel. At first, old series were shown here, as well as all full-length cartoons. The fifth season comes out in the summer of 2009, and two more after. In 2013, Comedy Central discontinued Futurama. Despite this, its optimistic creators David Cohen and Matt Graining to this day do not stop searching for new investors who are ready to revive this unusual project.
Cartoon plot
The animated series tells about the inconspicuous and lazy pizza delivery man in New York named Philip Fry. December 31, 1999, while the whole world was celebrating the beginning of the new millennium, the guy was forced to work and deliver pizza to the cryogenics laboratory. Here, in the last minutes of the past year, Fry accidentally landed in a cryochamber and was frozen in it for a thousand years.
After this period, the protagonist was thawed and ended up in the world of the future. Trying to find one of his relatives, the guy stumbles upon the inventor and owner of the Interplanetary Express, Professor Hugh Farnswont, who concurrently has a guest from the past great-great-great and many times great-great-grand-nephew.
In parallel, trying to avoid the messenger profession imposed by the program, Fry becomes friends with Turanga Lila, as well as the kleptomaniac robot Bender Rodriguez. In the end, they all get a job in the company of a professor and, fulfilling orders, travel throughout the universe, getting into all sorts of interesting stories.
Futurama Cartoon Characters: Fry
The main character, around which the whole plot revolves, is Philip J. Fry. He is a New Yorker in the late twentieth century. In fact, Fry is smart, kind and childishly trusting. However, all its advantages cross one huge flaw - laziness. It is because of her that Fry seeks the simplest ways, often without making efforts where it would be worth doing.
In the past, because of the reluctance to learn and develop, the professional life of a guy does not add up, and he works only as a pizza delivery man. In addition, he had a girlfriend Michelle whom he lived with. But this beauty used the naivety of her boyfriend and constantly instructed him with “horns”. She eventually dumped him.
Once in the future, Fry discovers that, despite the tremendous achievements of progress, nothing has changed much in the field of relationships.
The best friend of an alien from the past is a bending robot named Bender. Despite the cunning nature of the robot and its love of various scams and deceit, they have a real friendship with Fry, who have a lot to go through for all seven seasons. Fry and Bender are neighbors in the apartment, but each of them has to sacrifice something for harmonious coexistence.
While the other characters of Futurama (photo below) are trying to somehow adapt to life, Fry looks at many things like a child. Having become the owner of a huge fortune of money, he spends all of them to enjoy his last can of anchovies in the universe with his friends.
Despite the poor financial and social situation, Fry often has novels with girls, but they all end in separation. This is due to the fact that the main love of the guy’s life is his work colleague Leela. Fry is trying hard to achieve reciprocity, but for a long time the girl refuses him. In the end, Turanga Lila sincerely falls in love with her unlucky fan from the past, and they get married.
It is noteworthy that one of Fry’s passions was his grandmother during the journey of the Interplanetary Express team into the past. After spending the night with his grandmother, Fry becomes his grandfather. This circumstance caused the appearance of a genetic feature of Fry’s brain, thanks to which he was able to save the Earth from the invasion of an alien race.
Futurama Characters: Leela
If the whole plot of Futurama revolves around Fry’s persona, then this guy’s life is focused on a one-eyed girl with purple hair named Turanga Lila. The word "Turanga" in Sanskrit means "love song." And Leela really looks like a goddess of love: she has a beautiful figure and face, luxurious lilac hair gathered in a ponytail at the back of her head, and one eye. By the way, it is because of one eye that the heroine is constantly complexing. As a child in a shelter, they laughed at her because of this, so when she grew up, uncertainty remained. In one of the episodes, the girl even performed an operation and inserted her second eye, but this did not bring her happiness, and she returned her previous appearance.
At the beginning of the series, when the characters of Futurama only get to know each other, the girl explains the presence of one eye with her alien origin. However, she still cannot figure out where she comes from. One day, Leela met in a chat with a one-eyed guy, claiming that he was her last surviving relative, and the place they are obliged to revive their race. But when the crew of the Interplanetary Express flies to his planet, it soon becomes clear that he is a liar, and his whole story is pure fiction.
In Season Four, the creators of the series finally reveal the truth about the Lila family. In fact, the girl’s parents are not aliens - they are mutants, forced to hide deep underground to avoid the persecution of ordinary people. When she was born to Lila's parents, the girl turned out to be almost normal with the exception of one eye (like her mother's). Realizing that the baby has a chance to build a normal life in society on the surface, her parents threw her into a shelter, posing as an alien.
Despite the peculiarity of her appearance, Leela is successful in men, but she does not manage to find her ideal. Over time, she rethinks her attitude towards guys and realizes that the real love of her life is Fry, who, despite her strange character, perceives her as she is and does not dream of changing.
At the beginning of the series, Leela worked as an officer distributing professions in a cryogenic laboratory. The girl did not like this occupation, but she did not change anything, as it was customary in the society of the future. The appearance of Fry, namely his ardent protest against the unloved affair, forced Lila to reconsider her views on life, and she saved Fry. In addition, the girl herself left her unloved job, being outlawed. A little later, Professor Farnsworth helped Lily and Fry solve this problem.
Robot Bender Rodriguez
Among the universe of the series Futurama, Bender became the most famous character. In many ways, it resembles a hybrid of Homer and Bart Simpsons from the animated series of the same name, but it has more negative sides, while still attracting viewers.
Bender is a silver-colored robot (in parallel reality it is golden) with extremely mobile hands that constantly strive to steal something. It is noteworthy that even after being disconnected from the body, Bender’s hands still tried to steal everything that comes across. In addition, the robot has a sturdy metal case in which it hides the loot. Interestingly, in several episodes, Bender put a bomb in the body, and he withstood the explosion.
Like most models in this line, the robot needs alcohol to act as fuel to exist. Over time, an alternative appeared in the form of mineral oil, but Bender traditionally uses alcohol, and much more than necessary. Rodriguez also often smokes cigars and does it in order to look cooler.
Despite all its shortcomings, at heart Bender is a sensual person (at the beginning of the series, having learned that his work is used to make suicide booths, the robot could not put up with this), but he rarely gives in to emotions.
As for the beautiful half, the robot is greedy for beautiful robot girls. Moreover, almost all of his memory is loaded with porn. Also, throughout the series, the robot had relationships with ordinary girls (Amy, Lila). In the seventh season, a son was born from a novel with a soda machine.
The favorite phrase of this character is Bite my shiny metal ass, which literally can be translated as “Bite me for a sparkling metal butt.”
Professor Hubert Farnsworth
In the animated film Futurama, the characters (the names of the most important of them were mentioned above) work in the transport company Interplanetary Express. Its owner is thirty times the "great" granddaughter of Fry, Professor Hubert Farnsworth.
This man is truly a genius: despite his origins from the bottom, he was soon able to invent many ingenious devices and gain worldwide fame. However, most of the professor’s research is extremely expensive and time consuming. In order not to depend on sponsors and not need them, the professor opened the Interplanetary Express company. With its help, he makes a living and his inventions, periodically testing the latter on his team.
Of the relatives, except Fry, the professor has a clone of Kubert Farsworth, as well as a son from the omnipotent head of Mom’s corporations, Ignar.
Minor Characters
Having dealt with the name of the characters from "Futurama", who play the main roles in the plot of the animated series, it is worth mentioning secondary ones.
Amy Wong is an intern at Professor Farnsworth. Despite the degree of Doctor of Applied Physics, she is stupid and short-sighted. In the Interplanetary Express, the professor holds her only because she has the same blood type as he, and therefore, can become his donor. She is a friend of Lila, despite periodic disputes and conflicts. At different times she met with Fry and Bender. Has a permanent guy - an alien named Kif.
Dr. John Zoidberg - an alien, which is a hybrid of lobster and man, is almost omnivorous. He works as a doctor in the "Interplanetary Express." However, his knowledge of human anatomy is scarce. As an old friend of the professor, he continues to work for him. Due to the inability to handle money, Zoidberg is always hungry and poor. Hates other doctors.
A thirty-fourth level bureaucrat hails from Jamaica named Hermes Conrad. Often it is thanks to him that the Interplanetary Express manages to stay afloat, since Hermes is engaged in accounting. He has a wife who has a lover, and a son, Dwight. In the past, he was a limbo champion, but because of the death of his fan, he left this sport.
Enumerating the names of the characters from Futurama, one cannot fail to mention one of the main villains of the series - Mommy. He is one of the richest women on the planet, as he heads the company for the production of robots and parts for them Momcorp. In public, he is trying to maintain the image of a good old woman, for which he wears a special suit. In reality, she tried several times to take over the world, but the "Interplanetary Express" stood in her way. In the past, Hermes, Zoidberg, and Farnsworth worked for her company. A woman has three sons.
The animated series Futurama has long become a television classic and has earned many prestigious awards, including several Emmys. It is a pity that this project was closed. However, it remains to be hoped that there will be a channel that wants to breathe life into this promising cartoon, and the beloved characters of Futurama will again meet the audience on the screen.