The old "Everything is worse now" discussion - General Futurama Discussion. SPOILER ALERT

[Reply #720 on:]

Yeah, I thought the Pukemi poopyu was a funny line, but it wasn't worth that just... blurgh.  The episode had a great premise, but was ruined by being too topical as well as having too much repulsive gross out humor...

and Susan Boil is the disgusting mutant daughter of both these things.

[Reply #721 on:]

Mmhmm. Nothing about "phone that's embedded in your eye" suggests or even remotely hints at "two-headed puking goat". It was there for the sake of being gross, not really to advance the plot. Fry could have had to do any number of things as punishment for losing the bet. Embarrassing does not mandate disgusting.

[Reply #722 on:]

To be fair, Attack of the Killer App is an episode that falls down at even the most basic levels of plotting, before you even get to the jokes.

Not only is there no ending, but Mom's plan also makes no sense for several reasons.

[Reply #723 on:]

I think that stems from the fact that the writers relied too heavily on the premise ('eyePhone') and thought that alone would save the episode.  I assume, since it was one of the first episodes, that their time was limited in terms of writing and they had decided to focus on "Rebirth" rather than the episodes that immediately surrounded it.

[Reply #724 on:]

Yeah, but the basic premise is kinda cool. It's heavily referential, but the idea of "phone implanted in eye that makes them all zombie-like" isn't bad.

Svip, yeah, the early episodes probably suffered from being near Rebirth.

[Reply #725 on:]

Not only is there no ending, but Mom's plan also makes no sense for several reasons.

This is probably obvious, but I can't be bothered to work it out, so please, do explain.

[Reply #726 on:]

The Susan Boil "joke" is just inexcusable and one of the worst in the shows history. I agree that having the eyePhone implanted in your eye is a great idea, very Futurama-y. Shame pretty much everything else was the opposite of Futurama-y. Still. The ep has its funny moments, and although Mom isn't used well, it was still nice seeing her...

[Reply #727 on:]

The Susan Boil "joke" is just inexcusable and one of the worst in the shows history.

Yep, I agree with you here.
- I espcecially disliked them picking on a singer really using her voice alone, and not the "random-model-dolly-that's-a-looker-with-a-voice-you-just-get-away-with".
-Also, I hope they don't come up with more random mutations for the "least mutated mutant ever", just for some throwaway gag.

But I had to grin when that Boil made her well known. After all, in the early episodes she was considered to be the only one of her species in the whole known universe: Compared to the minor achievements of today's media phenomena (e.g. the soccer WM: An octopus eating 8 times the correct food in a row, and yet they did sent several TV teams to broadcast his last prediction LIVE..GAWD!!!;)), nearly EVERYONE on earth would know Leela
(Don't get me wrong: I'm not bothered by that mistake, for I consider it a rather funny one. The same way she put on her "Cloberella" mask and expected no one to recognize her, despite of being the only cyclops on the surface )

[Reply #728 on:]

I thought this episode started great. It was a little too focussed on current events (the apple hype... can you still call that "current"?), but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Then the goat came along... that was the first major bummer. But that I could somehow accept because it was related to the plot. They needed something that would make the bet a little more competition-like. They unfortunately went for something pretty damn gross that would never have been accepted with Fox... which would have been a good thing.

But anyhow, that one was forgivable. Susan Boil however was not. WTF were the writers thinking? From that point on, the episode was more or less ruined. A singing wart is the great secret Leela has been hiding? Was this written by a twelve-year old? Seriously. I can see how they got the idea for that oh-so-clever joke. But someone there should have stepped up and said: Hold on a second, this is awful! It really is beyond me how this dumb joke could make it all the way through the writing process. Why didn't anybody step up? I feel similar about the endings of IAGDL and YLL, too...

Edit: Please someone say: "Your avatar picture is too revealing" or something like that, so I get to say: "Oh, you're no fun!" Ghost in the Machines wasn't that a great episode, but that scene had me rolling on the floor...

[Reply #729 on:]

Not only is there no ending, but Mom's plan also makes no sense for several reasons.

This is probably obvious, but I can't be bothered to work it out, so please, do explain.

Most noticeably, if she can deploy the Twitworm whenever she likes, through more than one person (as she sends it to both Fry and Bender's followers), why doesn't she just send it through everybody on Twitcher's accounts so as to hit almost everybody who uses the site? Why wait for just one person with a million followers? It makes absolutely no sense.

But also, things like how all she has them do is buy the new eyePhone when it's completely apparant that they'd all do that anyway given how crazy they all went for the first one and ditched their old phones, etc. I know that this is the joke, but it's still a fairly illogical thing to do. I don't think the humour justifies it. I mean... it might guarantee that she'll make more money but it's also an uncessecary risk that could destroy her business / get in her trouble with the authorities and she's rich enough to not need to do it.

Plus, it bugs me that we haven't seen eyePhones since that episode and there's been no mention of them either. It's not even like they haven't used phones since the episode either. Why did Bender need to use that phone booth in 'Lethal Inspection' if he had an eyePhone installed?

[Reply #730 on:]

Exactly, what was the point of the Twit Worm?  Last time Mom hijacked the brains of a large number of people, civilization crumbled, and she could easily have become Queen of Fucking Earth if she wanted to be.  And all with the touch of a button.

Okay so she uses an extremely convulated plan to infect the brains of a much smaller fraction of people, and what does she use them to do...?

Buy her next overpriced item that they would have probably stampeded downtown to buy anyway.  Awful use of Mom.  I mean seriously the money she would have made using the Twit Worm's infectees are probably what she throws away at the races or on priceless art tablemats anyway.    I love Mom, but I was so annoyed they used her in such a stupid plot.  Mom thinks big and shes certainly not going to go through all that effort to get the money of a million people, especially since they were probably going to trample eachother to buy the next Eye Phone anyway.

Sorry Mom, but the writers really handed you the Herp a Fucking Derp ball that day.   You should have jammed it up the coffee girl's ass, and threatened worse if the writers did not write you a b plot that wasn't completely retarded.

[Reply #731 on:]

I feel like the main conflict - Fry doesn't want to lose contest but can only win by embarrassing Leela - isn't super interesting. It functions fine but it's one of the more average-feeling plots/episodes of the show overall to me.

I feel like the episode has a lot going for it, though, and I don't really get why it's so hated by some. The Susan Boil joke isn't great and some of the puns don't really work ("Twitcher"? Eh...), but I like how the episode comments on the zeitgeist of our times, and where we're headed. All the commentary about the days of social networking, instant communication, etc is pretty spot on, and it seems to have been written by people who genuinely understand it (30 Rock had some basically funny but slightly embarrassing stuff lampooning Facebook, where it seemed the joke was more about how hard to use it is, or rather, how hard it it is for people out of the technology loop to use it). I just love all the scenes where they're sending out tweet-like messages to each other when they're in the SAME ROOM. Just all the material about modern phones, social networking, and how all that stuff has invaded our actual, one-to-one interactions with people was really funny and spot on, without seeming like it was trying to pretentiously attack it.

Also, Mr. Chunks was hilarious. It was obnoxiously gross in a clever way. I'll take that over the barfing whale any day.

But yeah, overall I thought it was kind of an average episode, but there are a good number of weaker ones, old and new.

[Reply #732 on:]

I really like "Attack of the Killer App," despite the obvious flaws (the goat is nasty, the notion of a singing butt boil would have been passable had they not turned it into a lame-ass Susan Boyle "joke"), because it makes me laugh. Some of the satire is all right (and I still think that Mr. Chunks was deliberately disgusting as a parody of the gross and sensational stuff people will put on YouTube), and the apparent stupidity of Mom's plan doesn't bother me (the ending's supposed to be coincidental ironic, isn't it?). And I like the Fry/Leela thing, because for once it was a story that kind of explored the dynamics of their relationship without it being about Fry desperately wanting to win Leela over. He messes up, Leela gets mad; he repents, but Leela stops being mad at him before that point anyway. It's just interesting to me, how that aspect of the story plays out. I don't know. I'm weird.

And, actually, this...

Also, I hope they don't come up with more random mutations for the "least mutated mutant ever", just for some throwaway gag.

...is what bugs me the most about the episode. Just the fact that the writers are dumping on "Leela's Homeworld" by giving Leela all these gross mutations. I'd say elbow talons and singing boils are enough to take you out of the running for Least Mutated Mutant. But, yeah, it's not the joke of a singing butt boil itself that so bothers me--it's the implications it has for Leela's back-story and her parents' decision to give her up.

[Reply #733 on:]

They had Leela for, what, a day? Maybe the talons and boil hadn't really grown in at that point. In any case, they're apparently hide-able, so it's not like she isn't still the least "obvious" mutant. The eye is more of a giveaway.

[Reply #734 on:]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure they would have left Leela on some sort of subterranean hillside if Susan Boyle had reared her ugly head on Leela's just born butt.

Agreed with dothebartman.  The elbow talons are extremely minor compared to the giant eye, and the talons are pretty trivial compared to having gills, pig snouts, froglike skin, two heads, a rat tail, being a foot or an octopus formerly known as Virginia...

[Reply #735 on:]

I can't complain about the talons because I think they're epic. The boil, though, was taking a dump on some old, fairly important canon info without a good reason just like the bees in the Craptacular. If not worse, because Leela's kind of more integral to the plot of the series than the bees are.

[Reply #736 on:]

The boil was a stupid mutation for Leela and the elbow talons are as stupid but at least, they didn't make a whole episode about that.

[Reply #737 on:]

The boil was a stupid mutation for Leela and the elbow talons are as stupid but at least, they didn't make a whole episode about that.

Nor did they with Susan. She only came into it like half way through.

[Reply #738 on:]

Yes you're right, but she is the twist of the episode. And it was even promoted by the staff as a "shocking secret"

[Reply #739 on:]

I can't complain about the talons because I think they're epic. The boil, though, was taking a dump on some old, fairly important canon info without a good reason just like the bees in the Craptacular. If not worse, because Leela's kind of more integral to the plot of the series than the bees are.

What was actually continuity-breaking? I don't even remember anything about the bees in Holiday Spectacular being continuity-breaking, but even if it had been the episode itself is non-canon.

I guess the boil is on thinner ice, but I still don't see the big deal. The whole point is that it was something that she was hiding - hence, we haven't seen it before, but that doesn't mean it simply isn't there. And she mentions she's able to lance the thing for months at a time.

[Reply #740 on:]

The bees in FHS talked. The whole point of the bees in The Sting is that they didn't speak.

Sure, FHS was non-canon, but ripping on the bees that way was dumb.

[Reply #741 on:]

I don't get how the talking bees in the holiday spectacular "ruined" The Sting either. Does anyone actually enjoy The Sting less when they go back to it because of what happened in a later non-canon episode?

I'm not saying I liked the talking space bees, I just think that saying it ruined The Sting is a rather large overreaction.

[Reply #742 on:]

Eh, they kinda soil the specialness of "The Sting" because part of what's so great about that episode--for me, at least--is that it kind of exists as a single, awesome entity. I don't need callbacks to that episode because it stands so well on its own. It's similar to how people were annoyed by what "Bender's Big Score" did to "Jurassic Bark" and "The Luck of the Fryrish"--though to a lesser extent. Some things don't need to be drudged up or referred back to (though arguably this enriches and fleshes out Futurama's fictional universe) because they just seem so, I don't know, sacred.

This is admittedly some of my nostalgia-based bias talking, no doubt.

[Reply #743 on:]

I never said it ruined The Sting, did I? I just said that it unnecessarily changed important parts of The Sting. That doesn't make The Sting any worse for me at least, but it does make FHS worse.

[Reply #744 on:]

The bees in FHS talked. The whole point of the bees in The Sting is that they didn't speak.

1. They didn't actually talk. The Professor used some translating invention thing, didn't he? I can't be bothered to check, but I remember that they definitely weren't actually speaking - therefore, continuity was completely in check.

2. The space bees not talking wasn't the whole point of 'The Sting'.

[Reply #745 on:]

Did they? Oh. Perhaps. Hmm, okay. I do know, though, that I'm certainly not the first to complain about this. Nor did I ever feel particularly strongly about it, so I don't know why I'm being so adamant here.

2. The space bees not talking wasn't the whole point of 'The Sting'.

I didn't say it was the whole point of The Sting. I said it was the whole point of the bees in The Sting, which it kind of was, because it was Bender's misuse of the translator device that pissed off the bees, which is why they attacked the crew, which is why Leela and Fry got stung. A bit of an overexaggeration, I admit, because the bees had other characteristics besides not talking. But their not talking was pretty essential to the plot.

[Reply #746 on:]

I never said it ruined The Sting, did I? I just said that it unnecessarily changed important parts of The Sting. That doesn't make The Sting any worse for me at least, but it does make FHS worse.

No, you never said it ruined The Sting, but others have and That's what I was talking about.

[Reply #747 on:]

Yeah I thought (after I posted) that maybe it was because they talked, but I was certain there was some kind of explanation...in any case, these trilogies don't even follow the show's normal rules so it wouldn't bother me if they violated continuity somehow with one of them. To me it's a bit like complaining about the Simpsons Halloween episodes because there aren't supposed to be ghosts and monsters and aliens and stuff in the Simpsons universe, or that characters aren't supposed to die and then come back with no explanation. I mean, the rule-breaking is sort of the point.

As a general rule, I don't really mind if things from previous episodes are called back to...they're just a part of the universe of the show, so of course they're going to be. If it was like, I dunno, Leela's long-lost twin comes back and the episode's super emotional and then the twin leaves forever and that's the point of the episode...yeah it would suck if they brought that back again with no real fanfare or explanation. But offhand I can't think of anything actually within the show that I would mind a callback to as long as it's clever or funny or interesting. If an episode is just so good, it might as well become a part of the show's larger fabric. I don't think it dulls the impact of the original episode; if it's that good it should still stand on its own.

[Reply #748 on:]

No, you never said it ruined The Sting, but others have and That's what I was talking about.

It has greatly reduced the enjoyment of The Sting for me, sadly.

[Reply #749 on:]

Bees communicate by dance according to The Sting, but fuck that, lets make them talk, and not just that, let's get them talking like ganster's in a ghetto because it'll be funny. Don't worry, when you re-watch The Sting you'll forget all about it...

Oh...

[Reply #750 on:]

Yeah, again, they're still communicating by dance, but it's being translated.

[Reply #751 on:]

I didn't like that way of doing things though, or the stupid voices used that they were translated in. I much preferred to just have subtitles with the bees and buzzing sound effects, much more tasteful...

[Reply #752 on:]

I don't think the bees in The Sting were ruined.  They're still deeply aggressive and they did talk in their original episode, albeit non verbally (he insulted our fat queen!).   The queen bee talking like a women's studies professor at a community college was a bit weird, but I enjoyed it.  The craptacular was non canon anyway so the bees are still non verbal speakers anyway.  

[Reply #753 on:]

The non-canon argument can go only so far in my mind, simply because Fry references a canon episode in going back there. That to me draws parallels and instantly puts my mind into comparison mode before they even got back there...

Also, the whole thing lingers like a bad aftertaste or a bad dream which you can't forget after you've woken up, and then you look at your reality, you feel it, and the people who appeared in your bad dream are juxtaposed along with the places you visited in sleep land. A different light is cast upon reality and your eyes and senses devour it in hindsight of your non-canon dreams influence upon its many facets and that sense of uneasiness due to those bad memories...

[Reply #754 on:]

If Im honest I think people are overreacting too much to the space bees.  I watched the Sting again, and the Craptacular didnt diminish my apprecation for that episode at all.  But then again I dont really think Craptacular was as bad as everyone makes out.  I really loved the middle segment, felt the other two were pretty forgettable, but I dont think it gave me eye cancer and murdered my cat.

[Reply #755 on:]

I watched The Sting again recently and yes I still loved it and the Space Bees from Holiday Craptacular didn't ruin the experience, but at the same time I couldn't help thinking about them either, which I'd rather not have had scarred on my memory. I guess I just feel that the classics shouldn't be messed with, canon or otherwise...

True the middle segment of Craptacular was the best, but I thought all were poor and that was the best of a bad bunch to me. Just look at how much better every segment of Reincarnation is, it's in a completely different league! I would say Holiday Craptacular is forgettable if it wasn't so bad, but I remember it due to its badness ...

[Reply #756 on:]

I actually thought Robonikuh was a lot more enjoyable then the middle segment of Reincarnation, which could have been a regular Futurama episode.   The only downpart was the meh song, but apart from that it could easily have been a classic AOI segment. 

[Reply #757 on:]

Also, the whole thing lingers like a bad aftertaste

Yes. This. Exactly.

It really didn't reduce my enjoyment of The Sting at all. I love The Sting, like pretty much everyone. I think I ranked it number 2. It just lessened the value of the Spectacular, which was already admittedly pretty low.

I liked the Robanukah segment and I liked parts of the others. The song in the Kwanzaa bit was pretty funny, and aspects of the Christmas one were also not bad (And if Grandma's Xmas fruitcake finally reaches critical mass, it can be regifted straight to Santa's ass).

[Reply #758 on:]

Yeah I really enjoyed that line! 

I also liked Leela singing about Amy's bullet proof vest.

[Reply #759 on:]

Also, the whole thing lingers like a bad aftertaste

Yes. This. Exactly.

A while back I was at a party and consumed, well... (<Professor Farnsworth> "Yeah, I've had a few beers") before crashing out.  The next morning I had a pounding headache and reached for my glass of warm, stale, piss-water American beer to slake a monumental thirst*.  Two swallows into it I discovered the butts of the cigarettes that had been put out in it.

That's approximately the degree of bad aftertaste I have from the Craptacular.  Most sadly, that story is not a parable

*This was before I discovered the nectar of the gods from St. James Gate brewery.