Thoughts on 6ACV23 - All the Presidents' Heads - SPOILERS!

[Reply #40 on:]

These are my thoughts from another forum. I thought it was okay, but one of the weaker ones in recent memory.

It just felt...really aimless. Even more so than with "Duh Vinci Code" I kept wondering why the characters other than the Professor really cared that much about altering (and then fixing) history. Why does Bender or Leela give a shit if Farnsworth manages to improve his family tree? Why are they just blindly following around? It needed a lot more actual character, since they just felt like props meandering through a meandering story. And it had some of that uncomfortable Bender's Game/children's show feeling to it, even though it wasn't technically them playing dress up as other people or whatever. The anti-climactic ending was funny, but it did sort of feel like they just ran out of time and didn't have a good-enough structure or story in general to be able to resolve it in a more interesting way.

But I mean, I still laughed enough and thought it was basically okay. Modern Simpsons this ain't. The British New York scenes in particular were quite funny. But easily the weakest time-travel show and maybe the weakest of season 6 (In a Gadda Da Leela is the main competition).

[Reply #41 on:]

As one of those people in the world that isn't American, I must admit, I find US history pretty boring. However, I can't blame Futurama for this, an American show can't be criticized for being American.

However, one thing that's slightly annoying is the theme of US presidents. We know that Nixon is (was?) President of the World (of which the US is actually a part in the 31st century), yet all Presidents in the jars are white. And up until this episode, it seems the head museum only kept presidents from the 20th century, it was nice to see a lady president in the background at least.

Anyway, just a rant from down under. As I said, I can't complain, the show is (understandably) aimed primarily at Americans.

As someone else mentioned, a couple of the British jokes were good. Loved Hermes shirt! and also the TARDIS. The British accents are tired cliches. It's like satiring the US and having everyone speak in a southern drawl.

[Reply #42 on:]

This is my first review here on PEEL!

I thought this new episode was funny and I enjoyed it. I rated it 7/10 because I thought it was good, but I know that Futurama can do a lot better.

I thought it was funny how Fry revealed that he had a night job working at the Head Museum to pay for coffee to keep him awake for his night job -- that seemed like a classic Fry joke. However, it's shame that Futurama has begun to rely so much on the characters changing jobs to facilitate these stories. I hate to say this but that seems like a very Simpsons-esque plot device, and I think it should be avoided in the future.

The jokes about the Presidents' Heads were a mixed bag, unlike the jokes from A Head in the Polls, which were all great. I would've loved to see the Bushs' heads get puked on -- whatta shame!

The running gag about the people from the past mistaking Bender for various things was kinda funny, but was becoming tedious -- until it was paid off when he fired that cannonball, which made it worthwhile. I also liked Ben Franklin's kite being used to super-charge Bender -- but shouldn't Bender have gotten high off the electricity?

I don't know how I feel about Futurama introducing so many new time-travel methods. I think Matt Groening was smart to impose a prohibition on time travel until Roswell That Ends Well. The machine language time code from Bender's Big Score was okay too, and the forward-only time machine from The Late Philip J Fry. But the Presidents' Heads Jar-licking time travel method just seemed too crazy for a non-Anthology of Interest episode of Futurama. And what was that opalescent substance? Was that a reference to something that I didn't understand -- or just something invented for this episode?

The crazy time-travel method didn't really bother me -- I'm just concerned that it means that there will be as many different ways to travel through time as to operate the What If Machine. I don't think that will be good for Futurama.

P.S.
It's a shame I couldn't find a pic of Deliveryboyman for my handle. Is it possible to upload one myself?

[Reply #43 on:]

You mean your avatar? Ask winna.

[Reply #44 on:]

I thought the British jokes were mostly generic and dull. Overdone mockney, check. Teeth joke, check. Lords and Ladies in the Victorian estate, check. Pretty much the same things that the simpsons did.

The subtle background jokes were the funniest, where the writers had gone to a bit more effort and made something relevant to modern Britain. Hermes was the only character who pulled off an actual Brit perfectly.

It really felt like the British equivilent of the usual method of stereotyping Americans, i.e.:

"Yeat Dawgie, amma gonna bag me a pwiggeh! durn amma done gonna get jiggy wit ma cussin in dur trailur!"

 ...with a shotgun-toting hick sitting on the back of a truck with a confederate flag on the bumper. This is basically the stock stereotype parody of America that gets used in any European TV. Bad teeth, ridiculous poshness and cockney are the usual stock things to pull off the shelf whenever you want to do a British parody. It's a little uninspired.

Would have liked to see something a bit smarter and a *lot* more offensive, in line with british humour... I felt insulted that the episode didn't genuinely offend me in any way.

I'm not sure what Futurama can get away with these days, but a reference to buggery would have been ace... I did like the random "British Bastards!" line in the American part. There are so many more things about the UK that you can totally mock the hell out of if you try. I think the Queen thing was intended to offend, but most of us don't really care about the royalty at all, and she looked more like an alice in wonderland reference than anything.

More use of bollocks and bloody and wanker would have been much better, those always crack me up in parodies. Just a single line with Leela saying wanker in the posh voice as part of an otherwise incredibly polite sentence instead of that ladies in waiting line would have made the episode.

Also, it should have been raining! And people should have been complaining about it. In fact, 90% of the damn conversation should have been about it.

And where were the pigeons? Pigeon express with freaking giant mutant alien derp-eyed pigeons instead of spaceships. Damn country is swarming with the things, you can't walk anywhere in the UK without stepping on an infinite sea of pigeon.

Putting a stupid amount of pigeons in the background everywhere for no good reason would have had me in stitches.

Also, the food they were eating should definitely should have included Faggots and Pasties. They really missed a trick there. Would have been great as a farnsworth line, as anything sex-related always is.

I guess I liked the episode though, it definitely picked up in the last half even if I felt like it was a missed opportunity... the first half I didn't get at all because I know almost nothing about American history. I get that they were signing the declaration of independance... the rest of it went right over my head. The British invaded at some point? Cool, when the hell did that happen? Can we do it again?

[Reply #45 on:]

Didn't like the British stuff at all, I don't think the ending was too rushed, but I think the whole time travel concept was, I mean, someone must've discovered that before, surely...

I also noticed Smitty was in the British version of NNY, meaning he's probably back in the normal version.

The Lars reference was awesome too. Also, 'Now I get it!' and 'Bender bit a poo penny!'. And Fry seems to love wearing those cop/security uniforms, first a Security Guard in ITWGY, then a Cop in LAO and now this.

One more thing, I wonder if Bender saying Bollocks will be censored over here?

8/10

[Reply #46 on:]

Loved the Terry Gilliam animation parody. Wondered how much booze it would really take to get U.S. Grant to puke. Wondering if Fry will have to siphon out Washington's jar juice so it can be boiled down to recover the powdered Opal (is Australia mined out in 3011?). Loved Paul Revere being pissed off at the Redcoats outside his door (now that's American). I liked it a lot.

Zmithy: Yes, England did invade the U.S. but that was in 1812. The first time around they were trying to put down rebellion in their colonies. Neither attempt went well for them in the long run.

[Reply #47 on:]

I loved it, being British. I enjoyed the alterative version of NNY as I like many alternative versions of things but the British jokes (accents, bad teeth, victorian setting, etc.) were a bit old and over used, it was only Hermes who probably was the closest to being an actual British person. The background references were quite good, like the hover-buses, the Doctor Who reference, the 'Underground' signs in places, etc.

Overall, this was a good episode, but there was a bit to many stereotypically British jokes. The scenery and the clothes were brilliant in this episode. I would give it a 8/10.

[Reply #48 on:]

Wait a second... I always assumed that the Professor was a descendant of Yancy Fry. But his family tree seemed to by mostly "Farnsworth," not "Fry." But if Yancy is an ancestor of the Professor, then where did the name "Fry" come from?  

I suppose that it would be possible that one of David Farnsworth's descendants were so ashamed of the Farnsworth name that they changed it, and then much later, (like way after Fry is frozen) they decide to change the name back to Farnsworth, and then comes the Professor.

But if this was the case, then after the crew alter time, David's descendants shouldn't be ashamed of the Farnsworth name anymore, and in theory, it should be passed down. But this would mean that the name "Fry" never existed...

This is obviously just speculation, but this episode has me wondering about the Fry/Farnsworth names now...

So is the Professor a descendant of Yancy Fry? I'm totally confused...

[Reply #49 on:]

Obviously, the Professor is a Farnsworth on his non-Fry side, since the Frys were around in the American revolution (blasting commies).

At some point a Fry girl will have married a Farnsworth guy. That's where he gets his surname from.

[Reply #50 on:]

But does that really make the Professor Fry's great-great-great nephew?
EDIT: Nevermind, I've got it all worked out now. Silly me

[Reply #51 on:]

...Yes it does. Although a Fry didn't necessarily hook up with a Farnsworth. Yancy's grandchild, or possible second child, may have been a girl and potentially all subsequent links to Hubert were female. Also David is probably a distant cousin or uncle to Hubert, otherwise he'd be less willing to kill him.

I'm sure Hank Aaron XXIV would have gone back to Wade Boggs' time. He drinks his H2GOfat regularly

[Reply #52 on:]

Anyone find the amount animal cruelty jokes bizarre? Clubbing seals, dead cats, kicking a horse to death, using animals to beat people with... Weird.

P.S. I wonder when the day will come that American writers realise Britain and England are not the same thing.

[Reply #53 on:]

My preferred joke was 'Planet Express Ltd.'.  'Ltd.' makes me giggle.

[Reply #54 on:]

Solid episode, and I especially loved the New New London (especially the double decker flying buses and the Tube literally being... tubes.)   A lot of the jokes were unfunny rehashes from ones that don't make it into the Britain episodes of the Simpsons (like the Big Book of British smiles was hilarious.  The next twenty times?  Not so much.  And Bart really needs to stop doing a terrible British accent.)   Others were much more funny, like Dinkin Crumpets > : )

Still a few days ago I said how I wanted to have an episode where the crew go to London, and have a few Dr Who parodies.   So this episode was kind of getting my wish, but if the episode is going to be more HUR HURR ENGLISH WOMEN ARE UGLY AND HAVE BAD TEETH AND HAVE STUPID ACCENTS jokes, then I'm hope they don't do one.
It would be like us doing a cartoon set in America, but for some reason everyone in the entire country from Colarado to Vermont have either really fake Brooklyn/Texan accents and nothing else.
  

And the reason we have bad teeth is because dentistry is not really covered by the NHS.  You have to pay for your dentistry, and a lot of poor families don't have enough money to pay for it.  I myself have an overbite, because coming from a single parent family, we weren't able to afford give me braces.  The more you know.  

Still, one of the funnier episodes this season, and I am pleased to see more is being done with Dr Cahill.   She's a pretty good character, and its nice to see not every animated comedy sticks to the Smurfette principle.

Also, why are people saying the characters were wearing Victorian costumes?  Most of those outfits looked more like something out of the 18th century then the 19th and the art style was mostly rococo.   The only character who looked remotely victorian was Zoidy.   

Opals are my favorite gemstone, so I was pleased to see them as a focus.  The time travelling was pretty contrived, and as someone else pointed out, is Australia all mined out?  Bender poured away all the opal dust in the world, so how are the heads going to be kept alive? 

Also Fry looked pretty cute with long hair.   

[Reply #55 on:]

It annoyed me that they've used all of that opal substance that's known to exist now seeing as they need it for heads in jars. Surely that means no new fluid for current heads in jars and no new heads in jars can ever exist now (although they can introduce us to heads in jars we haven't seen before. I just mean, if Hermes' head gets cut off again, then they can't put it in a jar till they fix his body now, surely?).

And I agree with most people here that it's a shame that they didn't find more inspired ways to mock us Brits, but I still enjoyed what we got. The gun joke with Smitty and URL was great.

And the reason we have bad teeth is because dentistry is not really covered by the NHS.  You have to pay for your dentistry, and a lot of poor families don't have enough money to pay for it.  I myself have an overbite, because coming from a single parent family, we weren't able to afford give me braces.  The more you know.

Actually, statistically, Britain has the best teeth in the world when it comes to things like tooth decay. It's just that in British culture, the outward appearance of said teeth isn't as big a deal so it's quite rare for people to bother with purely cosmetic procedures like teeth-whitening. That's presumably why we're perceived to have such bad teeth.

[Reply #56 on:]

It annoyed me that they've used all of that opal substance that's known to exist now seeing as they need it for heads in jars. Surely that means no new fluid for current heads in jars and no new heads in jars can ever exist now (although they can introduce us to heads in jars we haven't seen before. I just mean, if Hermes' head gets cut off again, then they can't put it in a jar till they fix his body now, surely?).

And I agree with most people here that it's a shame that they didn't find more inspired ways to mock us Brits, but I still enjoyed what we got. The gun joke with Smitty and URL was great

They should have made a kettling joke, but I guess that would be lost on most American viewers.  Or clubbing a student around the head, and then sueing him/her if they survived the brain damage.   Or maybe both are too topical...

And I was surprised Smitty had brown hair.  I always imagined him being mostly bald with a few strings of black hair covering it, like some background characters have.

[Reply #57 on:]

Also, this episode gave me a slight flag boner.

[Reply #58 on:]

I was kind of hoping for a joke that all the sucide booths now look like Tardises, and the Dr made a mistake.  I actually did think that was the joke, until I realized there were no Tom Baker screams.

[Reply #59 on:]

I always enjoy the Head Museum, but, as an Anglophile, I thought the British jokes were pretty dumb.

[Reply #60 on:]

The Queen of England was the concentrated form of every dumb British joke in a Matt Groening cartoon.  That was one idea that never should have made it part the brainstorming page.  I don't mind those jokes when they're funny (like Freshen your drink Guvnor!  in the Simpsons episode where marge takes up gambling), but she was about as funny as a fart in the face.

[Reply #61 on:]

I thought she was supposed to be horrible, so Farnsworth reconsidered his position on not going back and 'fixing it'.  So in a sense, it worked for me.  I hated her and I am glad to see her gone.

[Reply #62 on:]

 

[Reply #63 on:]

I thought she was supposed to be horrible, so Farnsworth reconsidered his position on not going back and 'fixing it'.  So in a sense, it worked for me.  I hated her and I am glad to see her gone.

But it was so predictable and just so over the top, it just wasn't funny, just another "oh look all british women are ugly and have bad teeth with a stupid mockney accent" that has been done a squillion times before.  (Yes because America is full of women that look like out of work supermodels and have voices like maple syrup.) I don't mind these sorts of jokes in moderation and sometimes they are very funny, but she was just an awful idea.  I expect better of the writing team.

Still it was a pretty good episode,  but for me the Queen almost ruined the New New London segment.  She was a Susan Boyle that should have been lanced in the brainstorming process.

[Reply #64 on:]

The amount of 9/10s is really stunning to me. I'm amazed that so many people would say this was a near-perfect episode of Futurama - but glad that people are still enjoying it.

[Reply #65 on:]

I couldn't get past the terrible, terrible English accents. I'm all for a little bit of ribbing at the English, there's a lot to make fun of after all... but this took it a little too far and the depiction of the queen was horrific even by my standards.

I did however like the way a Briticised NNY was depicted. The TARDIS on the corner (it's a TARDIS! Not just a regular police box!") and the addition of Harrods, the double decker bus flying past and the tube stop which I didn't get a chance to read.

The problem with this episode is that they never ever go beyond the stereotypical English person, and I wish for once a program would actually bother to do that...

Otherwise, there was a lot of stuff I laughed at, particularly the way they made use of the colonial s looking like an f. "Ftupid fhits." Or whatever it was.

I'm not gonna say that the overdone British part ruined it, and this was still a really enjoyable episode. Way better than the last two in any case, but still not as good as the best of last season. 8/10 from me.

I give out a lot of those.

[Reply #66 on:]

I'm not sure Nutmeg, because the picture was very blurry, but I made out something like "Times Square Circus" or something.   I'm guessing they're talking about Piccadilly or Oxford Circus, but I couldn't make out what it said exactly.

Also I would like to know who some of the jarred heads in the background where.  I kept seeing people who look like they might be english, like a dead ringer for Judi Dench, but genrally the writing was too small to make out on my comp.

[Reply #67 on:]

Honestly, I'm very conflicted about this episode. I thought the whole premise was a little odd, but I loved the Monty Python and US history jokes. Also, I'm not ashamed to admit that I laughed my ass off at the Franklinator.
8/10

[Reply #68 on:]

[Reply #69 on:]

8/10

Probably my favourite of this current (half) season. I found most of the jokes hit, even though my 18th-century American history is not quite so hot. Did...and didn't appreciate the British jokes, some of them are way too over-used but I guess if you tried to insert a slightly less stereotypical depiction of a Brit, or introduce the concept that there are more than just two accents in England, you'd run out of time. Because that is just the one niggly thing for me that seems to hit home during this run in particular which is that the shows just seem too... short to fit the story? I didn't think the ending was too rushed, but everything has to be resolved only within the last few seconds of the show these days it seems.

Don't know why Hermes had to become Briticised too much, as Jamaica is still a Commonwealth realm...

But anyway, too short or not, I for one I'm glad they did have the full intro this time.
ZOMGRUSSIAN!

[Reply #70 on:]

Ah, thankyou!  I think Times Circus or Flying Circus Tube stop would have been funnier, but I still appreciate the joke.  Since the Tube is a pretty literal description now.  If they do an episode set in London, more of that, and less of the "Let's see how many jokes we can make about British people having bad teeth we can cram into a four minute segment" please.

I thought Leela was pretty entertaining this episode.  I especially liked her eying up the silver, before helping herself whilst saying "He has a lot of stuff.  He won't miss this."  Some people are saying it felt out of character, but I disagree.  We all know Leela has moments of weakness and is a hypocrite, and she is capable of being just as greedy or incompetent, so that and her nonchalant excuse felt pretty Leelaish to me.

[Reply #71 on:]

There have been a lot of comments that various Season 6 episodes seemed very rushed.  The Comedy Central episodes are only a minute and a half (?) shorter than the original run episodes, but it has become clear that the extra time is needed -- the stories are simply too heavily cut for time.  This is unfortunately beyond the production team's control, so we are stuck with slightly-too-short episodes.

[Reply #72 on:]

Okay, now that I've seen the episode in its entirety, I like it a lot more. The third act is still way too rushed (it seems to me that they probably could have cut some stuff in the first act, which seemed kind of long, and added a scene in act three (hell, even a montage) where the crew licks David Farnsworth's head and goes back to colonial America for a second time), but everything else is solid. This was another Josh Weinstein episode, right? It's good that he's joined the staff, because his three episodes this production season have been pretty damn good (L&O more so than TDK!, but still).

It's nice to have an episode that's historically nerdy as opposed to scientifically nerdy (save the whole time traveling thing, 'cause that's whoa, sci-fi); it means that I understood a lot more of the jokes, and could appreciate much of what happens in act two. Any episode that makes me feel like less of a dunce is worthy of an 8/10, at least.

[Reply #73 on:]

Do you realize how many years I've waited for just one Doctor Who reference?

[Reply #74 on:]

I'd guess at least twelve.

[Reply #75 on:]

Do you realize how many years I've waited for just one Doctor Who reference?

None at all?

[Reply #76 on:]

I'm glad to see all of the Brit's getting their panties wet over this episode. It's taking place in an alternate timeline, so you have no idea how the Brit's are going to turn out. Also, America kicked your arse's back in the 1700's. Keep talking like this and we may have to do it again.

[Reply #77 on:]

I'm glad to see all of the Brit's getting their panties wet over this episode. It's taking place in an alternate timeline, so you have no idea how the Brit's are going to turn out. Also, America kicked your arse's back in the 1700's. Keep talking like this and we may have to do it again.

If you do that, whose television programmes will you shamelessly remake and repackage as "HBO original series"?

[Reply #78 on:]

Keep talking like this and we may have to do it again.

Yeah, because all of the US gets pissed off by British nerds on a Futurama message board... And I doubt you could, you're all too fat.

[Reply #79 on:]

Do you realize how many years I've waited for just one Doctor Who reference?

None at all?

Gorky was closer. Much, much closer.