The Color Purple

[on:]

 

Originally posted by TomDak123:
How many of you caught the "purple" joke near the end? I guess time travel is color oriented, if you remember in Roswell that Ends Well, the two colors were Red from the supernova and blue from the metal in the microwave. . . red + blue = purple, after all that time travel. -Tom

I was just thinking to myself how clever it was for the writers to add that in. The reason I post this is because I've noticed that nobody else beside Tomdak mentioned it. Did you guys notice?

[Reply #1 on:]

Wow, I didn't even notice that at all, I just thought it was something random like Fry would normally say, but thanx for that 

[Reply #2 on:]

I just thought that was a totally random thing they shoved in.

[Reply #3 on:]

I noticed that the screen on the "What-If" machine starts out with a swirling purple pattern, but no time travel is involved there.

[Reply #4 on:]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[Reply #5 on:]

I think it's just a coincidence.  Fry time traveled, but then he changed history so that he didn't time travel.  He shouldn't have a memory of it because it didn't really happen to him.

Also, he makes the comment after having his memory erased, not after time traveling.

[Reply #6 on:]

Great, another time travel thread... 

[Reply #7 on:]

I think people sometimes try to read things into something that isn't actually there.

[Reply #8 on:]

And Leela has purple hair, too! It's a conspiracy!

[Reply #9 on:]

 

Originally posted by aslate:
I think people sometimes try to read things into something that isn't actually there.

Of course we do! We're internet nerds!

[Reply #10 on:]

 

Originally posted by Kristi:
 Of course we do! We're internet nerds!

There's nerdiness where it's actually relevant, then there's pulling it to bits and saying things like:
Fry's hair is orange, in ancient Babalonia Orange is the symbol of the lover. Thus Fry WILL get Leela.

[Reply #11 on:]

 

Originally posted by aslate:
I just thought that was a totally random thing they shoved in.

yeah, but idea is interesting

 

Originally posted by Kristi:
Of course we do! We're internet nerds!

oh really? you should understand nerd jokes and have t-shirt from  http://thinkgeek.com  then

[Reply #12 on:]

Wanted to repeat this, since it proves my point:

 

Originally posted by aslate:
I think people sometimes try to read things into something that isn't actually there.

At last, agreement!

[Reply #13 on:]

No, wait a minute, I do remember seeing something in a PBS special about the world around you looking red if you travel forward in time and blue if you travel backward. 

Or maybe it was the opposite. 

Anyway, it was Carl Sagan's Cosmos or an episode of Nova or something like that.  This was a while ago but I distinctly remember them tinting the screen red and then blue in the demonstration.  The demo showed a guy riding around in a (hypothetical) automobile or motorcycle at FTL speeds.  I think the idea was first posited by Einstein.  Or maybe Bose.  I was a kid at the time but the point is this: there really is such a concept; it's more than a cigar in this case. 

Oh, PBS is Public Broadcasting (Channel 13 in NYC).  It's the nerd station here.  At least those who can't afford cable. 

[Reply #14 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chanukah Zombie:
No, wait a minute, I do remember seeing something in a PBS special about the world around you looking red if you travel forward in time and blue if you travel backward. 

Or maybe it was the opposite. 

Anyway, it was Carl Sagan's Cosmos or an episode of Nova or something like that.  This was a while ago but I distinctly remember them tinting the screen red and then blue in the demonstration.  The demo showed a guy riding around in a (hypothetical) automobile or motorcycle at FTL speeds.  I think the idea was first posited by Einstein.  Or maybe Bose.  I was a kid at the time but the point is this: there really is such a concept; it's more than a cigar in this case. 

Oh, PBS is Public Broadcasting (Channel 13 in NYC).  It's the nerd station here.  At least those who can't afford cable. 

I remember that!
It was 'Cosmos'. Somebody was riding a motor-scooter around an Italian village, where the speed of light had been reduced to 50 KPH, or so, by municipal order!
It was an explanation of the Doppler effect on EM-radiation emitted by sources moving at relativistic velocities.
If the source is approaching you, the wavelength of the incident radiation is compressed; shifting its color towards the blue end of the spectrum. If the source is receeding, the wavelength is stretched out; shifting its color towards the red.
The only time-travel effect that might be involved is the time-dilation of bodies moving at significant fractions of the speed of light.
I forget if this was according to General, or Special Relativity.

<GAWD, I need a bigger life!>

[Reply #15 on:]

Frys comment in this case is not related to the time travel incident. He says "taste purple" meaning that something has just given him a scrambled signal, he isn't describing a taste or a colour, it's the effect of the memory blank. He knows something happened, but not what. Think of the flashy thingys from Men In Black (red in the first, blue in the second) and you'll notice that theres yet another possible reference.

It's a cigar. Trust me.

[Reply #16 on:]

 

Originally posted by totalnerduk:
Frys comment in this case is not related to the time travel incident. He says "taste purple" meaning that something has just given him a scrambled signal, he isn't describing a taste or a colour, it's the effect of the memory blank. He knows something happened, but not what. Think of the flashy thingys from Men In Black (red in the first, blue in the second) and you'll notice that theres yet another possible reference.

It's a cigar. Trust me.

Oh, forgive me.  You're right, TNUK.  I had lost track of the thread's start.  I was talking mainly about the blue-red thingy in Roswell.  As for the "taste of purple," I'm compelled to agree with you.  It was most likely random, absurdist humor.  If it had any special meaning, it could be this: the vestige of Leela's memory (the only thing that made him come back to the future) left a vague impression on him.  It was not comprehensible to him as anything more than a color.  Less than a color, it was the flavor of a color.  I wonder what purple tastes like? 

[Reply #17 on:]

In "A Bicyclops Built for Two," Alkazar wakes up in bed next to Leela after sleeping with her the night before.  He immediately chokes on something, clears his throat and spits something out.  I don't want to corrupt any of the younger crowd here, but we have an expression in America called "tasting pink."  That usually results in the kind of expectorant behavior we saw then.  I wonder if that's anything like "tasting purple"?  For those who haven't yet had the pleasure, your oral hygienist will explain it all to you when you're old enough. 

[Reply #18 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chanukah Zombie:
I wonder what purple tastes like?

Maybe like grape.

[Reply #19 on:]

It might be stretching things a bit too far, even for me, but maybe, just maybe, the whole reason Leela's signature color is purple is exactly that formula we have been discussing -- the red and blue of time travel -- the opposite ends of the spectrum meeting and joining.  In that case, Fry's love for her is synonymous with his love for time travel.  Leela is the personification of the future for him.  All that he loves about the future is expressed in his love for her.  Perhaps their union is {past + future = present} in this case.  I dunno.  Maybe.  Could be. 

[Reply #20 on:]

U people read to much into this...
Homer calls purple a fruit, does that make him a time traveller? The button on my garage door controller is purple! Oh god! its from the future...

[Reply #21 on:]

 

Originally posted by Chanukah Zombie:
You're right, TNUK. 

They all say that, eventually.

I agree with grim. Too much symbolistic interpretation is bad for you.

[Reply #22 on:]

 

Originally posted by totalnerduk:
 They all say that, eventually.

I agree with grim. Too much symbolistic interpretation is bad for you.

Don't be a prick, please.  Not enough symbolistic interpretation is no good either, especially for a fansite message board.  I'm striving for equilibrium.  I appreciate your show of concern but don't worry on my account.  I think I'll be fine, thank you. 

[Reply #23 on:]

Somebody got out of the wrong side of the wrong persons bed.  . You and the phrase "happy medium" seem to be diametrically opposed.

[Reply #24 on:]

 

Originally posted by totalnerduk:
Somebody got out of the wrong side of the wrong persons bed.    . You and the phrase "happy medium" seem to be diametrically opposed.

Dude, you gave me helpful advice and now I give you some: not every time that someone becomes annoyed at you does it mean they are cranky.  Sometimes it happens because you were obnoxious.  Moreover, you don't really know me well enough yet to assess my personality with any measure of accuracy.  Lastly, I'm not sure it is possible for someone to diametrically oppose the middle.  At any rate, I only said I strove for balance, not that I attained it.  Chill out.  You're starting to make me look mellow by comparison and that can't be a good sign.  My point was simply that it needn't trouble you if I go overboard with my speculation.  You are free to ignore it or refute it but it doesn't make a great deal of sense to ask me to stop. 

[Reply #25 on:]

You couldn't really have wandered further from the truth or the point if you'd tried, could you?

[Reply #26 on:]

Pipe down back there, or I'm gonna turn the message board around and drive back home, and no one gets any ice cream!

[Reply #27 on:]

awww no ice cream

[Reply #28 on:]

[Reply #29 on:]

Sir! Yes Sir! I don't know why, but had the strangest urge to post that. Anyway, might as well post something worthwhile. I wish you could smell and taste colors. Life would be a hell of a lot more interesting if we could.

At the risk of repeating something already said, I think the line was there for weirdness sake and not for much else. Just Fry being good old lovable Fry. Damn that Nibbler for erasing his memories.

[Reply #30 on:]

Smelling and tasting colours would certainly be in-ter-esting. I sure wouldn't want to taste green though. It'd probably have some kind of salad-y flavour.

[Reply #31 on:]

 

Originally posted by totalnerduk:
Smelling and tasting colours would certainly be in-ter-esting. I sure wouldn't want to taste green though. It'd probably have some kind of salad-y flavour.

Why don't you buy a bucket of paint and find out? 

Also this:
Fry: "What smells like blue?"
 - RTEW 

[Reply #32 on:]

RTEW ? ? ?

[Reply #33 on:]

"Roswell That Ends Well". Guh!

[Reply #34 on:]

Ahhh. I thought it was an acronym, such as ROTFL, or PMSL.

[Reply #35 on:]

 

Originally posted by totalnerduk:
RTEW ? ? ?

 
Qapla'

[Reply #36 on:]

Okay, explain that.

[Reply #37 on:]

Huh ... what?

[Reply #38 on:]

Tasting colours, you say? Why not ask a 'coloured gustation' synaesthete what that's like?

 http://www.doctorhugo.org/synaesthesia/

Or just do a Google search on synaesthesia. It's an interesting 'condition' which means that two of your senses are cross-wired. If you are a synaestete, you may not even know as it would be completely natural to you. The most common form is interpreting words or letters as having an inate colour.

I may be confusing my cigars with apples, but maybe Fry has this condition (on top of a buncha others). Or maybe the writers just threw it in because it was funny.

[Reply #39 on:]

Yeah, I used to date a girl who was an artist and who claimed this "ability."  I forgot what the word was that she used for it but you reminded me it was synesthesia.  I never fully believed her.   I would try to test her, like asking her what color a certain song was on different occasions to see if she'd give the same answer each time.  Maybe that's why she dumped me?  Then I realized that even normal color perception varies from time to time and I gave up because it wasn't really verifiable. 

In one episode Bender says he has "smision" which I guess is like "smelling vision."  In the Bible there's a reference to people "seeing the sounds and hearing the sights."  Maybe there's more to this concept after all.  Maybe the idea is that human evolution will occur in such a way that each of the five senses will one day be able to perform each other's duties.