Jokes that Don't Work in Futurama

[#40 :]

Speaking of stuff from "Bender's Game," though, I will say that the run about the staghorn knife--though amusing, to a degree--seems like a very un-Futurama-like moment to me. It's just way too drawn out, and what it's parodying (lousy infomercials) is well-trodden comic territory, and it just feels way too self-indulgent to me (and, dare I say it, Family Guy-ish).

Yeah, I completely agree with this. I had the exact same feeling when I first watched BG and got to that whole knife scene. It felt pretty reminiscent of Family Guy to me. Definitely should have been made shorter, too.

She's running, I know that. But no, she won't be president.

Apparently she's also running for Prime Minister of Israel.

[#41 :]

The knife scene was hilarious, it is one of my favorite moments of BG. It felt like the thing Futurama should do for me.

[#42 :]

She's running, I know that. But no, she won't be president.

It just occurred to me that we have Al Gore and Rosanne Barr (or whatever she's calling herself today), two candidates unsuccessfully running for President, on Futurama as well. Other than jars in heads, can anyone else think of a Presidential candidate (past or present) who was in Futurama?

[#43 :]

`She won't be president, but good on her.   Sarah Palin won't be president either, since she's more interested in being a celebrity then a politician.  

She knows she wouldn't be able to get away with putting cameras in the white house for a reality television show after all.  If she could, we would have something to worry about.

[#44 :]

When she announced, I suspected the whole thing might be satire anyway, but it's hard to tell. She's was at least as incoherent as Palin, though not as obnoxious.

I put her in the same category as, say, the Lobster Man. A candidate who's more entertaining than credible. By all rights, Palin should have been in the same category...

I'm pretty sure no other candidates in general have done Futurama, though Bob Dole and Lyndon Larouche were impersonated after the fact. I think Larouche ran again too.

[#45 :]

I like hows theres only 2 pages of these over 120 episodes, lol

[#46 :]

So I was wondering, what type of jokes does everyone think don't/wouldn't work in Futurama?

I did not like the Thug Life tattoo and the music that came with it, so un-Futurama.

See now I disagree with this one, I actually liked that joke because it was unexpected. It wasn't an LOL moment by any means but it got a chuckle out of me.

Some of the worst ones were the vomiting goat, Susan Boil (which just gets worse with time...the first time it was okay, now I am annoyed ), and the entire episode of Yo Leela Leela.

I saw the mention of pop culture references...some of them can be okay if integrated properly. The problem is that they aren't, it seems more like they are name-dropping something or someone famous to get a cheap laugh...but the show is set in the future, not the present. You can't just Simpsonize the dialogue like that, it doesn't work.

The one great example was that Facebook line, and I think it was Danny who suggested that instead of Leela just saying she was on facebook that Leela say something like, "oh sorry I was accepting Scruffy's friend request" and Fry follows up with "You'll be Scruffy's friend but not mine?" or what have you. That is funny on two different levels because it points out that 1. use of facebook is implied, not overtly drawn attention to, and it they even have it in the future and distracts Leela from her job 2. it brings attention to the on/off relationship of Fry and Leela; in other words, it includes the character development of the show into the joke. THAT'S funny. But simply namedropping "facebook" like that really, really, irked me because I hear that word everywhere on every show. It would have been much funnier if it were implied, since you hear a phrase like "friend request" and you automatically know what it is about. 

It's 3am right now and I'm really tired so if some of that didn't make sense I apologize.

[#47 :]

I think it was Danny who suggested that instead of Leela just saying she was on facebook that Leela say something like, "oh sorry I was accepting Scruffy's friend request" and Fry follows up with "You'll be Scruffy's friend but not mine?" or what have you.

I came up with the second line, can't remember who came up with the first.

[#48 :]

I didn't like the 3 short TV scenes from Yo Leela Leela (Teen Slut Club, Captain Mega Meat, and Toddler Wrestling), they just didn't work out.

[#49 :]

Indeed, they bored me to be quite honest. On the other hand they weren't as embarrassing or as cringe-worthy as many of the other "jokes" in that episode...

[#50 :]

I think it was Danny who suggested that instead of Leela just saying she was on facebook that Leela say something like, "oh sorry I was accepting Scruffy's friend request" and Fry follows up with "You'll be Scruffy's friend but not mine?" or what have you.

I came up with the second line, can't remember who came up with the first.

I think I actually came up with the first line, lol.

Everything in YLL didn't work, you guys

[#51 :]

Yeah, might as well just say "YLL" as an example of a joke that didn't work and leave it at that, as the whole episode is a joke, and not a funny one...

[#52 :]

Some of the worst ones were the vomiting goat, Susan Boil (which just gets worse with time...the first time it was okay, now I am annoyed ), and the entire episode of Yo Leela Leela.

The excessive bleeping in Silence of the Clamps didn't work for me either. I would have preferred one or two bleeps from Clamps, and one from Zoidberg at the end. It was too overplayed how it was done.

[#53 :]

Oooh yeaaah At least we agree, like usual ...

[#54 :]

Yeah, might as well just say "YLL" as an example of a joke that didn't work and leave it at that, as the whole episode is a joke, and not a funny one...

Actually it was so bad, that it worked, because it was laughable!

[#55 :]

No...it was just the regular kind of bad. The bad bad

I actually tell people to not watch that episode (if they are behind on last season) because it's not really Futurama.

[#56 :]

It had it's Futurama-y moments, but overall, just no...

[#57 :]

I liked it.

[#58 :]

I thought the first act was decent, but it went south from there.

[#59 :]

Everyone hates YLL and the Holiday Spectacular, I expected to see those here. However, I don't understand how anyone wouldn't like the professor's thug life tattoo.

[#60 :]

^ Not everyone, Yo Yo Leela was one my favourite eps of the last season*, loved the jokes, the ironic-stupid songs (those are the 98 words we don't say... ), Leela's voice acting, and the piles of dark humour.

Just because you (and the majority of an internet minority) don't like it, doesn't mean it's bad by default. Humour isn't the kind of thing you can nail to a wall and define as good or bad.

Hell, when I lent my futurama dvds out to some friends of mine, they said their favourite episode of them all was "the route of all evil" and that they'd watched it loads of times. I didn't get this at all, but whatever. Different tastes and all.  

In general, I find it easier to laugh at really juvenile/dumb stuff, as long as it's not also massively offensive (i.e. 90% of family guy jokes = lol abortion/cancer/raping dead babies etc. so I don't watch that show, but do enjoy south park/ beavis and butthead).

Holiday spectacular is easily the worst ep of the new batch by a long shot, I came close to turning it off halfway through the third act when santa started rapping, it just sucked unbearably. Can't remember anything from Bender's Game making me laugh either, other than Leela's shock collar.

As for jokes in general, as a UK viewer I'd have to say "Obscure American celebrity" jokes are the ones that utterly fall flat on their face with me.

Overall, the newer eps seem to have less of these, so I'm pretty happy about that.

*Yep, I consider it to be right up there with Mobius Dick and Reincarnation in terms of how much I enjoyed it - if you're considering a multi-paragraph response to this explaining why my subjective personal opinion is wrong, just... stop.

[#61 :]

when santa started rapping,

You mean Kwanzaa Bot?

[#62 :]

I'm with cyber_turnip and Zmithy when it comes to "Yo Leela Leela." I wouldn't say it's my favorite episode of season six or anything, but I think it gets a lot of hate that's mostly uncalled for. The only moment in that whole episode that seems un-Futurama-y to me is the much-despised Lady Gaga joke; the reference is too contemporary, and the line-reading itself is really awkward. It's like Billy West himself was repulsed (and rightly so) by how dumb that line was.

Other than that, though: I love the songs, and since Leela is my favorite character I don't mind all the crap she pulls throughout the episode. I do think the twist at the end of act two--that the creatures are actually real--is a bit too silly. But I also think that act three does a good job of working with that revelation; Doubledeal exploiting the characters by episode's end, and Leela recognizing how horrific this is and wanting condemnation for her part in it all, is so great. It's a nice twist on the way kids' shows usually end, what with that ham-fisted Learning a Lesson garbage.

[#63 :]

YLL was a bad episode, it had some funny parts, but it was still bad. It just didn't feel like a Futurama episode.

[#64 :]

Yo Leela Leela was meh. It was an interesting idea executed poorly, and just another blah episode in a season where there were really no terrible episodes (ok Holiday Spectacular), but it was either beyond great or just bland. Lopsided is the word.

And I've said this before but my problem with the pop culture references is that it is established that in the year 3000 20th/21st century history is distorted. So I feel that if they make these references than they should be distorted on some level. Besides Facebook and Lady Gaga will be outdated in 10 years and like with any sitcom direct referencing to these things is not gonna be funny now or ever.

[#65 :]

The only joke I particularly dislike in 'Yo Leela Leela' is the drilling taxi that she arrives at the orphanarium in. I mean... it's set up like a joke, but I don't get the joke. What's supposed to be funny about it?

But other than that, I thought it was a funny episode and I appreciated the fact that it did take Futurama to slightly darker, and therefore new ground than usual. It reminds me of Homer's Enemy a little bit with its ending which frankly, I think is a great conclusion to it all in that it wraps things up and is very funny.

It's also full of some of the funniest one-liners that the show has produced in a while - pretty much everything that came out of Albert and Doubledeal's mouths was gold. It's not an incredible episode or anything, but I think it's perfectly solid and one of the better Leela-centric episodes.

I'd certainly take it over something like The Silence of the Clamps any day of the year.

[#66 :]

The only joke I particularly dislike in 'Yo Leela Leela' is the drilling taxi that she arrives at the orphanarium in. I mean... it's set up like a joke, but I don't get the joke. What's supposed to be funny about it?

I don't think it's meant to be a joke, it's meant to be more of a "we're in the future, look at this crazy shit" thing...

[#67 :]

The only joke I particularly dislike in 'Yo Leela Leela' is the drilling taxi that she arrives at the orphanarium in. I mean... it's set up like a joke, but I don't get the joke. What's supposed to be funny about it?

I don't think it's meant to be a joke, it's meant to be more of a "we're in the future, look at this crazy shit" thing...

I think it's supposed to signify that there is no way to get in or out of the orphanarium and the only was in is to drill through the ground, basically it's a prison...

[#68 :]

Yet it's still Minimum-Security...

[#69 :]

^ Not everyone, Yo Yo Leela was one my favourite eps of the last season*, loved the jokes, the ironic-stupid songs (those are the 98 words we don't say... ), Leela's voice acting, and the piles of dark humour.

[...]

*Yep, I consider it to be right up there with Mobius Dick and Reincarnation in terms of how much I enjoyed it - if you're considering a multi-paragraph response to this explaining why my subjective personal opinion is wrong, just... stop.

I was exaggerating a bit.  YLL was probably my least favorite episode of Futurama (except for the Holiday Spectacular), but it's still better than a lot of the other things on TV.

I don't hate YLL enough to yell at you in an excessively angry, excessively long post.

[#70 :]

The only joke I particularly dislike in 'Yo Leela Leela' is the drilling taxi that she arrives at the orphanarium in. I mean... it's set up like a joke, but I don't get the joke. What's supposed to be funny about it?

I don't think it's meant to be a joke, it's meant to be more of a "we're in the future, look at this crazy shit" thing...

I think it's supposed to signify that there is no way to get in or out of the orphanarium and the only was in is to drill through the ground, basically it's a prison...

But there was an open sky and its an age where people fly around in spaceships on a whim.

[#71 :]

But there was an open sky and its an age where people fly around in spaceships on a whim.

Invisible disintigrator field around the airspace?

[#72 :]

Streeeeeeeeeetching.

[#73 :]

But there was an open sky and its an age where people fly around in spaceships on a whim.

Don't forget jetpacks and Bamboo Boogie Boots!