robodog
Crustacean
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Probably true. Furries tend to work wolves and foxes into everything.
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Boxy Robot
Starship Captain
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"Naturama"The Professor as a Pinta Island tortoise with Leela, Fry, Hermes and Amy as finchesIn my opinion episodes that use the format of having three separate stories in one twenty minute slot either turn out terrible as the short time either keeps the story at a fast pace or make it feel too rushed. In this episode it worked well in the first and third acts but the second act was a little rushed. While I say it worked plot wise it didn't really work as an episode. All three segments felt very similar and not any of them were particularly memorable outside of the character designs. I did like how the episode didn't soften how brutal nature really is but they could have made the animal jokes better. There's a few things listed below that do make me chuckle but those are quite minor. I'm guessing the jokes come from seeing the characters as different animals but that joke does wear thin after a short while (not saying they weren't designed well, they really were) Here are my thoughts on each individual segment... The SalmonI probably found this the sweetest and least creepy of all the segments. It was pretty funny but the plot was really not that interesting (It seems like a retread of all the episodes with Fry trying to win his love for Leela by risking his life) There were moments such as the use of "Sea of Love" by Robert Plant during the montage which worked really well and it has got some nice nature-related gags but overall, it's nothing special. - 13/20The Pinta Island TortoiseThe worst of the three. Besides a few comments by Hubert this episode was particularly dry humor-wise. It really wasn't that interesting and besides the sequence between day and night, nothing really stood out or was that memorable. I guess it was cool seeing 'Mom' again but that didn't make up for the lack of jokes (I would say good jokes but it was as though there was no attempt at any during this) and the lack of and interesting story. - 09/20The Elephant SealThe funniest of the three but it was still not great. This and the first segment felt really similar which doesn't help. I personally would have had Zapp as the beach master but that's just probably just me. I will say that this did work quite well and did have the most interesting story but again, it wasn't too great. - 14/20* "You haven't ignored the last of me"* "Next you'll be telling me I can't crap in the woods"* "And so the endless circle of life comes to an end. Meaningless and grim, why did they live and why did they die? No reason"* "Sad news everyone ... I'm lonely"* "For in the end nature is horrific and teaches us nothing ... coming up next, the hilarious antics of the elephant seal - the clowns of the sea!"* "Of all the spectacles in nature, who can match the mating ritual of the elephant seal? Certainly not the salmon and the tortoise, yeah right!"* "Back off losers! Stay away from my beaches"* "Once a lady goes walrus they never ... sh'never ... No one ever goes walrus!"* "I can't believe you came! The beach master will kill you if he finds out also, who are you?"* "Oh that's it! No more mister nice jerk"* I also enjoyed seeing a cameo of Zoidberg in each segment I'm guessing this pleased the shippers as it basically contained almost every ship on the entire show. The narration and the character designs saved this episode and while it's no where near as bad as the Holiday Spectacular, it's not even close to Reincarnation or any of the Anthologies. It's in the bottom half of the season but that's what I expected really... 12/20 (C+)
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Frida Waterfall
Professor
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[...] and Zoidberg as a Blue-footed Booby being cut off during his explanation.
I would've preferred a segment on the Blue-Footed Booby rather than the Galapagos tortoise. My reasons: 1. Booby. My favorite animal name. Always hilarious. 2. Blue-Feet. How awesome is that!?! So silly, but I do want! Besides, the blue feet of the booby (snirk) is my favorite color. 3. I don't think this applies to that particular variety of booby (heh), but there is one species that lays two eggs, and when the second one hatches, I think the older-hatched sibling attacks its baby brother/sister and pushes it out of the nest, where the parents promptly ignore the assault and the chick meets its demise by being cooked in the hot sun. And apparently if one were to intervene and prevent the older chick (or parents, I swear from the documentary that it was actually the parents) from committing ornithicide, the parents actually don't have any difficulty in raising both. From what I remember (probably incorrectly) is that some research was conducted and apparently when the parent boobies (haha) mate once again, they only have a 75% success rate at offspring mortality or something. Still, interesting stuff.
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Frida Waterfall
Professor
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I would've preferred a segment on the Blue-Footed Booby rather than the Galapagos tortoise. My reasons: 1. Booby. My favorite animal name. Always hilarious.
the Great Tit would like a word with you.
Really? ... ... yeah, you're right. Well done! This sexual innuendo bird name is much better than the last one.
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sparkybarky
Liquid Emperor
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Double post, but it's been more than two months.
Last night, I was indulging in a Nat Geo nature show called "Monster Fish." The host (a pretty hot PhD and field fish biologist, I might say) travels around the world, finding and studying fish in various aquatic ecosystems. He went to eastern Russia, the Kamchatka Peninsula, to study the legions of salmon who migrated to spawn. (This region is really remote, and has like 14,000 rivers, per the show.)
It was rather funny (well, not really in a humorous way, and not for the salmon who die, but that's the circle of life) to see the real life salmon spawning and then dying--and it made me think of this episode. The fish's color gradually deepens from silver to red/purple, and then they die.
Afterwards, I was reading about salmon spawning on Wikipedia, and then laughed when I read that the hatchlings are called "sac fry". Then I thought of the word, "salmon"--why wasn't there a joke about Hermes saying "sal-mon?"
The real life story is much more interesting than the silly Naturama segment. Nonetheless, I had a fond chuckle.
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Tachyon
DOOP Secretary
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Yep -- it runs right through the business park. It's more of a trickle of an excuse for a creek, until the fall rains come.
I thought Naturama was harmlessly cute, but it didn't really strike my fancy.
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futurefreak
salutatory committee member
Moderator
DOOP Secretary
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So I just got the Volume 7 DVD and finally got around to watching the rest of the season (or some of it)...
This episode wasn't bad. Not bad at all. Which...is saying a lot for the rest of the season, unfortunately. I thought it was well organized, didn't feel rushed at all, and I enjoyed the incorporation of several regular secondary characters into the plots (and recycling of old lines like Bender's 'Let's go already!' . I can't really think of a bad part of this other than it being like a fanfic out of canon like Reincarnation, which I won't hold against it because you figure that's what it is going into it...so in the regards, I'm leaning toward probably a strong 9.
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DannyJC13
DOOP Secretary
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Something that bugged me upon re-watching this episode:
Salmon Hedonismbot's mouth lights up when he talks like in the normal version of the show, but Salmon Bender's behaves like a human's mouth. Shouldn't Salmon Bender's mouth act in it's normal robotic form like Salmon Hedonismbot's?
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DannyJC13
DOOP Secretary
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Random trivia about this episode taken from the audio commentary:
Brrr was originally called Grrr, as in "Grizzly Bear".
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Beamer
DOOP Secretary
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My main gripe for this episode would be that all three segments were about sea/sea-and-land creatures and their mating rituals. Way too similar in concept. Nature is seemingly endless. Why not explore a tiger's hunting trials and triumphs in the jungle? Or something about a marsupial trying to evade its predator in the Australian outback? Or prey/predator insect battles? They could have explored three vastly different stories here, and yet they chose to explore three similar stories.
This is my primary gripe with the episode, too. Well, that and it's not very funny.
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zlawke
Crustacean
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After The Prince and the Poop I was rewatching some anthology episodes and I remember considering this one the worst at the time.
On a rewatch knowing what to expect does help a lot. I would prefer another AOI episode or Reincarnation II like almost everybody, but still what we got is solid ep. I mean it looks stunning and beautiful, especially the underwater scenes in the first story and the bit in the third. The stories are good, mostly.
I mean the Salmon story has great pacing and is very cohesive, and the world feels so big and rich. We have like forrest with mighty brrrs!, lakes, ocean, visually it's a diverse world. Also, it feels like an ultimate Fry-Leela story. 9-10/10.
Tortoise one was good, I mean at the end it becomes too CC-Futurama for me with explicit sex and violence, but still it somehow fits with the narrative of this anthology that nature is cruel and horny, or something. The highlights are Bender as lizard, Zoidberg as booby bird and good "casting", I mean how they incorporated Profiessor, Mom and her sons into this story. 7-8/10
Another walrus story in Groening's cartoon, this one I think was the weakest. Third time the same thing, love story/ensuring the survival of the species. In first story we had the underwater world, in the second was the land so it would be visually more interesting to see some flying high above the ground. Still, nice story, but the parts on land weren't visually that interesting nor the story was much different than what we saw before. Still this one underwater scene was stunning. 7/10
Overall 8/10. The stories are mostly solid, sometimes they were lacking, but the visual style made up for it. Not perfect episode by any means, but entertaining and different enough to justify its existence. Much better than TPATP and overall better than TFHS and TFSFP.
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