The P.E. Crew before Fry and Co.

[on:]

In the episode "The Sting"  in the mission Fry, Bender, and Leela were taking got attacked by those bees we learned what happened to the other crews.  How come the Prof. didn't explain what happened to the previous crews via flashbacks?  Then we could've seen who the crews were.

I would've liked to have seen who was there before Fry and the gang joined.  The only one we got to see what that captain who in capacitated and talked in beeps.

[Reply #1 on:]

Captain Musky, unless i'm very much an idiot.

Originally, they were going to have the previous captain still alive at the beginning of the series, to meet an abrupt death at the beginning of "TEHSERIES HAS LAN.DEAD!!11", but they dropped that for a hilarious sequence where Farnsworth wore a pimp hat with a giant feather in it. Then, they dropped that for a less funny joke involving eggs. But never mind.

I think the fact that we never saw the previous crews was a good aspect of the show. The impression that we get, time and again, is that Planet Express went through delivery crews in much the same way that I go through worn-out cliches. The way that the grounded (i.e surviving) employees were so cold and clinical towards Fry, Leela and Bender at first was a good example of their professionalism and detatchment from the non-recyclable fools that they send off to their dooms. That the entire staff become less like a source of cheap labour and more like a family (which is of course the same thing) to each other (except Zoidberg) after the crew keep inexplicably surviving shows that our crew is special. Or, unkillable. Whatever.

My point was made. Can you find it?

[Reply #2 on:]

well met gov'na

[Reply #3 on:]

SammyX: I liked the pimp-hat-feather better too.
BUT, we DO learn a little of the former crew's fate. The career chips that our guys get implanted were kept in a bag labeled "Contents of space wasp's stomach"... So they WERE eaten by the bees (although bees are not wasps...) at least it seems to hold water.
[EDIT]We also get to see Captain Musky (which made me uncomfortable), the alive-est of the former crew members, but I don't know which crew number he was a member of.[/EDIT]

[Reply #4 on:]

 

Originally posted by Tikka Bird:
The career chips that our guys get implanted were kept in a bag labeled "Contents of space wasp's stomach"... So they WERE eaten by the bees (although bees are not wasps...)

That always bothered me, that the envelope said, "Contents of space wasp's stomach", but in "The Sting" it was space bees.  Of course, wasps do not make honey, so bees made more sense in that episode.  Maybe the envelope was mislabeled.

[Reply #5 on:]

in which ep. do we see captain musky? i know i've seen it, but i've forgotten.

[Reply #6 on:]

We see him in "A Clone of My Own."  As they point out in the commentary, a musky is a kind of pike, and Capt. Musky was based on Capt. Pike.

All the other crews got killed, so I guess it would get pretty repetetive if they had flashbacks for all of them.

[Reply #7 on:]

The verbatim commentary is

Ken Keeler: "Every time I see this, I remember the original cold opening we had for this, which had the original Planet Express captain, Captain Cameron, who got angry with all the new crew members and then immediately died, but it was felt to be too dark."

It replaced the entire cold opening in the first draft.   The pimp hat and bird eggs came much later, or at least that was my understanding.