TIME!

[on:]

 Don't panic! This is not another time travel/ age thread, i was just wondering if the Futurama Universe the 2050's are meant to be like the 1950's etc.

[Reply #1 on:]

No. Next question.

[Reply #2 on:]

 

Originally posted by Mouse On Venus:
No. Next question.

 

[Reply #3 on:]

...You mean the 2950's?  Then yes, yes they are.

[Reply #4 on:]

I remember Eric Kaplan on the commentary for I Dated A Robot questioning the realism behind having a Marylin Monroe-bot in the educational film. "Now what's going on here? In the 2950's there's another Marylin Monroe and another 50s? When was this filmstrip created?"

[Reply #5 on:]

Well, in Teenage Mutant Leele's Hurdles, Farnsworth went through a hippie and disco stage, so either he was really out of touch with REAL fads, or there were times in the 2900s that were roughly analogous to those respective times in the 1900s.

[Reply #6 on:]

Yeah, that makes some sense, but the crew's inability to fit in in the 1940's in Roswell That Ends Well kind of weighs against it.  As does the egregious inaccuracy of the theme park in Lesser of Two Evils.  "Let's disco dance, Hammurabi!"

[Reply #7 on:]

Ahh it would be retro style stuff. Just like the hippie or disco dressing kids (whippersnappers) or today might use some of that junk they would be out of place back then. Farnsworth would have an easier time in the hippy days though cause he was a druggie and they way druggies act is timeless those dirty stinking hippies.

[Reply #8 on:]

 

Originally posted by canned eggs:
Yeah, that makes some sense, but the crew's inability to fit in in the 1940's in Roswell That Ends Well kind of weighs against it.  As does the egregious inaccuracy of the theme park in Lesser of Two Evils.  "Let's disco dance, Hammurabi!"

I think both of those point more to complete ignorance regarding the past of 1000+ years, not the lack of a similar time period in their own recent history. In the Roswell case, it seems that they lump "the past" into the time that Fry is from, as made clear by Leela's line in the appliance store.  The difference of 50/60 years seems to ignored by them, as would the difference between 940 and 1000 AD would be by us, cultrally and socially at least.   

As about Past-o-rama, there are two things at work here. One, it's an amusement park, they would be less likely to depict actual historical figures and happenings in actual times, in favour of putting everything people know about in one place, especially for the advertisements. Disco dancing, Hammurabi, and Einstien are obviously things that are commonly known to people of the 3000s, so that's what they want to feature.  Much like Dinosaurs are often depicted with cavemen in entertainment media.  In fact, my brother worked in a theme park with dancing dinosaurs. Does this mean that we don't know what actual dinosaurs did? Of course not, but they are just showing what people (or their target audience) want to see.

The second point was that while historians may not know when a person existed, that doesn't mean that there was no equivalent time period in their own recent tme-frame. Just because they can't place Einstien in the 1930s or whatever, doesn't mean that they didn't have a time with similar social and cultural movements.  After all, for all we know, Hammurabi was in the midst of a Great Depression of sorts when he instituted his Code way back when. (of course, if we DO know that, just substitute some other important historical figure from over 1000 years ago... I'm not up on my Hammurabi).  So, their apparant inability to place disco and Hammurabi in different eras, or their spotty understanding of the automocar does not mean that they have no equivalent periods.

Shizumadrive brings up a good point. It may have been just a retro appeal that farnsworth got into at the times that would seem to match the times in our own century.

Edit: I didn't realize how long it was, so I paragraphed it up...

[Reply #9 on:]

 

Originally posted by Ranadok:
Well, in Teenage Mutant Leele's Hurdles, Farnsworth went through a hippie and disco stage, so either he was really out of touch with REAL fads, or there were times in the 2900s that were roughly analogous to those respective times in the 1900s.

'yeah, i've had a few beers but i'm still cool to drive' - golden

[Reply #10 on:]

 

Originally posted by Ranadok:
  So, their apparant inability to place disco and Hammurabi in different eras, or their spotty understanding of the automocar does not mean that they have no equivalent periods.

What I think Past-O-Rama shows about the issue is that the people of the future have no coherent sense of what the fashions of the remote past were.  They got guys in cowboy hats with surfer accents, see.  Everything is a curious mishmash, as if they knew things like cowboy hats and surfer accents existed, but not when, or what their historical context was.  The same thing is evident when they go to Roswell.  Leela's got a poodle skirt, but has no idea how to talk to a '40's guy.  This isn't what I'd expect if they had had the same fashions, or nostalgic retro fashions, in the more recent past.  But disco Farnsworth and hippie Farnsworth are dead on.  That seems inconsistent to me.

[Reply #11 on:]

I see your point... and I have in my brain an explanation to the apparant inconsistancy, but I can't seem to get it out in a manner that reads coherently at the moment.  I'll repost in a bit, methinks.

Edit: Okay, here's what I got.  The main source of the inconsistancy is between what the people of 3000 think about the 1900s and what is shown by their own 2900s, right? So, any information that is presented as being about the 1900s (meaning century, not decade, if that wasn't clear) by the people of the 3000s can be assumed to be wrong, either from a "lost information" view or a "simplified for entertainment" view, depending on the sources.

 Information about the 2900s, on the other hand, can be taken as accurate, as it would have been within the lifetime of many, or recent enough to be accurate.  Just because they are messed up on the eras of the 1900s doesn't mean that they did not have similar eras in the 2900s.  The only information FOR the existence of similar eras in the 2900s is in Farnsworth's regressions, which show the hippie and disco eras as existing in the 2900s sometime.  The "information" presented about the 1900s in Past-o-rama and elsewhere have no bearing on the validity of Farnsworth's incarnations, although it would seem like people have failed to put two and two together and realize that the 1900s mirror their own 2900s. This isn't a inconsistancy, just more of the general ignorance of the past that exists in the future (see The Series Has Landed for another example).

[Reply #12 on:]

 

I remember Eric Kaplan on the commentary for I Dated A Robot questioning the realism behind having a Marylin Monroe-bot in the educational film. "Now what's going on here? In the 2950's there's another Marylin Monroe and another 50s? When was this filmstrip created?"

Well, most twentieth-century celebrities still seem to be pretty well-known in the thirtieth and thirty-first centuries.  Marilyn Monroe presumably doesn't exist as a head in a jar, though, unless they reincarnated her with whatever technology they used to reanimate the presidents.

We also see fifties-style films in "Crimes of the Hot" and "Spanish Fry," and the "silent hologram era" really seems to have taken place a bit late in time.

[Reply #13 on:]

It's growing complicated to talk about this.  Perhaps we should consult Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations.


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Vote canned eggs for best username in the 2003 PEELies!  I'd vote for you if you ever did anything this cool!

[Reply #14 on:]

 Don't forget that civilisation has been destroyed a couple of times in the Futuramian Past so may be they couldn't advance socially beyond the twentieth century even though the tecnolgy progressed i.e. they had another medievel times in the Pilot.

[Reply #15 on:]

I think that's caused by human nature. not necessarily by another Dark Age. Ie. it's just a comment on that no matter how advanced our technology will become people will remain just as lazy, ignorant and obnoxious as today (present company excluded ofcourse   ).

[Reply #16 on:]

damn right. i am lazy, ignorant, and obnoxious. and im sure any dna i pass along will recieve this bounty of mine. but on the other hand, it does seem that the 1950 matches up with the 2950s or whatever, the educational 50's style movie, the hippies, the fros, theres like...a universe in everything

[Reply #17 on:]

 

Originally posted by Teral:
Ie. it's just a comment on that no matter how advanced our technology will become people will remain just as lazy, ignorant and obnoxious as today.

If you change that to "stupid, selfish, and horny" it would almost be a quote from The Dilbert Future by Scott Adams.