The Death Clock in season 1 foretold Fry's 3013 death

[on:]

Okay, so the writers didn't actually intend for this, but it's a fun bit of continuity thanks to how  the finale turned out. In "A Big Piece of Garbage", there is the pre-credits gag of Fry sticking his finger into the Professor's Death Clock. The readout is never revealed, but the joke is that the clock states that Fry will die very soon. Now, in "Meanwhile", both Fry and Leela are trapped in time until their old age. Seeing as how the Professor can only reset the 10 second time machine and cannot start time up again from the point it was frozen, technically both Fry and Leela die in 3013.

So, going back to the Death Clock, the readout could have stated 3013 which fits with the clock being accurate in Fry's death date and fits with the finale. I found it interesting that when the scene in "A Big Piece of Garbage" begins, it almost looks like Leela is going to test the machine given only her and the professor are in the frame and the machine is facing her. However, Fry comes in and pulls the machine away. If you apply the events of "Meanwhile" to the Death Clock gag, Leela would have also shown 3013 as her death date, but Fry saved her from seeing her own date.

Again, this is just a fun bit of unintended continuity. I'm not stating that a season 1 episode intentionally set up the finale.

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Unrelated to the above, I also noted that Fry freezing time saved the Earth from Bender's robot uprising in "Decision 3012", assuming that since Nixon won the uprising would begin sometime after 3013.

[Reply #1 on:]

You know how I always interpreted that scene? The Death Clock counted the additional 1000 years Fry froze himself during Bender's Big Score and displayed a very high number; hence everyone's speechlessness. Bender, however, has a very muddled sense of time. He thought "Well, that's not very far away."

[Reply #2 on:]

Well, if that were the case, why would Bender call dibs on Fry's CD player? I think the characters being speechless is due to a very low number. Also, I didn't think it showed age, only the date of death. Thus why I'm saying that if the Death Clock is taken as an actual number and not just a one-off joke, it accurately told of a 3013 death even though in Meanwhile Fry actually lives to a very old age... just in a frozen universe where it is always 3013 regardless of Fry and Leela's actual age.

Leela: Does it really work?
Farnsworth: Well it's occasionally off by a few seconds. What with free will and all.
Fry: Sounds like fun. How long do I have left to live?
[He puts his finger in the hole and the clock dings.]
Bender: Ooh! Dibs on his CD player!

[Reply #3 on:]

With my theory, Bender puts his dibs on Fry's CD player because to him, 1000+ years isn't long at all. Like I said in my other post: Bender's grasp on time is pretty weak, so he has no idea that humans don't live that long.

[Reply #4 on:]

The late philip j fry may have had a role in it too, as welk as rebirth. It could also have happened that he died for mere minutes in the sting or some other episodes...

I also thinks url's theory could be quite right, I never tought of it that way tough 

[Reply #5 on:]

One new way to interperet the Gag is that maybe the Death Clock showed when he should have died, had he never gone to the future, which means it would have showed sometime in the 2060s or something like that. That would explain why Bender siad "Dibs on his CD Player!", as he figures Fry should die soon, as his due date has passed.

I'm not saying that's the way I interperet it, but I just thought It'd be a good perspective to add to the conversation.