Futurama's so bright, i gotta wear shades. (Futurama)

Member Name: slackjack

Product:	Futurama
Date:	06/07/00 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: One of the funniest things on TV

Disadvantages: Only on Sky TV at the moment.

It's inevitable that Matt Groening's latest creation Futurama - a series following Fry, a deadbeat delivery boy who is frozen in the present,
and not thawed out until the year 3000 - is going to be compared with possibly the best cartoon, possibly the best TV show of all time, The
Simpsons.

Groening's style is instantly recognisable - all the characters having a very Simpsons-esque look about them, although the animation style
has been improved somewhat, with some gorgeous looking '3D' effects.

The humour is a little different though. The episodes are a little more story based than the Simpsons, and don't tend to wander off into
subplots quite as often, and there is also some continuation of the story from episode to episode. It's still very, very funny though - it
made me laugh out loud more times than any other program has in a long time. While Futurama doesn't have as many outstanding characters as
he Simpsons, it does have it's own budding Homer Simpson in the form of Bender the cynical, cigar smoking, beer guzzling robot. Fry's 20th
century past is used to good effect - allowing fantastic future creations to completely baffle both him and the audience, and giving the
writers an easy way of explaining all . It also means that they've managed to squeeze in a few Simpsons style cameo appearances from the
famous for Fry to identify with, and for us to enjoy.

OK, it's not quite as good as the Simpsons - that'd be pretty hard - but it does benefit from being a lot fresher, it's future setting
giving the story writers a lot more scope, and in it's own way, it's every bit as funny.

Last time I had access to Sky TV, they were showing the first season in permanent rotation, and I don't have any reason to assume they're
not doing the same thing now. Let's hope that the BBC (or maybe this time Channel 4, who may give th
e program more respect than the BBC give
the Simpsons, and many of their other American imports) get hold of it soon.

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