TVSquad

Via Boing Boing comes this lengthy essay from Michael Schmitz that looks at Human Computer Interaction in both movies and television. Some of the technology explored in this essay comes from shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Futurama, Star Trek: Enterprise, and an old German series called Raumschiff Orion.

Schmitz's essay looks at the technology used in these series and compares them to similar technology in the real world. The essay is a bit heavy, but I think sci fi nerds will appreciate it. All true science fiction is grounded somewhat in real science, and this essay delves into that world quite extensively and shows how often modern technology began as a fictional concept before we were finally able to catch up and make it a reality. For example, the "Wil Wheaton" in the picture on the right is now a real person. I know, it's spooky.

See that robot on the right? Does he look familiar at all? Does he perhaps resemble a certain womanizing, hard-drinking robot from a certain recently-resurrected animated series that rhymes with "Futurama," and is, coincidentally, also called "Futurama?" And didn't I essentially give away the answer in the title of this post?

Internet scuttlebutt has it that the robot featured on the old comic book cover, drawn by artist Alex Schomburg, is what inspired the design of Bender from Futurama. The Web site Samuel Design seems to have conclusive proof that Bender did in fact spawn from this cover. It has a screenshot from the season four episode "Crimes of the Hot" that features a "bending unit" with very similar head features of the nameless robot on the cover.

This sci fi and comic book stuff gets into territory I'm not completely familiar with, so I give the floor to you readers who know more about this than I do. Is it obviously the inspiration for Bender, or is everyone reading too much into it?

Thanks to Wild Bill for the link.

Probably my favorite moment during the TCA press tour week -- and this is a week where I joked around with Greg the Bunny and visited the set of Scrubs -- was when I met Matt Groening at FOX's party on the last night of the tour. Because just about all the questions I had about The Simpsons were asked during the show's press session earlier in the day, I took the opportunity to concentrate on his other show (and a perennial favorite amongst our readers), Futurama, and its impending return to TV.

Groening gives the show's loyal fans all the credit in the world for helping the show come back. "The continued devotion of the fans, chiefly on the Internet, kept us thinking that maybe we could bring this back," he said.

The deviantARTist known as Space Coyote recently received copius praise and accolades for her anime-renditions of characters from The Simpsons and Futurama. Now, it seems her drawings have also captured the attention of both Bongo Comics and 20th Century Fox. According to a message on her deviantART page, Space Coyote has been hired to draw for a one-off Simpsons comic in manga style for Bongo Comics. She further writes that 20th Century Fox has also contacted her about doing work, possibly for the newly-resurrected Futurama.

She also writes on her Live Journal that the details are still being hammered out, but needless to say, this is a great example of a relatively unknown artist getting some decent exposure through this crazy thing called the Web. She has also worked on the Web comic Saturnalia since 2002, which is also worth checking out.

[via Digg]

Quite contrary to the stereotype associated with my nationality, I'm not a big fan of anime. That two year phase came and went while I was still in elementary school, thanks very much. Nowadays, I find the "anime look" a little boring, so when an artist actually does something fun and exciting with it, I sit up and take notice. I also love it when people re-interpret cartoons in different artistic styles (for example, the realistic sketches of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny on South Park a few months ago)

So, when I found this artist's group shots of The Simpsons' and Futurama's ensembles, I was pretty amazed. Each character looks totally different, but it's still easy to tell who's who (a most important element in good fan-art). I think it's fantastic, but, I must admit, I'm a little disturbed by Lisa's striking resemblance to the characters of Dragon Ball. It must be a hair thing.

[via Neatorama]

David X. Cohen spilled a few beans recently to Toyfare Magazine about the upcoming new Futurama season that'll be both direct to DVD, and appearing on Comedy Central. Right now it's like the chicken and egg, and nobody knows which will come first, but I know that one way or another, I'll be watching. Here's a couple of tidbits:

• The entire original cast is returning
• You'll find out some of Nibbler's secrets
• Al Gore is back

What more can you ask for? Except of course, for them to hurry up and finish it. How long does someone have to wait for some new Futurama goodness? Apparently at least a year longer. The new Futurama won't be ready until 2008, meaning that five years will have passed since a new episode has been seen. Five years! Still, I suppose it's a small price to pay. How many shows come back from the dead after that long? Does this mean I shouldn't give up hope on Gilligan's Island?

[Thanks, Justin and Jeff]

One of our regular readers, Mack Swift, sent us an interesting tip yesterday:

As he was cruising through IMDb, he found this listing for the much anticipated direct-to-DVD Futurama movie. According to the listing, the movie is going to be called Futurama: Bender's Big Score, and is tentatively coming out around Christmas 2007. Here's what the listing says the plot is going to be: "Planet Express sees a hostile takeover and Bender falls into the hands of criminals where he is used to fulfill their schemes." The movie is in post-production , with voice recording completed.

Now, all this information comes with the caveat that IMDb, while good, always has changing information. So take what I just gave you with whatever appropriate skepticism that you apply to IMDb stuff. But, if this is correct, it'll be a nice way for fans to get their Futurama fix before the show starts new episodes on Comedy Central in 2008.

If you didn't get your fill of voice actor Billy West when Joel interviewed him awhile ago, you can listen to an audio interview with the voice actor on the Paul Harris Show by clicking here. West, who, as many of you know, did the voices of a bunch of the characters on Futurama, plus the voice of both Ren and Stimpy during part of that show's run, not to mention a ton of other characters both classic and new. West talks about how he comes up with voices for the characters, and tells a funny story about watching The Diary of Anne Frank because one of the actors, Lou Jacobi, was part of his inspiration for the voice of Zoidberg on Futurama. He also talks about how voice actors often get treated like second class citizens in Hollywoodland. A very funny interview, definitely worth checking out.

[via Mark Evanier]

Big huzzahs to reader John Geezer, who sent us a link to this fantastic promo for the upcoming new season of Futurama. The promo was created by Speed Bump Studios in an effort to get a job doing these for Comedy Central. It features a CGI version of Bender walking into a random house, drinking the owners' wine, and stealing their candlesticks. "Hello, peasants!" he yells as he walks in. Really great stuff.

Speed Bump also provides a clip showing the computer rough-draft of the CGI Bender, and an opportunity to download the Bender model (for fun only, of course). Good stuff, and a fun way to close out the week.

(S01E13) So we've come to the last episode of Futurama Season One (or, if you believe Fox, the fourth episode of Season Two). As you can tell, it was a good start to a show that continued to get better over its four years on the air. Even in this season, you could tell that the characters became more refined, and the episodes got progressively funnier as the year went on. It all seemed to culimnate with this episode, which I think is the funniest of the season. It shows us what's really in the ubiquitous drink Slurm, whose tagline is the one I think Red Bull should use: "It's Highly Addictive!"

(S01E12) Very few writers can somehow lampoon both Independence Day and Ally McBeal in the same episode and somehow make it look like it makes sense. I mean, take a look at Family Guy; it rockets from one pop-culture reference to the next without much of a thought to context or its relatability to the actual plot of the episode. The writers of Futurama, however, seem to take such a juxtaposition and smoothly incorporate it into the plot of the show. It could be the fact that the show takes place in the future, where you can create something like Monument Beach and make it sound plausible. But it might just be damn good writing (or at least, writing that's not done by manatees).

Maurice LaMarche is a voice actor who has done more cartoons than you can shake a stick at. Just to reference a few, he played Dizzy Devil on Tiny Toons, The Brain on Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, and most recently did the voice of Kif and Calculon (among others) on Futurama. The Canadian-born LaMarche started out doing stand-up comedy and eventually moved to voice acting. Quick Stop Entertainment has a really long interview with the man, so if you're into voice acting, and every single thing Maurice has ever done in his life, you should check it out. Also, if you want to read about someone from Canada bashing the country he came from, it's good for that as well.

[via Mark Evanier]

(S01E11) Is it me or does it seem like a lot of television comedies -- especially cartoons -- do parodies of Animal House? I mean, I've seen that movie's ending scene, where each main character gets freeze-framed as a caption describing what happened to them after college flashes on the screen, mocked a number of times. But, as the old adage goes, it's not the topic, it's the writer's take on the topic that counts. The writers of Futurama do a decent job of making their own version of the venerable movie... complete with a chubby robot with the oh-so-simple name of Fatbot.

Oh, and there's a talking monkey in a bowler. But that's a whole 'nother story.

I'm sure a small percentage of our readers are computer geeks (it makes sense, since a majority of our writers -- including me -- are computer geeks to varying degrees). And I'm sure a percentage of that percentage have at one time or another attempted to build a "case mod", which is a customized desktop PC case. I've seen case mods made from cigar boxes, model cars, toasters, and all sorts of silly stuff.

But this is a little insane. Seems like one big Futurama fan decided to create case mods in the shape of his favorite characters. First he did Bender, then, taking what he learned from that project, he created a Leela-shaped PC, complete with bendable legs. Ooookay. Even the geek-centric website The Inquirer thought the guy who created these, Jan Erik Vangen, had way too much time on his hands. Here's my question: Is he actually gonna use these as PCs? Neither one exactly fits under a desk. Anyway, just having these life-sized models around my apartment all the time would creep me out, but I guess that's just me.

[thanks to reader Mack Swift for the tip.]

(S01E10) If you watch this episode along with the rest of Season One's set, you might think that this one is a bit on the snappy side, with the jokes coming at a bit of a faster pace than on previous episodes.

There's a reason for that; for the first time, there are more than a couple of stories going on at once, something that David Cohen acknowledged in the DVD commentary to this episode. You've got Leela using Fry to try and get away from Zapp Branigan, Amy using Fry to satisfy her parents, Hermes returning to his limboing roots, Zapp arrogantly steering the Titanic off course into a "swarm of comets," according to his first mate Kif, and Bender falling in love with the Countess de la Roca. Quite a bit for one episode; it's almost Seinfeld-ian in scope, which is something that the brain trust mentions in the commentary.