A brief history of Futurama

The lesson is that you should never, ever give a network executive control of your fate.

Those kinds of macabre twists would be Futurama’s undoing. Fox was expecting something familiar, The Simpsons in space. Executives certainly were not prepared for the bizarre contours of Groening and Cohen’s brave new world. “The network’s attitude quickly went from tremendous excitement to great fear,” Groening says. “They were very troubled by the suicide booth. They didn’t like the ‘All-Tentacle Massage’ parlor.”

How can you not like the ‘All-Tentacle Massage’ parlor? Obviously, Groening and Co. should have just sent the execs a two hour preview clip of HypnoToad, and gone ahead and done whatever they wanted.

At least the good news is that Futurama is coming back for one more year.

Wake up, everyone!

A few little videos by way of the marvelous Kevin Hayden:

  • Ladies, did you know that you are just like a cardboard box? We’re supposed to treat you delicately and with respect, just in case you’ve got something in your uterus. If you’ve had a hysterectomy or you’re menstruating, though, and we know the box is empty, well, we don’t have to worry about you so much.

  • Guys, did you know that you are followed everywhere by a mob of enthusiastic, hyperactive sperm? I love how both sexes can be objectified by the functions of our gonads.

  • I’ve shown the video for this one before, but I’m going to do it again just because I love the New York Dolls and this will put you in a happy mood for a Monday morning. Here are the New York Dolls performing “Dance Like a Monkey” live:

Judgment Day liveblogging

The new PBS documentary on the Dover trial, Judgment Day (optimistically reviewed by NCSE! The Discovery Institute in frantic denial!) starts here in the midwest in about a half hour. I’ve got my diet coke, I think I’ll pop some popcorn, and maybe I’ll take a stab at liveblogging the show. Let’s hope it’s lively!

Feel free to chime in with comments as we go.

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One if by theater, two if by DVD

It must come with the name that Revere has to sound the warning — we’ve got anti-god/anti-religion movies available now, and more on the way. I’m a little surprised that movies that preach moral responsibility (don’t torture people, don’t imprison them without trial, don’t ship them off to countries that will torture them), sympathy and tolerance (gay people feel love and suffering, too) are considered anti-Christian, but if that’s the way they want it, that’s fine with me.

I’m also a little puzzled why they would find a documentary like Jesus Camp anti-Christian. It simply describes the activities that go on in a kids’ camp dedicated to religious indoctrination. Shouldn’t they instead be condemning hysterical dogma as practiced in that camp, rather than the movie that merely reveals it?

The one movie mentioned that I’m looking forward to seeing is The Golden Compass, even though I hear they may have toned down the anti-religious sentiment that’s present in the book. There is a little misconception there, though: the book condemns an institution dedicated to preserving dogma and that willingly sacrifices individuals to achieve its aims, and it is associated with religion, but it isn’t quite as flamingly anti-religion as some of the critics portray it, and I’m beginning to suspect that many of the religious fanatics who hate Pullman’s books haven’t actually read them.

I mainly want to see it because I like the polar bears and witches, myself.

Halloweeny, good and bad

The other night, I made the mistake of going to the local theater to see the horrible new version of Halloween by Rob Zombie. It sucked. Unimaginative, tedious, unrelievedly grim, plodding, with no insight or interesting ideas, and it wasn’t even scary. There was no story except ‘serial killer marches through movie murdering people.’

I’d hoped for something frightening for Halloween, and was disappointed.

I should have just stayed home and read the Little Professor, since she has provided a nice assortment of century-old horror stories. The real thing. Stories with some imagination and style. Skip the bad slasher movies, read Fanu or James or Stevenson — they’re much more satisfying.