Simpsorama Review

homer simpson and bender buddy up in simpsorama

BENDER BENDER BENDER! BENDER BENDER BENDER!

There’s a feeling you get when meeting up with an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time. A mixture of nostalgia and joy. That’s how I felt watching the Simpsons/Futurama (Simpsorama) crossover. As a Futurama fan, the best part of this episode was seeing the entire (main) cast again in a new adventure.

The story itself is wild. Bart creates a mutant-monster rabbit that’s released in the future thanks to a lame “time capsule” (we all did in elementary school). Bender goes back in time to kill the rabbits source. Bender and Homer become drinking buddies. When Bender forgets what’s going on, holographic messages from the future shoot out of his shiny, metal ass to get the story going. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds, but with it works here.

The opening credits, calling on a Futurama gag, says “A show out of ideas teams up with a show out of episodes.” It’s funny because it’s true. The Simpsons are past their prime and while it hasn’t shed die hard fans, casual viewers, like myself, have found the comedy lacking. (Same can be said of Family Guy.)

This was the second crossover for the Simpsons. The previous being the much hyped Simpsons/Family Guy episode. That was an hour long, while this story was shoehorned into thirty minutes.

Maybe it’s my Futurama shaded glasses affecting my view, but those should have been switched. The FG/S crossover should have been done years ago before both Family Guy and Simpsons stagnated. (Seriously, watch a new Family Guy episode. They’ve moved from funny to fucking mean.)

Back to Futurama. There were a lot of nods to the Futurama faithful. Nibblit, Zoidberg, Scruffy, and the main cast made an appearance. If the writers had a full hour, we would have probably seen Kif and Zapp Brannigan as well. But, as my grandmother always said, put your wishes in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up quicker. (I still don’t know what that means.)

The ONLY, and I mean ONLY, thing I would have changed in the Simpsorama episode was (SPOILER) the way they handled Fry’s dog. That quick clip was able to invoke enough nostalgia and emotion, I both loved and hated the writers for including it. If you missed the reference or don’t know it, re-watch Simpsorama on demand and “Jurassic Bark” on Netflix. There has never been another episode that made me tear up. Watch it, but not if you’re on anti-depressants or feeling suicidal because it’s fucking sad. (END SPOILER)

I don’t expect another Futurama infused Simpsons episode anytime soon, the writers left the door open for another at the end of the episode. Simpsorama felt like it belonged more to Futurama than the Simpsons, and that was fine. I enjoyed the entire show, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you should.

Then the credits rolled and I remembered Futurama wasn’t on the air any more.

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