“Some Bart Simpson dolls!” – Fry
“Eat my shorts.” – Bart Simpson Doll
“Okay. Mmm, shorts.” – Bender
Well, the Futurama crossover finally happened. It had a few good jokes here and there, which is above average for Zombie Simpsons, but mostly it was a mess and suffered from the same kinds of crossover problems we all so recently suffered through with Family Guy: cramming in as many characters from Futurama as possible, whether or not putting them there is funny or necessary. It’s a thing that happened, a little footnote to both shows that will never be confused with the cream of either canon.
- I love Hedonismbot, but that couch gag was way too long. The tag “A Show Out of Ideas Teams Up With a Show Out of Episodes” is easily the best joke in the episode, though.
- We open with Skinner telling the students they have to put something in a time capsule. Then Chalmers appears from nowhere to fire a spitwad at Skinner. This is not a promising start.
- Chalmers just pulled a TV-VCR combo from out of nowhere.
- The time capsule ceremony was just interrupted by an instant rain storm for some reason.
- Bender just fell out of the sky during a thunderstorm. Which lead to a full minute of Homer and Bart trying to find him in the basement. They settled on hanging Bart upside down from a rope for some reason. Then they pointlessly smacked him around for ten seconds.
- Now we’re at Moe’s. Bender belched fire.
- The premise here is that Bender and Homer are friends. It’s charming enough, though predictably dumb.
- Hey, how about some fan service?:
Lisa: You know, they look a little similar.
Bart: Yeah, like the guy who designed Bender just took a drawing of Dad and stuck an antenna on it.
Lisa: A little lazy, if you ask me.
- Lisa took Bender to see Frink. Frink reboots Bender. Now Bender’s supposed to kill Homer, who just showed up after not being there until now.
- Writing “Crossovers Are Hell” on the wall in the future was nice. Even if it’s not funny for the reason they think it is.
- I guess it’s nice that these mutant rabbits are another nod to Groening, but color me unsurprised that they went with mass chaos for their crossover.
- More fourth wall jokes with Zoidberg.
- They had to get Fry and Leela (and the Professor) back in time somehow, I get that. But it’s very out of character for Leela want to kill Homer. Obviously she doesn’t actually do it, but it’s pretty weird nevertheless.
- Heh: “Okay, but remember, to me you’re incredibly stupid.”
- Hey, it’s Seymour! The fan service is pointless and not that funny, but it’s easily the best part of this thing.
- Homer and Bender are asleep on the couch together for yet more fan service.
- Ugh, this scene where they’re trying to figure out who to kill really drags on.
- I get that crossover stories are weird, but having the plot keep popping out of Bender’s ass is still dumb.
- Case in point, now we’re flashing back to the beginning with the time capsule. This isn’t that complicated, but we’re getting reminded of it just because.
- “In our time, Epcot Center is a work farm for the weak.” That was funny.
- They drove to the time capsule and then Willie showed up for some reason.
- Bender’s ass just gave us our brief and pointless appearances from Amy and Scruffy.
- Everyone but Bender and Maggie just got sucked into the future for some reason.
- Oof, the animation on Homer strangling Bart here is really weird. They drew Bart the same size as all the little creatures.
- It was weird for Leela to want to kill, but why on Earth would Marge think Homer can fix a generator in the future?
- And now Hedonismbot showed up again for some reason.
- I could cite a bunch of different examples, but if you want an idea of how much of a mess this episode is, just noodle this series of events:
Lisa: If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s manipulate Barts.
Bart: You’re nuts. I’ve got a will of iron.
Leela: [Turns on Hypnotoad]
It’s doesn’t make sense, but it did cram something from Futurama in.
- Back in Springfield, Bender just blew up a racehorse.
- More pointless fan service: Lisa playing a holophoner.
- Oh, and all the Barts just got rounded up.
- Heh: “Wow, it’s working! I guess the instructions were in English.”
- Now Bender just shuts himself down for 1000 years.
- I suppose Kang and Kodos needed to meet Lrrr and Ndnd.
- There are some good sign gags in this credit/opening sequence at the end, including a Stonecutter headquarters, “Eat My Shorts” written in the alien language, and Freeze Frame Industries.
Anyway, the numbers are in and I was apparently being too optimistic last week when I predicted 7 million viewers. Even with the football lead in, just 6.59 million people wished they’d done this episode fifteen years ago. FOX has a late national game again next week, but after that it’s two weeks with no late football. I’ll be curious to see whether or not they even bother to broadcast new episodes.
