Futurama Fans Rejoice!

All Hail Hypnotoad!

I finally got to pick up a copy of the First Carbon Neutral DVD from FOX, Futurama: Bender’s Big Score, this weekend, and I’m very much enjoying my geek-humor fix.

Some big brains go into making Futurama. Executive Producer David X. Cohen has a master’s degree in computer science from UC Berkeley. Writer and executive producer Ken Keeler has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Harvard University. When asked if all those years of education ever paid off, Keeler replied in an interview:

Well, sure. For example, Bender’s serial number is 1729, a historically significant integer to mathematicians everywhere; that “joke” alone is worth six years of grad school, I’d say.

My favorite extra on the DVD is a lecture by Dr. Sarah J. Greenwald explaining many of the mathematical jokes appearing on the show. She also has a website of Futurama’s Math and Science references.

My all time favorite reference from the show’s history comes when the winner of a horse race is announced, and Professor Farnsworth angrily tears up his losing ticket and exclaims, “No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!” This references the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a fact of quantum physics that drove Einstein crazy, and oh boy you should hear the crickets chirping when I quote this joke while watching sports with my friends.

There’s also a half-hour long pilot episode of “Everybody Loves Hypnotoad,” which is a half-hour of Hypnotoad doing it’s thing with a commercial break and laugh track. I sat through all of it, regularly breaking out into laughter because I… just… love… Hypnotoad. Excuse me, I have to go watch that episode again.