Time and Space 3000

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Episode of the series Futurama
title Time and Space 3000
Original title Space Pilot 3000
subtitle In color
(In color)
Country of production United States
original language English
length 22 minutes
classification Season 1, Episode 1 ( List )
First broadcast March 28, 1999 on FOX
German-language
first broadcast		 September 4, 2000 on ProSieben
Rod
Director Rich Moore , Gregg Vanzo
script David X. Cohen , Matt Groening
music Christopher Tyng
cut Paul D. Calder
occupation
Guest appearance (s)
synchronization

 ►  Main article: Dubbing Futurama

chronology

Successor  →
His first flight to the moon

Time and space 3000 (Original title: Space Pilot 3000 ) is the first episode of the American science fiction - animated series Futurama . It was directed by Rich Moore and Gregg Vanzo based on a script by series creators David X. Cohen and Matt Groening . Dick Clark and Leonard Nimoy have guest appearances . The episode was first broadcast on March 28, 1999 by the US broadcaster FOX . Long-awaited as the supposed follow-up series to Groening's successful work The Simpsons , Futurama's opening episode achieved an audience record and was widely discussed in the press. Your German dubbed version was broadcast on September 4, 2000 by ProSieben .

action

On New Year's Eve 1999, Philip J. Fry , a pizza delivery boy frustrated with life and his job, brings an order to Applied Cryogenics in New York . Shortly before midnight, he falls into a tube for the cryostatic storage of people and is put into a thousand-year sleep. He wakes up at noon on December 31, 2999 in the futuristic city of New New York . After a physical exam, Leela , a cyclops with purple hair, names him his only living relative: Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth . She also assigns him a job: Fry is supposed to work as a delivery boy again. Before she can implant him a chip that identifies him as a delivery boy, Fry runs away.

When trying to contact Professor Farnsworth, Fry enters what he thinks is a phone booth. He survived the procedure and met the robot Bender , who wanted to kill himself in the same cell because he was also dissatisfied with his job. Together they flee from Leela to a museum where the heads of celebrities are kept alive and exhibited, then to the underground of the city, where the crumbling ruins of old New York are. There they are finally placed by Leela. Depressed by being alone in a strange world, Fry gives up and is ready to get the career chip implanted. Instead, Leela removes her own chip because, like Fry, she is lonely and unhappy with her job. Together, the three job deserters track down Professor Farnsworth, who hires them as a spaceship crew in his company Planet Express , an interplanetary delivery service. Fry is happy about his new job: delivery boy.

production

The Futurama inventors and screenwriters of Zeit und Raum 3000 , David X. Cohen (left) and Matt Groening at Comic-Con 2009
As guest stars, Dick Clark (left) and Leonard Nimoy lend their drawn alter egos their voices As guest stars, Dick Clark (left) and Leonard Nimoy lend their drawn alter egos their voices
As guest stars, Dick Clark (left) and Leonard Nimoy lend their drawn alter egos their voices

As early as 1990, after the resounding success of the Simpsons , FOX had offered their creator Matt Groening contracts for further television series. Groening took around a decade to develop his second series. He had the first concrete ideas for Futurama in the mid-1990s, from then on he collected material, in 1997 he won David X. Cohen, whom he knew from the Simpsons , for the project. In April 1998 they presented the project to FOX.

The script for the pilot episode Raum und Zeit 3000 was written by Groening and Cohen. This is the only episode in the first five seasons of production written by the two creators of the series. Unlike Cohen, who repeatedly acted as screenwriter for individual episodes during the first seasons, Groening only wrote the first episode of the sixth production season (see Futurama / episode list ).

Directed by Rich Moore and Gregg Vanzo . Both Groening and Cohen had long been known for working together on the Simpsons ; they had been on this series since the first season.

In addition to the speakers for the main characters - Billy West as Philip J. Fry and Professor Farnsworth , Katey Sagal as Turanga Leela and John DiMaggio as Bender - Tress MacNeille , David Herman and Kath Soucie can be heard in smaller roles. All three have lent their voices to secondary characters over and over again in the course of the series and were later taken over into the core cast of the series. The US presenter Dick Clark and the actor Leonard Nimoy, known as Mr. Spock from Starship Enterprise , had guest appearances . Both played themselves.

A line of text was changed after the first broadcast. Fry's first destination on his escape through New York was originally JFK, Jr. Airport , a reference to JFK Airport . After John F. Kennedy Jr. however, was killed in a plane crash, the text was changed to Radio City Mutant Hall , a reference to Radio City Music Hall .

analysis

Cultural references

With the magic sleep motif of the main character, a pattern of action that has been very well known in the English-speaking world since Rip Van Winkle is used . This in turn goes back either to the Kyffhauser legend of the sleeping Friedrich Barbarossa or more likely to the legend of the goatherd Peter Klaus by Johann Karl Christoph Nachtigal , published in 1800 . Copies of both appeared in the United States in 1812.

In the DVD audio commentary for this episode, the makers also reveal a number of references to other science fiction works. For example, the scene showing time flies while Fry is frozen is inspired by The Time Machine , a film adaptation of HG Wells ' novel of the same name . After he wakes up again, Fry is greeted by a laboratory employee with the words: "Welcome to the world of tomorrow" . The English original “ Welcome to the world of tomorrow ” is a quote from a General Motors pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York , which was also called Futurama and showed visitors a vision of the future for 1960. When the sight of a sliding door opening automatically upwards reminds Fry of the television series Spaceship Enterprise - "Cool, just like in Star ..." - the door closes too early and hits him in the head. David X. Cohen comments on this scene by pointing out that in Futurama much of the future technology from Star Trek and Star Wars should appear, but that it should malfunction as one is used to with technical devices.

Position within the series

Futurama does not tell a continuous story across episodes, but rather all later episodes essentially begin with the same starting situation. Raum und Zeit 3000 only partially fulfills the tasks typical of a pilot film, to introduce the series' prehistory and to introduce the main characters . Futurama needs two more episodes to complete the introduction to the series topic. Only in the second episode do the other main characters - Dr. Zoidberg , Hermes and Amy - introduced. After the third episode, Fry has found an apartment and the starting point for the following episodes is complete.

Nevertheless, Raum und Zeit 3000 lays the foundation for a number of important plot elements in the series. For example, it is presented that it is possible to keep human heads alive in a kind of mason jar. In this way, celebrities from the presence of the viewer are repeatedly introduced into the series - partly as a parody, partly in the form of guest appearances.

In addition, the first episode prepares details of later episodes with so-called " Easter Eggs ". For example, a strange shadow can be seen briefly in the scene where Fry falls into the cryostasis capsule. This is only explained in the fourth season , in the episode Philip J. Fry: VIP . According to David X. Cohen, the plan from the outset was that the circumstances that led Fry to enter 3000 would be exposed as a large-scale conspiracy in a later episode.

Publication and audience numbers

The episode was released on March 28, 1999, a Sunday. It ran on US broadcaster FOX from 8:30 p.m., between the Simpsons and the X-Files . The premiere of Futurama was seen by over 19 million viewers, which corresponds to a Nielsen rating of 11.2 and 17 percent of the households surveyed. It had a higher audience rating than the programs that ran before and after. In the nine years that The Simpsons have been on television, no television series has managed to achieve a higher audience rating than The Simpsons on the same evening . In addition, the episode was the highest-rated show of the week for males between the ages of 18 and 49 and teenagers .

The German dubbed version was broadcast for the first time on September 4, 2000 on ProSieben . It was released on DVD as part of the first production season in the USA ( DVD region 1) on March 25, 2003, in Central Europe (DVD region 2) on January 28, 2002.

Reviews

After the enormous success of the Simpsons in the early 1990s, audiences and critics were excited about Matt Groening's new work. To evaluate the series, FOX released the pilot as the only episode in advance to critics. On this basis, some outlooks on the new series appeared. For example, Rob Owen wrote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the nearly ten-year wait for Futurama was apparently worth it. It is true that “it is not yet entirely clear how the series will develop, but the pilot has all the signs of a winner.” Owen's conclusion from the first episode has made the series off to a good start. For Salon.com , Joyce Millman predicted that the "long-awaited sequel to the 'Simpsons' is all-round, incredibly perfect." Futurama is a detailed, animated fake of science fiction entertainment, especially Star Trek and Star Wars . In the first episode, he particularly emphasized the high density of jokes: It has “so many layers of visual gags and subtleties that you cannot perceive them all when you first see them […]; the robot jokes alone are enough for an encyclopedia of the humor of the computer age. ” Patric Lee of Science Fiction Weekly (later acquired by Syfy ) also noted caustic humor, which in quick succession pissed off the conventions of science fiction. Compared to The Simpsons, he wrote, “It seems ungracious to point out that, despite its cleverness, Futurama just isn't as funny as its admittedly groundbreaking predecessor. It doesn't help that the satire is bloated with sweetish, maudlin bits about free will and loneliness. ” Nevertheless, the overall judgment was benevolent: The first episode was entertaining enough to keep watching the series. In the New Statesman , Andrew Billen was "enthusiastic" about Futurama . Fry's awakening in 3000 is a "strangely unoriginal" basis for a series, but like the Simpsons , the good lies in the details, for example in the background events. Billen complained that too many inside jokes were made about the origin of the show.

Joel Keller reviewed the episode a second time in 2006 for TV Squad (featured in the Huffington Post ). He came to the conclusion that, even several years after first seeing it, she had lost none of her humor. In 2009, IGN Entertainment voted the episode 14th on its list of Top 25 Futurama Episodes . The reasoning states: “Everything that happens in the episode is perfect for building the setting for the series, including Easter Eggs, which were only picked up again two or three seasons later. All in all, there couldn't have been a better way to start a series. "

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Rob Owen: Simpsons meet the Jetsons; 'The Devil's Arithmetic'. In: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website . March 26, 1999, accessed on May 12, 2011 (English): “But Groening waited almost 10 years before launching 'Futurama,' and this new animated sci-fi satire appears to be worth the wait. [...] so it's not entirely clear how the show will develop, but the pilot has all the markings of a winner. [...] It's too soon to proclaim this future perfect, but it's off to a good start. "
  2. ^ Brian Doherty: Matt Groening . In: Mother Jones . March 1999 ( motherjones.com [accessed March 11, 2009] Interview with Matt Groening; March / April edition).
  3. ↑ Alex Needham: Nice Planet ... We'll Take It! In: The Face . No. 33 , October 1999, p. 70 ff . ( frcr.com ( Memento of August 24, 2000 on the Internet Archive )). Nice Planet ... We'll Take It! ( Memento from August 24, 2000 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Rich Moore in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  5. ↑ Gregg Vanzo in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  6. ↑ Tress MacNeille in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  7. ↑ David Herman in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  8. ↑ Kath Soucie in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  9. ↑ John DiMaggio: “ Yeah, that line was 'JFK, Jr. originally airport'. " [...] David X. Cohen: " It actually aired once with that guy saying he wanted to go to JFK, Jr. airport and then there was the tragedy with JFK, Jr. in the plane crash, so we decided, because it was a plane and an airport, we should change it. ” In: Season 1 DVD-Audio Commentary, Space Pilot 3000 (2002). 20th Century Fox.
  10. ↑ QUESTIONS FOR: Matt Groening . In: New York Times Magazine . December 27, 1998 ( nytimes.com [accessed May 27, 2012] Interview with Matt Groening).
  11. ↑ JCC Nachtigal: The goatherd at Zeno.org .
  12. ↑ EL Brooks, A Note on the Source of 'Rip Van Winkle'. In: American Literature. 25, 1954, pp. 495-496.
  13. ↑ a b David X. Cohen, Matt Groening, Gregg Vanzo, John DiMaggio, Rich Moore: DVD-Audio Commentary on Season 1, Space Pilot 3000 (2002). 20th Century Fox. (English; online transcription from The Infosphere , accessed March 28, 2012).
  14. ^ The Original Futurama. In: Wired.com . November 27, 2007, accessed March 28, 2012 .
  15. ↑ Timothy Dean Taylor: Strange Sounds: Music, Technology & Culture . Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0-415-93684-5 , pp. 104-105 (English).
  16. ↑ in the original: " Cool, just like in Star Tre ... "
  17. ↑ David X. Cohen: “ Another kind of goal that Matt and I had early on was, we're going to have all this cool technology, like they have on Star Trek and Star Wars, but it was gonna malfunction like technology always does . So, you know, we show those sliding doors, but they're gonna hit you in the head. ” In: Season 1 DVD-Audio Commentary, Space Pilot 3000 (2002). 20th Century Fox.
  18. ↑ Andreas Cirikovic: social criticism in the American animated series: The example of the Simpsons, South Park and Futurama . GRIN Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-640-47575-9 , pp. 66 ( online at Google Books - master's thesis).
  19. ↑ M. Keith Booker : Drawn to Television: Prime-Time Animation from The Flintstones to Family Guy . Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 0-275-99019-2 , pp. 115-224 .
  20. ^ A b Dan Iverson: Top 25 Futurama Episodes. In: IGN Entertainment . June 12, 2009, p. 3 , accessed on May 12, 2011 (English): “Everything this episode did was perfect for setting up the series, even including Easter Eggs of things that wouldn't be brought up for two to three seasons down the line. All in all, there couldn't have been a better way to start the series. "
  21. ↑ David X. Cohen: Season 4 DVD Audio Commentary, The Why of Fry (2004). 20th Century Fox. (English)
  22. ↑ cf. also: Nibbler's shadow. In: The Infosphere. Retrieved March 28, 2012 (English).
  23. ↑ Futurama: "Simpsons" cut with bulging eyes and an overbite. In: Spiegel Online . August 31, 2000, accessed May 12, 2008 .
  24. ↑ Tom Bierbaum: Fox sees 'Futurama' and it works. (No longer available online.) In: Internet pages of Variety . March 29, 1999, archived from the original on November 11, 2012 ; accessed on May 12, 2011 .
  25. ↑ Groening's Gripe. (No longer available online.) April 1999, archived from the original on August 24, 2000 ; accessed on May 13, 2008 (English).
  26. ↑ Lisa de Moraes: 'Futurama' Draws Them In . In: The Washington Post . March 31, 1999, p. C.07 ( pqasb.pqarchiver.com , archived on ProQuest from the Washington Post website [accessed May 12, 2011]).
  27. ↑ David Kilmer: "Futurama" has a popular premiere. In: Animation World Network . April 4, 1999, accessed May 12, 2011 .
  28. ↑ Tal Blevins: Futurama Volume One. In: IGN.com . March 7, 2003, accessed September 5, 2011 .
  29. ^ A b Joyce Millman: That 31st Century Show. (No longer available online.) In: Salon.com . March 26, 1999, archived from the original on February 14, 2011 ; Retrieved on May 16, 2008 : "This is Matt Groening's 'Futurama,' his long-awaited follow-up to 'The Simpsons', and it's totally, amazingly perfect. 'Futurama' is a densely detailed animated spoof of sci-fi entertainment ('Star Trek' and 'Star Wars', especially). […] The pilot, written by Groening and co-producer David X. Cohen, is too richly layered with sight gags and nuances to absorb in one viewing (fire up the VCR); the robot jokes alone add up to an encyclopedia of computer-age humor [...] "
  30. ↑ Futurama. The future's not what it used to be. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 25, 2009 ; accessed on May 15, 2012 (English): “[…] biting sense of humor and rapid-fire satirical sensibility. In this case, the satire is aimed at the conventions of science fiction. [...] It almost seems ungracious to point out that Futurama, for all its cleverness, just isn't as funny as its admittedly ground-breaking predecessor. It doesn't help that the satire is leavened with treacly sentimental bits about free will and loneliness. [...] Still, the first episode of Futurama has enough entertaining stuff to warrant further viewing, and clearly the sky's the limit for satire of the SF genre. "
  31. ^ Andrew Billen: Laughing matters . In: New Statesman . September 27, 1999 ( newstatesman.com ).
  32. ↑ Joel Keller: Futurama: Space Pilot 3000. (No longer available online.) In: TV Squad . June 4, 2006, archived from the original on October 21, 2008 ; Retrieved May 15, 2012 .