Post by mightiaddnofatchicks on Feb 17, 2014 12:18:36 GMT -5
In a universe that is open to interplanetary travel across millions of light years, going to the moon is like checking on your first girlfriend or boyfriend, and much like your first girlfriend or boyfriend, it's super tacky and/or redneck-y. Fry's enthusiasm to recapture the zeal of the first moon landing, and his and Leela's moment at the lunar lander, are the first shades of the gravitas Futurama would be able to pull off in later seasons. I think we can all relate to being excited for something everyone else takes for granted, and Leela's understanding of that at the end elevates Futurama from the lesser shows where Fry would be the punchline instead of the heart of the story.
Speaking of punchlines, this episode is where we meet the supporting workers of Planet Express: Hermes, who doesn't have much to say or do here, Amy, who plays an important role in the plot, and Zoidberg, whose incompetence is later downplayed in favor of his patheticness. I have felt that of the primary cast, Amy is second only to Hermes in being the least developed. She's female, rich, a ditz, and a college student. When the plot demands someone that fits one of those criteria, most often as a non-Leela female, she's trotted out. I don't mind it, however, because her and Leela's relationship redeems her lesser qualities.
In this second episode, however, she just loses the keys in Luna Park. Luna Park is a wonder. Like the worst theme parks, it's tacky and silly. It's the interstellar House on the Rock, or Wall Drug (both of which are amazing monuments to man's need to make something out of nothing). It's taken Fry’s dream goal and turned it into a terrible example of consumerism gone wrong, complete with robotic whalers and gophers.
This episode isn’t as fantastical or complicated as Futurama would get in its later years, but it’s still plenty funny and heartwarming, plus it’s got the second best fake theme park ride song of all time.
Everybody! “We’re whalers on the moon!...”
CHILD OBSERVATIONS
The Bender/Magnet scene worried me about all the technical damage Bender endures, from the magnets to the pilot’s light socket shock and forward. Basically, I had a lot of trouble discerning where the continuity line falls.
ADULT OBSERVATIONS
Again, the quiet and the voices are still a little jarring. I also never caught the reference to the beer bottle in Craterface’s eye before. And is it just me, or is Virtual Virtual Skeeball not that far off?
MVP
Bender. These writers created a great character so early to help with their steady world building, and while we’re busy exploring Fry’s naivete, we always have Bender and his blackjack
QUOTE
“I guess a robot would have to be crazy to want to be a folk singer…”
(While Bendin’ in the Wind isn’t terrible, this joke was better before the follow-up)