This holiday special is a hybrid of their Anthology of Interests (Futurama’s version of Treehouse of Horror) and Christmas-time episode. It is also the primary reason why the DVD won’t appear until Christmas Eve. Never mind the confusion Fox Video has added by calling it the fifth season; co-creator David X. Cohen argues it could be the sixth of seventh thanks to the four movies.
Somara and I caught at our friends’ house last weekend because it was airing on the same evening as The Venture Brothers fourth season finale (they will be back for another as the ending credits stated!). Then iTunes downloaded this the following morning but I think that depletes my season pass. It gave me the opportunity to look over things I may have missed the during initial viewing.
The first act spoofs Xmas in the 31st Century again: Robot Santa attacks, Fry feels depressed, etc. Territory the show covered three times before. Still, the writing crew found a new angle and incorporated the real Norwegian seed vault I mentioned three years ago!
Act two fleshes out Robonaukah, the celebration Bender allegedly made up to avoid working. Many of its initial gags run parallel to the criticisms I’ve heard over the years from Jews who consider Hanukah less significant to their religion. Thankfully this program is on Comedy Central, the porno gag involving the fembots would’ve never happened on Fox or the Cartoon Network. I should be more grateful to South Park for their success on lowering the raunch standards.
The show concludes by ridiculing Kwanza. Coolio’s Kwanzabot appears to point out how the Conrad family’s candles are not made from real beeswax. Enter the giant killer space bees from the show’s last season on Fox to solve the problem.
Several elements bind the three pieces together to great effect and consistency.
- There’s a brief musical interlude in each, I guess those are writer/producer Ken Keeler’s contribution.
- The head of Al Gore shows up for a quick joke. At least he’s funny and makes himself more useful than all the other ex- and failed veeps. I do think Nelson Rockefeller would’ve been game to be on the show if he lived longer.
- Since these are “what if” scenarios, the characters dying (every time) isn’t part of the show’s continuity. I would miss Scruffy.
- Every holiday involved is marred by actual environmental dilemmas we’re experiencing: Climate Change destroying plant species; fossil fuel running out; bees dying off from colony collapse, pollution and parasites. Small wonder there’s running joke in the show about the 20th and 21st centuries being called The Stupid Ages.
The last point does come off heavy but the writing crew maintains their collective sense of humor in these dire crises. Much like Wall-E, only Dittoheads, Palindrones, Randroids, Teabaggers and Becktards will latch on to these details and proceed to ignore everything else, except Gore’s cameos.
Other things which made me chuckle: the head of Dick Cheney is veep since headless Agnew was killed in Wild Green Yonder, a gingerbread house being destroyed like those real ones were in the early atomic bomb tests, a dig at Olive Garden, a dig at the Prius and in the future, pine trees are exterminated by the Fifty Year Squirts; can’t miss with a quick toilet joke!
The scorecard as per The Onion’s AV Club: B+