Futurama/Tropes A To D: Difference between revisions

* [[Affectionate Parody]]:

** Almost anything you can name, especially in the fields of science and science-fiction.

** On that note, another episode ("Love and Rocket", mentioned below) was dedicated to parodying [[A Space Odyssey|2001: A Space Odyssey]]. It even parodied the sequence of shutting down HAL.

** Also, the season 6 finale, "Reincarnation", [[Art Shift|reimaging]] Futurama in 3 different animation styles (30's Max Fleischer style, pixelated 80's video-games and 70's [[Anime]]), while parodying their respectives tropes.

** Until..."Don't cut that! I need that to speak!" Cue increase in speed of sawing.

* [[Aliens Made Them Do It]]: The final bit to the Season 6 episode {{spoiler|"In-A-Gadda-De-Leela."}}

{{quote| '''Bender''': "Yeah, we're back."}}

** In Season 6, {{spoiler|Mom's plan to turn people into zombies}} ends up being this too (and again, bloody hilarious).

* [[Anything That Moves]]:

** Amy shows shades of this at times. Depending on the episode, her readiness to leap into bed with aliens, [[Jerkass|jerkasses]] and complete strangers shifts between "party girl" and "college bicycle". At least until she gets together with Kif. (As of ' Proposition Infinity', you can now add [[Robosexual|robots]] to that list.)

* [[Applied Phlebotinum]]: Naturally almost every episode, especially thanks to Professor Farnsworth having an invention for every occasion.

** However, it is beautifully ''subverted'' almost as often. For example, in the 2nd-season episode ''Fry and the Slurm Factory'', the Slurm drink manufacturer runs a contest where the grand prize is won by finding one golden bottle cap hidden in a Slurm can. Fry wonders if there could be a way to find the bottlecap without having to buy millions of cans. As expected, he shortly comes into possession of the professor's "F-Ray" (which can see through anything) and uses it on every can of slurm in the city of New New York. But while this wins him lots of "minor" prizes (including a jetski!), he still doesn't find the golden bottlecap. He's so frustrated that he declares he will never look at another can of slurm again. Of course, he immediately goes to the fridge to get another one to drink. It's the winning can.

* [[Art Shift]]: The final episode of season 6 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation_<!-- 28Futurama29 features three acts, each animated in a different style]], including [[MaxAndDaveFleischer Fleischer]], [[{{Retraux}} early low resolution video games]], and [[{{Animesque}} anime]]. -->

* [[Ascended Meme]]: The [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/futurama-fry-not-sure-if-x "Squinting Fry"] image macro showed up in a recent Comedy Central promo for the new 2012 season.

* [[Author Appeal]]: Deliberately parodied at numerous points.

** While the future doesn't have Fry's "[[No Nudity Taboo|primitive notions of modesty]]", the only characters who seem to have no sense of modesty are Farnsworth (over 150 years old), Hermes (obese), and Cubert (twelve, overweight, and only really immodest when he's first taken out of his cloning vat).

** And of course there are the giant Amazon women in [[Fur Bikini|Fur Bikinis]].

* [[A Worldwide Punomenon]]: Invoked in-universe with the "Goofy Gopher Revue" from "The Series Has Landed".

** The show has plenty, but possibly none so great as when visiting the President's heads in season 6.

* [[Big Never]]

* [[Big No]]:

** Fry cuts loose with one after invading aliens destroy his sand castle.

** [[Large Ham]] acting unit Calculon has one in one of his movies. The whole clip is just the Big No, and yet he says it needs no context. It's then hilariously [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]]:

* [[Bilingual Bonus]]:

** The "alien writing" seen in the background of many scenes are actually [[Cypher Language|ciphers]]. Fans made a game of decoding them, and the messages are often [[Shout Out|shouts-out]]. There's actually two versions; one is a simple subsitution cypher -- the other is almost maddeningly complicated.

** Whenever Amy gets angry and [[Pardon My Klingon|curses in Chinese]], though according to the audio commentary for the second episode, what Lauren Tom yelled in Chinese was harsh and insulting, but not obscene.

** [[Adolf Hitler]] gets a single line in "The Late Philip J. Fry". In German, it translates to {{spoiler|"Look at my moustache!"}}

{{quote| '''Hermes:''' ''(indicating a graph)'' As you can see, since Bender's death, requests to bite one's shiny metal ass are down 98%. ''(Scruffy uses Bender's remains to vacuum)'' Do you mind doing that later?<br />

'''Scruffy:''' Bite my shiny metal ass. ''(the graph rises)'' }}

** Also parodied, as they have the head of ''every'' US president going back to Washington.

** Also inverted: as Vice President of Earth, Spiro Agnew is a headless body.

* [[Brainless Beauty]]: Amy at least some of the time. Somewhat played with in that Amy is an intern going for a masters degree in astro-physics, she's just ditzy. Unfortunately, the bookworm element rarely makes an appearance.

'''Bender''': I'm 40% scrap metal, baby. ''(pounds on chest)'' }}

* [[Calvin Ball]]: Blernsball, the game that baseball has evolved into by the year 3000. It's as impossible for Fry to follow as it would be for someone from the year 1000 to understand modern baseball. Of course, the writers are actually just making stuff up.

* [[Cannibalism Superpower]]:

** The Professor gives advice to this effect in "War is the H-Word".

** Hermes claims to have once swallowed a calculator to gain its power.

*** Claims nothing. We saw the X-Ray!

* [[Can't Live Without You]]: After Fry is critically injured in a car crash, his head is placed on Amy's body to keep him alive until his body is healed.

* [[Captain Obvious]]:

* [[Closer Than They Appear]]: "Objects may be less sexy than they appear" shows up on a clothes shop mirror.

* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Fry, always. He also doubles as a very strange variation of [[Genius Ditz]], in that sometimes he does things ridiculously well to the point of brilliance (e.g. writing a symphony (once he got the hands to play it), driving the ship and shooting at a chasing car of robot mafia ''at the same time'', and re-arranging an entire galaxy with a gravitational array to write Leela a love message).

* [[Comatose Canary]]

* [[Combat Pragmatist]]: Pretty much everyone, but especially Leela and Bender. Although, it is often [[Played for Laughs]].

'''Fry''':'' Executive?!''<br />

'''Conrad (whispering)''': ''It's a meaningless title, but it helps insecure people feel better about themselves.''<br />

'''Fry''': ''I feel better about myself!'' }}

** Zoidberg is developing into one of these, as well. JOHN F*CKING ZOIDBERG!

* [[Crying Indian]]: Subverted. It looks as though he's crying about the litter, but it's because the Slurm can reminded him of how much he missed someone named Cynthia.

* [[Cute Giant]]: The episode ''Mother's Day'' reveals that Farnsworth and [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Mom]] used to be in a relationship...until she tried to make his latest toy, Cutey McWhiskers, 18 feet tall with lasers, causing him to angrily proclaim, "Eighteen-foot-tall things aren't cute; you don't understand me!" and break up. Later they reconcile, Farnsworth admits they're still cute at 18 feet tall {{spoiler|then Mom reveals that there's an even taller model and he gets angry again...[[Slap Slap Kiss|at first]]}}.

* [[Cuteness Proximity]]:

** This is also a plot device in the episode "That Darn Katz!"

* [[Cypher Language]]: The alien languages found throughout the show can be decoded to reveal hidden messages.

** {{spoiler|Kif}} has one in ''The Beast With A Billion Backs''.

** Leela has one in "Rebirth".

** The [[The Pirates of Dark Water|cute, gluttonous sidekick/pet Nibbler, performed by Frank Welker]]?

** Proposition infinity - infinity looks like an '8' on its side...

[[Category:Futurama (Animation)]]

[[Category:Tropes A To D]]