Family Guy isn’t the only series crossing over to Springfield. Futurama is too. In an episode airing Nov. 9, Fry, Leela, Bender, and everyone else from the cancelled series will be resurrected in the special.
“That was a really tough one to negotiate, because I had to talk to myself,” says Matt Groening, creator of, well, both shows.“Simpsorama” is taglined in the opening credits as “a show out of ideas teams up with a show out of episodes,” and the second half of that joke is one reason for this installment. “They were going off the air, so I thought people would really love it if we had one more chance to see those characters,” says Simpsons exec producer Al Jean, adding, “We’re always looking for things that are compatible with us, and I thought, ‘Well, what’s more compatible?’ We do a joke, actually, about how similar Bender and Homer look. Like, they just erased Homer’s hair.”
Wow, I’m an idiot. I never noticed the Bender/Homer thing. As far as the storyline goes, it’s described as “Terminator-esque”.
… that involves Bart blowing his nose on a sandwich that he places in a time capsule. When that mixes with Milhouse’s rabbit’s foot and some radioactive ooze, it creates a global catastrophe in the future, prompting Bender to travel back in time to kill Bart and prevent this mega-mess. And as you’d imagine, “Simpsorama” teems with Futurama inside jokes and a Simpsonized tweak of its title sequence. Adds Jean: “There’s a thing in Futurama code where if you solve it, it says, ‘Congratulations! You’re a nerd.’”
But in Season 6, Episode 6, didn’t Homer didn’t we already get a butterfly effect episode? Is what someone will inevitably ask. To that, I say, “Shut up, nerd.”