The first two are well-deserved compliments, the third is an expression of heartfelt appreciation for Simpsons creator Matt Groening and his fellow producer/co-conspirator David X. Cohen for not only bringing back the prematurely cancelled series Futurama to DVD, but bringing it back in serious style.

     For those one or two people not in the know, Futurama was the second animated series created for tv by Matt Groening(hero to love-lorn nerds everywhere via his "Life is Hell" and "Love is Hell" book series). It ran sporadically on the Fox net-work from 1999-2003 with at first strong, then moderate, then increasingly shrinking ratings...due in no small part to Fox's inability(or unwillingness) to find a stable timeslot for it. Finding new fans via reruns on Cartoon Network, which in turn led to a pickup in sales on DVD, the show's creators were finally able to convince the powers-that-be to allow them to release a feature length straight-to-DVD movie. The new release, Futurama: Bender's Big Score, is the first of four planned adventures taking place in the year 3007.

     Futurama follows the adventures of Philip J. Fry(voice of Billy West), a 20th Century pizza delivery boy who accidentally gets cryogenically frozen and awakens a thousand years later in a strange future Earth full of mad scientists, mutants, aliens and other oddities. Many believe the series was mainly a parody of science fiction concepts and conceits, but the truth is that it's more a loving tribute to them...albeit with a simultan-eous thumb in the eye.

     Just as Groening and company knew that if The Simpsons Movie had sucked, legions of fans everywhere would have been calling for their heads on pikes, the crew obviously took deliberate care in crafting a new Futurama that would stand the test of time for the faithful that have awaited new misadven-tures of Fry and company all this long while.

     I'm so very happy to report that Futurama: Bender's Big Score does not disappoint.

     As you've just seen in the link above(if those bastards at Fox haven't forced YouTube to pull it yet), the entire gang is back: Fish-out-of-water Fry, starship captain and cyclops babe Turanga Leela(voice of Married With Children's Katy Sagal), spoiled rich child Amy Wong(voice of Lauren Tom), bureaucrat Hermes Conrad(voice of Mad TV's Phil LaMarr), doctor-without -a-clue Zoidberg and Planet Express Founder/mad scientist Hubert J. Farnsworth(both voiced by Billy West) and of course the thieving, conniving, trash-talkin', alcoholic robot Bender(voice of John Di Maggio).

     The planet Earth quickly falls into ruin when alien scammers con the entire populace of the planet out of all business prop-erties, cash and of course, the planet itself. A primary part of their plan involves using the mind-controlled Bender to contin-uously travel through time and rip off the greatest treasures in history to help increase their own cache. This of course sets up many time paradoxes involving the existence of multiple Frys and Benders. This also leads to many hilarious in-jokes-- Groening's loving nudge-nudge, wink-wink to the fans--wherein we get explanations as to why and how certain things really happened during Futurama's history...including the real reason Al Gore lost the infamous 2000 election!

     From the opening frames onward, Bender's Big Score is laugh-out-loud funny. The only times the story sags are toward the end of a B-story arc involving Leela's romance with a medical assistant named Lars, which involves a twist nearly everyone will see coming. The paradoxes are intricately complex for this story as well, so pay attention. The greatest compliment I can give the film in this regard is that each para-dox is properly explained, and they all work out. Well, except for the last one, which sets up the prologue for the upcoming DVD release Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs(no release date yet given). Don't worry, folks: there is a special preview animatic featuring scenes from TBWABB.

 
     Speaking of the DVD extras, I have to say the majority of them are surprisingly disappointing...on an immense scale. There is a live comic book reading of a Futurama issue by the cast, but all we see are stills of the pages, not the members themselves. The deleted storyboard scenes demonstrate only why they were deservedly excised from the film. There is a math lecture(?!?!) on the principles of Futurama mathematical theories which almost put me into a coma(thank God for defib-rillator pads), among other clunkers. There is also a mind-numbingly boring "episode" of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, which is supposed to give insight into the popular 31st Century series. But it's more one-note than a piano missing 87 keys. The only extra even vaguely worth watching(in my opinion) is

A Terrifying Message From Al Gore, which was originally an animated promo for the former VP's global warming film

An Inconvenient Truth. The piece, featuring Gore and Bender, is fairly amusing...but what I fail to understand is why Gore would feel a lighthearted animated promo would be the best way to reach the intended audience for such a serious subject.

     The tossaway extras aside, the real joy in owning Futurama: Bender's Big Score is obviously for the movie itself, which fully delivers. It's a joyous return to a time of alcoholic robots, hot cyclops chicks, senile mad professors, and an idiot former pizza delivery boy who's still an idiot. Run--don't walk--to your nearest DVD shop and pick up a copy.