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Futurama Vol 1-4
Chapelle's Show Season 1-2

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I don't know what it was about Futurama, but I did not like it very much when it came out. I have not seen it for many years so maybe I need to give it a try again. I felt the same way about Family Guy at first and now it is one of the best shows on TV. Didn't Family Guy not get really popular until it was cancelled and put on DVD?

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I didn't like it all that much at first either. It's only when I saw the first DVD of it that I realized that it wasn't just good, it was great. The subtleties of the character interactions are often hilarious -- the expressions they trade, and such, are very off kilter and not the ones you would expect in similar situations. The characters themselves are often just fun no matter what they do, particularly Fry, Dr. Zoidberg, and The Professor. There are constant little bits they do that are very funny completely outside of what's happening in the plot and flow of action. And the voice acting in the show is really great.

One of the things I like most of all is was what the Simpsons used to be -- Groenig's sly slant on things that the Simpsons eventually watered down into a likeable family phenomenon. Futurama's people never lost as much of the misfit as did the Simpsons, or as much of their anger. The Simpsons eventually became a world where even the bad guys join the good guys in being all in this thing together; Mr. Burns lost both their bite and their contemptibility, and were rehabbed into the grand, happy human family. Futurama's people were jerks and losers, sometimes pretty confused about it, sometimes defiant or even happy about it. They still had some spunk, misdirected though it often was. Futurama wasn't afraid to have people who weren't always on the right side of everything, and their digs at the world were sharper and truer than the Simpsons were past their few half dozen years. As The Simpsons slipped more into being a kid's show, Futurama kept an adult twist. I think it's where Groenig's real heart lay after The Simpsons became more of a bland, mid-cult popular juggernaut that nobody would bother writing outraged letters to sponsors about anymore.

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Very nice post Blarg.