[Blarg]

I don't agree that the best of Futurama wasn't the equal of the best Simpsons.

One thing I liked about it was that it was much like the early Simpsons, anarchic and very busy. If you didn't pay really close attention, you'd miss that someone's expression in response to what someone else was saying was the opposite of what you might expect, and very sly and funny for that reason. It was an easy show to miss subtleties in, and gained a lot on second viewings. The characters were constantly dismissive of or ridiculing what each other said. The Simpsons after a few years made friends of everybody, turning the evil Smithers and Burns friendly and fluffy and into family friends, putting Barney the drunk on the wagon(ugh), and basically Cosbying the show up but good. The Simpsons became a show that nobody would write letters of protest too anymore. Futurama inherited the old Simpsons spirit that the Simpsons put aside as it became basically a middle of the road money machine, though the best one out there. Futurama kept the Milhaus and Nelson Muntz, kept the multi-level behavior and jokes, and nobody on that show was going to stop being an alcoholic or screwing each other over anytime soon.