Talking Futurama - Mars University
Added 2018-05-18 04:40:35 +0000 UTCMatthew Jay joins us again for these week's Futurama adventure as we cover the classic tribute to college comedy cliches. We've got cranky deans, mean roommates, difficult teachers, frats, midterms, and Fatbot! Listen along as we share our own college memories/regrets and so much more! ROBOT HOUSE!!!
Comments
Years late, but it was not Said from Oz, it was Adebisi.
what_an_answer
2022-06-15 17:35:12 +0000 UTCHey guys, I hate to be this guy, but as a die-hard Buffyverse fan I need to correct you about Angel. Angel did not ask for a soul, he was cursed. Angelus was one of the most brutal, evil vampires that ever lived. But after killing a favorite daughter of the Romani gypsy clan, the Romanis restored his soul as a punishment. So he would be forced to walk the earth suffering unimaginable guilt for all the horrible things he had done.
Spektre 0
2021-08-20 17:30:15 +0000 UTCI have a college roommate story. So, I had to share a dorm with another guy. We each had our own rooms with a shared common area. He was a nice enough guy, but he was into a lot more different things than I was. He would cook with oil a lot and sometimes he used my pans to do so. He would get them all greasy and leave a mess in the kitchen. He would also have friends over a lot and they would practice songs for an album they were working on. I would always feel weird because A) I didn’t like their music, and B) his friends were all too weird for me. So I would just hang out in my room on the internet. One day, my roommate gave his key to one of his friends so he could use the room while my roommate was away. His friend brought his GF over, and they had sex on my roommate's bed. That was it for me! I didn't want strangers in my dorm. I happened to find a mixer for students who wanted to switch rooms, so I went. I was the first one there. The problem was that the only people who showed up were girls. I couldn't switch with them since there were no co-ed dorms. But because I was the first one there, the officials pulled me aside and told me about a studio apartment that was just vacated on the 21st floor of my building, so I immediately signed the contract to move. The place needed some cleaning, but my parents would help me with that. Then, on the day before move out, my roommate had a lot of guests over. I was in my room playing games online, oblivious to the party. Then, the RAs knocked on my door. They asked me to come out, and when I did, I saw a huge group of people wall to wall. A lot of them were not checked in with the right people, so that was a problem. Also, there were 3 open bottles of alcohol. There is no alcohol allowed on floors 13 and below. We were on the 3rd floor. Luckily, half the people didn’t know who I was, or that I was even there, so I got off the hook. I got to stay while everyone else had to leave! The next day, my parents came by to help me move and clean my new apartment on the 21st floor. I lived alone for the remainder of the year, and I loved every second of it.
Paul L
2018-05-26 09:28:03 +0000 UTCTo be Mr. Jewish Nitpick Man, Hillel is a Jewish campus organization present at most colleges, not a college itself. Bob may have been thinking of Yeshiva University. I just couldn't go on knowing someone was slightly wrong on the internet. That being said, love that this show exists. I've been rewatching each Simpsons episode before I listen to the Talking Simpsons about it but I've already seen every Futurama so many times, I can always just jump right in. Hope you get to the other (at least pre-movie pre-Comedy Central seasons) one day. Thanks Bob and Henry and Matt, if any of you read this!
Andrew T
2018-05-24 15:06:08 +0000 UTCSince no one else did, I'll do my best to explain the "Witten's Dog" gag on the chalkboard. The name is a play on the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment from quantum mechanics. Edward Witten is a modern quantum physicist, so it was just the writers joking that hundreds of years from now, he'll be as popular/more popular than Schrödinger and will have devised his own thought experiment using a dog instead of a cat. He also did work with supersymmetric string theory, hence the other joke on the chalkboard with Farnsworth writing "superDUPERsymmetric String Theory." In some casual research, I found that astrophysicist David Schiminovich created both the equations and the diagram, based on "an equation that constrains the mass density of neutrinos in the universe". So that being said, the diagram and equation are related to neutrinos, though both Witten and the "superdupersymmtetric string theory" deal with strings, so they really aren't related at all, based on my very, VERY limited understanding of astrophysics and quantum mechanics. Oh, and in the diagram, it sorts of looks like a couple of particles are going into the "head" of the dog, and then there's another coming out the back end, so it's also, at its heart, a poop joke.
Andrew Bouvier
2018-05-23 17:37:15 +0000 UTCAppreciate the college talk. My experience in high school was being completely overprogramed - AP classes, early college classes, drama club, tennis - so I was totally unprepared to have to actually monitor my free time and my work time. Then I had to declare a major after my first semester because I already had a ton of credits in hand. That would have been great if I had any idea what I wanted to be doing! But I didn't, so I picked English because I liked my AP English class. 7 years later, I did barely graduate with my mostly useless degree. And I'm still luckier than most!
Bill Nielsen
2018-05-23 02:31:15 +0000 UTCYou guys passed over one of my favorite exchanges from this episode: after Gunter's apparent demise, Farnsworth makes a comment about collecting his remains so they don't go to waste, then licks his lips in anticipation of a roasted monkey meal. It's very similar to a joke from The Simpsons when Homer acquires Mojo the helper monkey and Grandpa makes a comment about looking forward to eating that monkey. I just like to assume that there's an odd piece of continuity in The Simpsons and Futurama where old white men for some reason enjoy the taste of monkey meat.
Joe Hodgson
2018-05-21 15:23:33 +0000 UTCYou could've become the next Lena Dunham!
Brian Johnson
2018-05-20 15:45:48 +0000 UTCYou guys are a pack of PC thugs, but I have to admit that Animal House apparently aged like milk. I was not around when it would have been funny/relevant, I guess. Also, yes, college is a scam. Law school is an even bigger scam. Don't do that to yourselves, folks.
nocturne_no1
2018-05-20 09:51:46 +0000 UTCI don't think it's my least favourite ep of the season, but I definitely agree with Gunter's voice. Something about it just really bugs me deep in my core - it's not a bad performance, but I always hate that monkey when I see this episode.
Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag
2018-05-20 04:48:29 +0000 UTCIn my experience as someone who just finished their university undergrad degree last month, movies like Animal House always stood out as really bizarre and not at all like what my friends and I experienced throughout university/ college, in the same way a lot of high school movies/shows are not at all like high school because they're written by people in their 30s. That being said, as a comedy on its own, I've also just never been a fan of the film, and Henry's points about the uncomfortability of it when seen through a modern lens was part of my problem. -- That being said, I love how outlandish and dumb this Futurama episode is. Even just the idea that there would be a university established on Mars hundreds of years from now, but it could possibly still be organized into the same social categories and tropes from the mid 1900s is so implausible, and therefore hilarious to me.
Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag
2018-05-20 04:47:11 +0000 UTCUnless you want to become a doctor or something. College/University is nothing more then a legal form of class discrimination. You gotta prove you're rich by spending at least 10's of thousands of dollars for an education that you throw out the window because every task is job/employer specific and they train you themselves.
Alex Forsyth
2018-05-19 01:29:29 +0000 UTCThe river rafting sequence refers to the 80s movie "Up the Creek," which I watched way too much in syndication as a kid. Everything from a collegiate boat race to the rivals being Ivy league snoots comes from there. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Creek_(1984_film)" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_the_Creek_(1984_film)</a>
Christopher McDougall
2018-05-18 21:35:59 +0000 UTCI say this as a total fan of all of you, but I want to really ask bob and henry to put your old job behind you both. I absolutely sympathize with everything you said. Working in late capitalism is a shitshow and filled with mediocrity. But I've by now heard henry speak about his old job 12+ times and say virtually the same thing. I'm not telling you you don't have the right to call out anyone you think deserves it, but, like, who cares? you guys left your jobs and are both doing really well. You should both be proud of yourselves for being independent and owning your own skills. It's amazing and you guys should use your brain/energies to research nerdy shit. :)
The East is a Podcast
2018-05-18 20:05:17 +0000 UTCWhen I grow up, I'm going to Bovine University, then pursue a Master's at Mars University!
NeoZeroMVS
2018-05-18 18:54:26 +0000 UTCThe college talk got me in the feels. As a guy with a Masters Degree who isn't working in that particular field...and still in massive debt..although not as much as others I know, debt nonetheless. I sometimes wonder if I had waited instead of following "what you're supposed" to do with college, where I'd be.
Frank Grimes
2018-05-18 17:21:33 +0000 UTCAs good as this episode is, I think it's probably the worst of season 1 so far. I really cant stand Gunter. Tres is great but this voice (and Cuberts voice) just grates me like nails on a chalkboard.
mavrick
2018-05-18 16:00:43 +0000 UTCI was admitted to a small liberal arts college in Ohio (...okay it was Oberlin) with substantial financial aid and wound up HATING it. I was hundreds of miles from all my friends and family, I was depressed, and I was surrounded by a bunch of wealthy east coast kids. I hightailed it out of there after one semester and went to the University of Kansas where I could be normal state school trash and not wind up living in Brooklyn at 24.
Gretchen
2018-05-18 13:42:09 +0000 UTCYuuuuuuup. (Says the woman who has a Master of Library Science but works for a bank.)
Gretchen
2018-05-18 13:36:34 +0000 UTCMan, the college talk is too real to laugh at (says the guy with a Masters in Education not working in education).
Quin Adams
2018-05-18 12:34:30 +0000 UTCI just noticed a joke for the first time, and you guys didn't mention it so I wonder if you guys may not have noticed it either. The nerd robots said that when Bender was in college he "streaked across campus," even though Bender never wears clothes, and even if he did, his private area is on top of his head and viable anyway.
ShyRanger
2018-05-18 05:05:05 +0000 UTC
