Commentary:The Beast with a Billion Backs

	Commentary for
The Beast with a Billion Backs
Production number	5ACV05, 5ACV06, 5ACV07, 5ACV08
On DVD	The Beast with a Billion Backs
Additional
	Transcript
	Transcript
Participants
	Matt GroeningCreatorDavid X. CohenExecutive producerClaudia KatzProducer of Rough Draft StudiosPeter AvanzinoDirectorMichael RoweWriterLee SupercinskiProducerJohn DiMaggioActor (Bender, misc.)Billy WestActor (Fry, The Professor, misc.)Maurice LaMarcheGuest actor (Kif, Calculon, misc.)

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[edit] Topics of Discussion

Billy West in the voice of the narrator at the beginning, whom he plays.
Peter talks about the black and white intro and Steamboat Willie being an inspiration of it.
- John did the whistling
This film starting off where Bender's Big Score left off
Sports programme intro was difficult, but not as difficult as one of the other scenes
Problem with getting into another relationship
Deleted scene on Fry and Colleen meeting again the next day.
Maurice was very busy this movie
Referencing ep 401 - Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch
- Originally planned to go back to Amphibios 9 to revisit their babies nearly turning them into Kif lookalikes and then coming up with an idea for Kif's parents and what they would be.
3D flies
Tress plays a lot of characters
A lot of talk about Barb-o-mite, It will be coming soon, John wouldn't want Mites in his hair, due to the pile of dead mites on your head afterwards
Bender's Big Score had Everybody Loves Hypno-Toad, Maurice suggests a full episode of All My Circuits would appear on Bender's game DVD. David X. Cohen confirmed. But it didn't happen.
2D tunnel of love - looking at Colleen was used again thanks to the editor
2nd guest, 2nd appearance, Professor Stephen Hawking
- David thinking maybe his mouth could move but still have robot voice but was more of "In a way how the heads were best remembered by.
Gary Gygax passed away not long ago, and was a big influence for what is the next movie, Bender's Game
The Institute for Advanced Book Learnin' was originally called Institute for Advanced Studlies and the scientists had tremendous physiques.
Matt and David are fond of the Deathball scene.
- David first thought the 3D animators had used motion capture to create Fry's subtle hand movements while he is riding the ball.
Recommended to listen to the epic in 5.1 surround sound
Phil once played Schlomo, but it was Maurice in the final version.
Dave Herman as the Coffee Enema bot
Dark Matter's secret will be told in DVD 3
Professor's steam out of his ass, The Professor's moan is disturbing and funny, almost losing the will to live.
The idea was Fry involved in the relationship and it's too much for him and saying that he can't deal with a girlfriend with 5 boyfriends but later becomes spokesman for the opposite point of view with Yivo, being pope of the religion espousing the relationship with billions of people, which makes the Fry and Colleen story a mini version of the giant story later where he is in the opposite side of the argument.
Less butt than BBS
Great wide shots, even more helpful in wide screen format
The anomaly was a fractal edge and a lot of discussion on it. Looks electrical, not seen at the back.
Noticing the bricks as Bender and the Ship fly away from the anomaly
"Ow" was a "sock barrel" repetitive joke.
List of games in the arcade.
Bender's wheels in War is the H-Word.
Crotch shot was Eric Kaplan's idea.
When Fry broke up with Colleen, Fry got the Virtual Companion, which would help his ego.
Calculon shocked Billy when he Threw the Doctor (Though he thought Calculon threw Bender at first)
Noise with the Smell-o-scope
- - Maurice: "The one thing they've cured in the future is obsessive-compulsive disorder"
- Smell-o-scope originally used in A Big Piece of Garbage
Pocket Pal (Same as what is said in Less Than Hero commentary) a miniature robot that was so cute he drove Bender crazy, first designed and hard to redesign, was going to explain things to Fry.
Paul Lynde impressions
Nixon lines with added cheek flap
- Billy is tired of impressions and boiled Nixon down to a noise.
Billy does Paris Hilton impression.
Reminding people that the lightsaber just conk people on the head.
- Billy: "Like the ones at Comic Con"
Hover vehicles and helicopters, force field blades.
Adorable Bender
Matt hates cartoon characters crying "Blue liquid" and there eyes are big, which makes animating it hard.
Bender pins his note on Zoidberg: "Ow" sock barrel
Suicide booths still there
Nimbus meaning Halo or a glow, a type of cloud and a song either by Mike Nesmith or Monkees song, but chosen because it sounds like a name used for a ship.
How the LOR know Bender would go to that specific suicide booth would be all of them are.
What Kif and Calculon are thinking.
The name sounds like the first name that came to mind (Nothing is said on whether it really was or not.)
LOR merchandise
Dave Herman as the duffer bot, believed to be Phil Lamar who plays Billionaire bot (Similar)
Listen close to Kif being hold down to the missile and perhaps you may hear Kif sigh again.
Bender burping on the Human eye, Maurice wondering how it still works.
Nice Kif and Fry scene that you don't see often, like each other enough to say hi in the middle of space.
Kif flavours and Zapp disgustingly eating his goo.
Amy's attractive legs and Hermes kilt.
Jon Lovitz by Maurice.
Amy wearing the hottest funeral dress ever.
Hitting the ketchup out, sometimes best hit the 57.
Tress improved the melody and David wrote Kaplan's nonsense words.
Lauren Tom, good work.
URL has a great voice.
Cell lasers are supposed to be Tholian web lasers, in reference to Star Trek.
Horse repair and eating and drinking horse's (The Luck of the Fryrish) references
Photoshopped portraits seen in the background of the League's hideout.
Billionaire Bot played by Phil LaMarr, from Raging Bender
The Robot Rules Of Order book title is based on Robert's Rules
- Robert's Rules has been attempted by Maurice, both him and David say it is really bad.
  - Matt: "POINT OF ORDER, Point of Order, I Disagree."
A Black Velvet painting in the background, similar to one.
Boxy the robot is loved but Maurice says he never does anything quite right.
Fulcrum Prism - 2 puns in 1 title, made to look like a prism.
The return of Pazuzu, from Teenage Mutant Leela Hurdles
Moe forgetting he was guard no. 2.
Claudia likes the fact that in Future prisons, you're attached by the neck.
Fry seeing Yivo for the first time, his exhaling is what is known as the death rattle.
Moe wants a bathroom break.
It would be scary in real life when Yivo come into the universe.
Moe also forgetting he was Amy's phone.
The monster movie genre begins.
Christopher Tyng's music is fantastic.
Hank Azaria was busy elsewhere, and Moe plays Harold Zoid.
The ships battling Yivo is a great shot and a good setup whilst Zapp is in the restaurant showing the scale of the sky.
- Eric Whited built the scene and Chris Graham storyboarded it. The fact that there was a big battle at the end of the last DVD, that fight had to be done in one shot.
David was involved with mixing the sound, which took 80 hours to do, and it was the same as DVD 1, and it included a lot of chaos in surround sound but Peter Cole (Mixer) and Travis Powers(Editor), put in more time. And its difficult to have the audio funny and dramatic and Peter said before people don't know what he does as a mixer, and you don't think about it when its done right but you notice when it goes wrong.
- The spaceships fighting Yivo was easy to mix because Zapp was talking over it
Sal is becoming a popular character and people start using s'es at the end of sentences .
Commentators say it is horrific when Fry comes out of Yivo.
Billy found it difficult to do Fry because he had to make him sound coherent, like he knew what he was talking about.
The whip sound effects where used to make it sound more painful.
Morgan Proctor returns, but played by Tress this time around, and Fishy Joe returns again.
People running away from the tentacle is something Moe connected to and understood because it was like something out of a child's nightmare, somethings chasing you.
The cast enjoying the movie.
The line about Fry not being in love the way Hollywood tells it is an Eric Kaplan line, because this movie is his version of a love story.
Diamondium and Diamondillium were names that were hard to come up with and other names were already used elsewhere.
- Billy believes they make up as many words as they can and copyright them.
Slurm is now trademarked by FOX.
Another sick shot, when Fry turns his back whilst talking to Bender.
- Mike: "I had that in the Navy" (Note, this quote will now show up a lot in this commentary.)
- Its a joke to use on weird names and long last names.
Morbo is like what people thought aliens would look like in the '50's.
David likes people shooting guns for too long.
The tentacle out of a toilet is a disturbing thing, advised not to show this when potty training babies.
"Talking bout the..." is used in so many songs, to remind you what there talking about.
The professor's tentacle was well hidden.
It's a first for the professor being that happy.
The music wasn't quite rocking at first, but that version can be found on a menu in the DVD.
Hyperchicken's advertisement on the bus with Futuristic phone number, including Greek letter lambda.
Moe hoping $6421.12 would be the result of 79 cents, which might of happened but was forgotten about and Moe would be disappointed if it wasn't. $6421.12 divides into 79 cents exactly 8128 times.
- Mike worked with Dial-A-Joke, one of them being "Bought a great book, The History of Crazy Glue. I can't put it down." That joke is free with this commentary.
Having part of the movie be more of a horror movie, the number of people still outside of the horror.
The only point where the horror story meets the Bender story until the end.
The alcohol is a future alcohol that doesn't boil off.
The easiest way to make a Futurama joke is think of something then put "Space" in front of it.
Hedonismbot is a favorite side characters, and that he likes industrial sandpaper.
David: "Matt, did we go to far with this love triangle here?" Matt: "No. Yes".
Discussed in the early days of the series, weather Zapp and Leela get together, but made it worse by entangling the love lives.
Moe loves the fact that Kif was actually his 4th lieutenant when Moe played it as if he was second officer but was just on the bridge a lot.
Billy saying "Closer" was good acting and show it was the same way he got Leela to have sex with him.
All the noises Travis uses is all natural things.
The Pac-Man sound effects are from the original arcade game, and provided on a disc by Atari.
- On the same note about the Pac-Man-esqe chess, the sound is actually the Pac-Man biting noise provided by Namco, it was the first scratching before rap, and Namco wanted to make sure that they use the actual sound effect and they were sent the file with the video game with sirens going of and Pac-Man and jokingly said "We'll have to recreate it because it wouldn't work unless you have the original file of just Pac-Man eating." and that sound was emailed a week later.
You write the script and the 100-year old slide-whistle sound is the biggest laugh.
The name Yivo could only be explained by Eric Kaplan and he wasn't there, but David saw it as half Jehovah and half TiVo but Eric might have had something deeper in mind.
Colleen's shirt says "I Love Everything" in math language.
David Cross as Yivo.
They didn't want to suggest that kids were involved with the huge relationship especially when you find out what the tentacles really are.
A debate about calling them genticles or genicles.
Something that was forgotten about was that Kif's father said "That was my left testicle" when Amy's mother squashes the bug on her neck. Paul Calder, editor, asked "What was it doing on her neck at that point?".
Another alien that doesn't behave as traditional Sci-Fi alien.
People hovering was perhaps a problem to animate. Not done in camera because Leela is still not hovering.
David Cross actually made the noises for half an hour. Billy: "Welcome to my world."
Superhero character was caught by Yivo.
Calculon and Bender's duel is similar to the Aaron Burr duel across Hudson River from Manhattan.
There was no reference to an 18th century engraving but the board artist lives in Hoboken.
Answering machine technology still the same.
Adlai from Cyber House Rules makes a cameo.
Carmen Miranda - "I, Yi, Yi, Yi (I Like You Very Much) from "That Night in Rio"
"Jungle Boogie" by Kool & The Gang
- (It comes up later but if you watch closely whilst he says that, David Cohen is in the bottom row where everyone kisses their Genticle.)
64 animated scenes laid out as one, which is 2 times 64 seconds of animation.
Billy doing his M5438 (Appeared in Love's Labours Lost in Space) saying his voices are the kind he did when he was 8.
Scruffy had a small scene, but was deleted. (Which is good, because in that scene he was shot)
The hot pocket originally visibly hit a magazine, LIFE, but it was too subtle a joke, it was supposed to be the concept of life that it was thrown to Zoidberg instead.
Dan Castellaneta back as the Robot Devil once again, who has made an album called Two Lips recently.
Talk about Benders son, weather he can have one, if he does, can he kill him immediately after we find out, but it happens so quickly and all the suffering debate goes after that.
The wooden rocket would seem to be a weak aspect, that it wouldn't be air tight.
Matt likes the headless body of Agnew.
Charleston Chew, same as Taste of Freedom.
A big shot with virtually thousands Robots, but some repeated over and over.
Eric pointed out that Bender's speech should be more petty and it being about how Fry doesn't spend much time with him, and its funny that he assembles a huge robot army for the most childish reasons, not about the whole Earth doing things robots don't care about, but more about him and Fry.
Billy had a hard time with the new words, and took about 50 takes to do.
- David pointed out that no one commented on the "No Shklit".
Amazing music again
Seeing other civilians on other planets referencing episodes from the series.
One thing they learnt on the net is that Nutley is actually a nice place.
The "excuse" about the escalators going through the anomaly was that they're organic.
The Foley effects were just rubber sounds for the time they were on top of Yivo.
The writers tried to get out of trouble when on top of Yivo, it looks like heaven.
Pink was chosen for the paper so it would be recognized in the scene at the end.
David Schiminovich, David Cohen's friend, is an astrophysicist at Columbia provided the blackboard with 5 jokes beyond the scope of the commentary, but it involves Mersenne primes and musical references.
- David Schiminovich? Mike Rowe had that in the Navy!
There are two frames of Zapp's "rear nudity."
- When it was back from Korea, Zapp was fully nude and they drew a floating black box on it.
The scene where Zapp slides down the stairs, it seems like you could see his "Monument" but there's nothing there.
When you do the sound you freeze at every part of the video at some point and see things not meant to be seen.
The shot with Pirate Bender and Yivo is inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Yivo acting like the Kraken.
He speaks perfectly, but he decides to go for the roars.
John likes the noise he makes when he pulls out his sword.
The animation team had to make a mouth chart.
The character is the size of a planet to normal people so the acting has to come out of the tentacle.
Billy doing Tony Bennett waking up on the panel in the middle of the Mike Douglas Show.
The tentacles hugging Colleen reminds John of the weird Japanese anime porn.
The title of the film is taken from the term "The Beast with Two Backs" which actually pre-dates Shakespeare and his plays, it is found in a 1532 novel called Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (Shakespeare was born in 1564).
- Mike: "Also a reference to Joan Rivers"
Zapp being punched countless of times.
Peg Leg effect on Bender's leg is crummy and intentionally used because of it's clattery, wooden sound.
Enema-bot with a hat looks like Squiddly Diddly, and David says "We wanted to see him again, so he's first mate."
Bender's speech is a biblical reference, To First Corinthians, Chapter 13., usually used in weddings, such as David's.
Now available is the character's images above and below the Cast member's names.
- Paul Calder and David did these in Photoshop the day before handing it over to Fox by using screenshots of the movie.

Next Movie - Holidays '08

[edit] Quotes/Highlights

Mike Rowe: This is Katey Segal and I have a cold.
Billy West (as Fry): I've always been a bit of a hussie.
Maurice LaMarche: Tress MacNeille, ladies and gentlemen, coming up.
David X. Cohen: Tress also has a huge number of roles in this DVD.
Mike Rowe: I had a number of roles for lunch. Does that count?
Matt Groening: I want a transcript of this audio commentary.
[Fry and Colleen stare into each others eyes.]
Mike Rowe: Which one is Fry?
Mike Rowe (on Stephen Hawking): What's funny is his phone machine sounds normal.
Mike Rowe: This looks great. I can't wait to buy it.
Peter Avanzino: I spent a lot of time on a very nerdy joke with those, the lasers on the cell. They're supposed to be the Tholian web lasers. [people go "Ooo"]
David X. Cohen: (gasps) Star Trek reference.
Matt Groening (in a awe-struck voice): I don't know what that means.
Claudia Katz (on the first Tentacle battle): This took like two hours to do! [people laughing] It took so long.
Billy West (as a small child): (makes fart noise) 'Scuse me. Sorry.
Mike Rowe: I could probably say that I have the record for the number of Dial-a-Jokes of person on Dial-A-Joke. Thank you very much.
David X. Cohen: Did you submit the jokes or did you actually read them in your voice?
Mike Rowe: I read them in my voice as the comedian I once was... in the early 80's.
David X. Cohen: Can you tell us one of them?
Mike Rowe: Uhh... I bought a great book: The History of Crazy Glue. I can't put it down.
Matt Groening: Everyone has slept with everyone. Right? Kind of.
David X. Cohen: Just about.
Claduia Katz: Except for Zoidberg.
Mike Rowe: Much like the writers.
Mike Rowe: So it's the Raymond Burr duel.
Billy West (as Raymond Burr): I'm going to shoot you in the head and save your body.
Billy West (as M5438): It's fun to do that stuff. (normal voice): You know what I'm- I'm just doin' everything I did when I was, like, eight. [people laughing]
Mike Rowe: Can you do Fry?
Peter Avanzino: You could build a wooden structure that could withstand the vacuum of space, couldn't you? Thick walls?
David X. Cohen: I could.