Reincarnation

"Reincarnation" is the one hundred and fourteenth episode of Futurama, the twenty-sixth and last of the sixth production season and the thirteenth and last of the eighth broadcast season. It aired 8 September, 2011 on Comedy Central. Futurama is reconceived in three alternate animation styles: classic black-and-white, old-school videogame, and Japanese anime.

Plot
Each segment revolves around the Diamondium comet.

Reception
"Reincarnation" aired 8 September 2011 on Comedy Central. Prior to its broadcast, a few previews had risen. Salon's Matt Zoller Seitz exclaimed that the episode was a must watch for Futurama fans and encouraged fans to 'set their DVRs now', while IGN's Robert Canning gave it 8.5 (great).

Reviews of the episode continued in a similar positive fashion, with The A.V. Club's Zack Handlen giving it an A rating, highlighting that the episode managed to '[pay] homage to trio of different styles without missing a beat or coming across as self-indulgent'. Nick McHatton from TV Fanatic said the episode 'brought Futurama's season to a close in a wonderfully hilarious and original way' and gave it a rating of 4.5 out of 5.

Production
The title was originally "Resurrection", but it was changed to "Reincarnation" in the process.

The episode was for some time thought to be the 'series finale', but the announcement of the upcoming seventh production season proved otherwise. It is a segmented episode and non-canonical, as with the "Anthology of Interest" episodes and "The Futurama Holiday Spectacular".

The production code was early on planned to be 6ACV25, making the episode the second-to-last, but was in November 2010 changed to 6ACV26, making the episode the season finale.

During June 2011, Countdown to Futurama released six items of promotional material for the episode: reused concept art of Bender in Fleischer style from The Beast with a Billion Backs on 10 June, concept art of Nibbler in Fleischer style on 11 June, concept art of Fry in anime style on 12 June, part of the storyboard from the anime segment showing a battle between a robot and a wizard on 13 June, concept art of Leela and Bender in anime style on 14 June, and a video clip featuring the crew in anime style on 21 June.

On 15 June, David X. Cohen announced in an interview that "Reincarnation" was one of his favourite episodes of the broadcast season. He also said that they had licensed actual existing music to fit the different sequences - jazz for the Fleischer one, actual anime scores for the anime one, and videogame music for the videogame one - and that the anime segment would be screened on the 2011.

On 21 July, another video clip featuring the crew in anime style was shown by Filmnut during an interview with Patric M. Verrone.

On 16 August, released a promotional picture for the episode from the Fleischer segment.

According to Eric Rogers, the writers even considered, but decided against due to time constraints and money.

During September 2011, Countdown to Reincarnation released eleven items of promotional material for the episode: two promotional pictures from the videogame segment and two promotional pictures from the Fleischer segment on 2 September; one promotional picture from the anime segment, the Countdown to Futurama video clip, and part of the storyboard from the anime segment showing Bender and Fry dancing on 6 September; the AWN promotional picture and a video clip featuring the crew in Fleischer style on 7 September; and a concept-art set in Fleischer style and part of the storyboard from the Fleischer segment showing Amy, Fry, Leela, Zoidberg, Bender, and Hermes holding a vacuum hose on 8 September.

On 3 September, Entertainment Weekly released a video clip from the Fleischer segment.

On 7 September, the Fleischer segment, the video game segment and the Anime segment were revealed to be named 'Colorama', 'Future Challenge 3000' and 'Action Delivery Force', respectively.

Trivia

 * This episode is among the few one-word titled media.
 * This episode is also among the Futurama media featuring its title within the story.
 * This episode marks the second time that Futurama pays tribute to . The first part of The Beast with a Billion Backs, which also had some influences, marked the first.
 * This is one of four episodes of broadcast season 8 to be broadcast in production order. The other three are "Fry Am the Egg Man", "Cold Warriors", and "Overclockwise".
 * All three segments feature a joke on the limitations of their respective mediums. Colorama invents a color in a black and white world, Future Challenge 3000 describes perfect resolution in a low resolution world, and Action Delivery Force shows a highly complex dance too fast to be seen in a low frame rate world.
 * The high scores of the day reported on by Morbo and Linda are:
 * PLA:99999
 * ISS:233568
 * RDS:225746
 * DXC:84357
 * COB:62478
 * BBR:62476
 * 4734
 * The recycled location shot in the "Action Delivery Force" segment is.

Continuity

 * The concept of owls as pests is revisited.
 * Diamondium reappears, another TBWABB element.

Allusions

 * The idea of three stories revolving around the diamondium comet bears some resemblance to the "Meteor Shower Trilogy" of  (consists of "", "" and ""), where a meteor shower provided the backdrop for three separate stories.

Colorama

 * Farnsworth says, ", everyone!" A reference to a newsreel series of the same name from the 1920's.
 * Nibbler crawls on the widow's walk dressed like from .
 * Amy says "You're boopin' my Betty." This is a reference to the famous Fleischer creation.
 * At one point, to get stronger muscles, Fry swallows mushroom jelly from a can. This is a reference to how Popeye the sailor used spinach to make himself stronger.
 * At the end, Bender busts out of the screen and says, "Ba-lap-ba-lap-ba-lap-That's all you get, jerks!", a parody of ending  cartoons by bursting out of a drum and saying, "Th-Th-Th-That's all, folks!"

Future Challenge 3000

 * When Farnsworth analyzes the log, he makes references to the lyrics of "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea".
 * When Hermes tells everyone to get back to work, the crew digs underneath the Planet Express building. This is a reference to the arcade game.
 * Farnsworth jumps over a barrel, another Donkey Kong reference.
 * The Galaxians resemble the Aliens from the video game '. Their name is a reference to the video game ', which was designed to compete with Space Invaders.

Action Delivery Force

 * Fry, at one point, puts on a helmet similar to one worn by.
 * The space robot Zagtar looks similar to the title character from .
 * The main themes from Voltron and  are featured.
 * Music during the space battle is "Alien Attack" from
 * The "Curious Pussycat" brand is a reference to the "" line of merchandise.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Debut: Bernilla
 * Calculon
 * Cubert
 * Curious Pussycat
 * Fry
 * The Galactic Entity
 * Hattie
 * Hermes
 * Igner
 * LaBarbara
 * Larry
 * Leela
 * Debut: Leela's finger
 * Linda
 * Nibbler
 * Mayor Poopenmeyer
 * Monique
 * Morbo
 * Petunia
 * Debut: Prince Hiroshi
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Roberto
 * Sal
 * Scruffy
 * Slurms MacKenzie
 * Debut: Sparky
 * Stephen Hawking's head
 * Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate
 * Transition Announcer
 * Walt
 * Dr. Ogden Wernstrom
 * Debut: Zagtar
 * Zoidberg