Game of Tones
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Season 7 episode Broadcast season 10 episode | |||||
Game of Tones | |||||
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No. | 137 | ||||
Production number | 7ACV23 | ||||
Written by | Michael Rowe | ||||
Directed by | Edmund Fong | ||||
Title caption | IF UNABLE TO SEE THIS MESSAGE, TURN ON FUTURAMA NOW | ||||
First air date | 14 August, 2013 | ||||
Broadcast number | S10E10 | ||||
Title reference | The TV series Game of Thrones | ||||
Special guest(s) | Sarah Silverman Seth MacFarlane Tom Kenny | ||||
Additional | |||||
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Season 7 | |||||
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"Game of Tones" is the one hundred and thirty-seventh episode of Futurama, the twenty-third of the seventh production season and the tenth of the tenth broadcast season. It aired on 14 August, 2013, on Comedy Central. The crew journeys into Fry's dreams to seek the meaning of a mysterious alien melody.
Plot
Production
As late as 8 January 2013,[1] the episode's title was revealed.[2]
On 5 February, Vulture.com released a preview clip for the tenth broadcast season,[3] which contained footage from the episode.
On 19 June, it was revealed that Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane would voice Seymour in the episode.[4]
By 9 July, part of the animatic for the episode had been released online.[5][6]
In the animatic, the montage of Fry spending time with his family was longer, and the song "1999" played over it.
By 8 August, Comedy Central had released a two-minute preview clip featuring the crew trying to discover the source of the melody.[7]
Image gallery
Promotional picture of Fry licking Seymour.[8]
Concept art for a Nibblonian ship[9] similar to Nibbler's.
Promotional picture of Fry with his parents and Seymour.[4]
Additional information
Trivia
- Fry was also stuck on an inclined table in "Cold Warriors", which also featured Fry's family. In addition, the digits in the production code for "Cold Warriors" add up to the same amount as the digits in the production code for this episode.
- After the Eiffel Tower bends, a French man says "this never happens, I swear!", a very obvious erection joke.
- The episode shares multiple similarities with the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. A mysterious ship arrives, sending a strange melody to communicate, which, however, damages the planet, and the main characters have to travel back in time (in this episode through dreams).
- Nibbler says "bye-bye keys", which a toddler Bart Simpson says in the Simpsons episode "Lisa's First Word".
- The song that plays at the end of the episode is "Manchild", by the Eels, from the 1996 album Beautiful Freak.
Allusions
- Click here to see cultural mentions made in this episode.
- The episode's title is a reference to the TV series Game of Thrones.
- English actress Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, guest-stars in another episode of the season, "Stench and Stenchibility". She and Seth MacFarlane used to date.[11]
- Shazam is a reference to the music-identification service of the same name.
- Seymour sitting on the couch along with the rest of the Fry family and holding a martini is a reference to Family Guy's Brian Griffin, who is also voiced by Seth MacFarlane.
- There are several references to the 2010 film Inception. From the very act of getting into a dream, to the fact that, if Fry dies in the dream, he wakes up, the time proportion being different (inverted in Futurama) between the real world and the dream, the crew members connected to the dream machine, the shots of the world shaking due to the dream's collapse and the slow motion and music used as Fry is falling into the cryo-tube.
- The scene where the crew communicates with the alien ship via sound and lights on a billboard is reminiscent of the climax from the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A location similar to Devils Tower is also seen in the background.
- The final scene is a reference to the ending of the 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, where the protagonist gets to live one last experience with his mother based on memories.
Continuity
- Bender's "let's go already" song is from "Proposition Infinity".
- Bender previously wore a diaper in "The Tip of the Zoidberg".
- The episode revisits the cold opening of "Space Pilot 3000".
- Nibbler tells Fry that he has once more done the Nibblonians a great service. This is a reference to "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" and "The Why of Fry", in which Fry saves the world and the universe, respectively.
Goofs
- Fry's alarm clock reads "09:01" thirty seconds after turning to nine o'clock.
- This may be due to the fact that the clock is part of a dream.
- The design of the radio-cranial dream injector in the second act is different from the design of the radio-cranial dream injector in the first and third acts. The animatic version of the design, however, is the same.
- Fry laments that he didn't get to say goodbye to his parents, but in "Space Pilot 3000", he seems thrilled at the notion all the people he ever knew were dead.
- His feelings may have changed as time went by.
- Farnsworth states that Fry can't remember any point past the moment he was frozen but Fry travelled back to the day he was frozen twice. In The Why of Fry he briefly saw himself get frozen and a few seconds after before returning. In Bender's Big Score he travelled back to 12:30 A.M. and remained for an hour before returning.
- Fry's parents are distraught from not having closure with Fry before he vanished yet Lars, Fry's time-duplicate, lives 12 years after Fry was frozen in the past getting to spend time with his family. As far as they know he's off on one of his boat trips
Quotes
Hermes: But what are those aliens tryin' to ask us? What do the tones mean?
Professor Farnsworth: Isn't it obvious?
Hermes: Uh... No.
Professor Farnsworth: Drat! I was hoping it was.
Fry: Can you guys hear the professor too?
Fry's father: Yup.
Fry: Does that seem strange to you?
Fry's mother: Well, no. Not in a dream. Lotsa weird stuff could happen.
Seymour: Philip. Have you lost weight?
Leela: Sorry to disturb you all, but Fry needs to get going.
Fry's mother: I was just telling him that, Leela.
Fry: Mom? You know Leela?
Fry's mother: Nope.
Fry: Michelle. Baby. Where're you goin'?
Michelle: It's not working out, Fry. [as her cab drives away] I put your stuff out on the sidewalk!!
Leela: Hey, you hussy! You can't dump Fry! That's my job!
Fry: The last thing I did was blow my noisemaker sarcastically, to underscore my deep disappointment with life.
Appearances
Characters
- 20th-century kid
- Amy
- Bender
- Charles Constantine
- Debut: Digby
- Donkey Kong
- Fry
- Fry's breakdancing crew
- Glagnar
- Hermes
- Last clone of Agnew
- Leela
- Michelle
- Mr. Panucci
- Mrs. Fry
- Nibbler
- Noticeably F.A.T.
- Professor Farnsworth
- Randy Munchnik
- Richard Nixon's head
- Scruffy
- Seymour Asses
- Debut: Shazam
- Yancy Fry Jr.
- Yancy Fry Sr.
- Zoidberg
Places
- Apartment 00100100
- Applied Cryogenics
- Debut: Booby Tuesday's
- Eiffel Tower
- France
- Fry's house
- Debut: Fry's old apartment
- Debut: Mount Shushmore
- O'Grady's Pub
- Panucci's Pizza
- Paris
- Planet Express conference room
- Planet Express employee lounge
- Planet Express headquarters
- Planet Express lab
- Debut: Planet Z-7
- Robot Arms Apartments
- Vergon 6 (mentioned in speech only)
Miscellaneous
- "Bender is great!" (in animatic only)
- Charleston Chew (mentioned in speech only)
- Cryo-tube
- Debut: Digby's new spaceship
- Debut: Digby's old spaceship
- "Good news, everyone"
- I. C. Wiener (mentioned in speech and text only, 14:42)
- "Let's go already!"
- Debut: Long-range scanner
- Nibbler's shadow
- Owls
- Debut: Radio-cranial dream injector
- "Walking on Sunshine"
References
- ^ Eric Rogers (08 January 2012). EricRogersLA. (Twitter.) Retrieved on 17 January 2012.
- ^ FoxFast: Futurama. (FoxFast.com.) Retrieved on 17 January 2013.
- ^ Jesse David Fox (05 February 2013). Watch a Preview of Futurama’s Seventh Season. (Vulture.com.) Retrieved on 23 June 2013.
- ^ a b Dan Snierson (19 June 2013). 'Futurama': Seth MacFarlane to play.... -- EXCLUSIVE. (Entertainment Weekly.) Retrieved on 19 June 2013.
- ^ Roy Camacho. FUTURAMA 723 :Rufino Roy Camacho II. Retrieved on 09 July 2013.
- ^ Animatic video. Retrieved on 16 August 2013.
- ^ I Too Was on Earth That Day - Video Clip. (Comedy Central.) Retrieved on 08 August 2013.
- ^ Countdown to Futurama: Fry Licking Seymour. (Comedy Central's Tumblr page.) 02 June 2013. Retrieved on 02 June 2013.
- ^ Countdown to Futurama: Nibblonian Ship. (Comedy Central's Tumblr page.) 03 June 2013. Retrieved on 07 August 2013.
- ^ Countdown to Futurama: Nibbler and Digby. (Comedy Central's Tumblr page.) 04 June 2013. Retrieved on 07 August 2013.
- ^ Taryn Ryder (20 March 2013). Seth MacFarlane and ‘Game of Thrones’ Star Emilia Clarke Break Up. (Omg.yahoo.com.) Retrieved on 19 June 2013.