Transcript:Commentary:The Beast with a Billion Backs

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Transcript for
The Beast with a Billion Backs Commentary
Written byEric Kaplan & David X. Cohen
Transcribed byMini-Me


Commentary Participants:

Billy West (as Announcer): There is nothing wrong with your DVD. The Beast with a Billion Backs. What are ya waitin' for? A commentary? [people laughing] Release date: June 24 2008. The proud result of...

[Title Caption appears.]

BW: ...prison labour, that's what it says? Oh, hi, I'm Billy West. And, uh, this, is commentary for Beast with a Billion Backs, eagerly awaited and, uh, we got a whole crowd with us today. Umm... hi Mo.

Maurice LaMarche (comedic voice): Hey, what a crowd! What a crowd! I tell ya' I'm alright now, but last week I was in rough shape. (normal voice) Oh, look at this. I love this. This is, this is gonna be amazing. I'm Maurice LaMarche. I'm an actor on the show. I play Kif, Morbo, Calculon, Schlomo, Sportsbot 5000, Hedonism Bot, Destructor, Elderly King Kong, Lrrr, Horrible Gelatinous Blob and Fishy Joe.

[Alternate Opening Cartoon appears.]

David X. Cohen: Okay, let's finish introducing ourselves after this. Pete Avanzino, director, you wanna talk a little about this black and white section and the inspirations.

BW: Excellent.

Peter Avanzino: I'm Pete Avanzino, the director. I was fortunate enough, uh, you guys wrote this great scene and we had the great Steven DiStefano, who's a comic book artist and Popeye historian, storyboard it and we pretty much traced his drawings for the design and, uh...umm...

DXC: Any inspirations?

PA: Well, of course, Steamboat Mickey, Steamboat Willie, one... I mean. Is that the inspiration you want?

DXC: Sure. [people laughing] And, uh, John DiMaggio did the whistling that you heard.

Michael Rowe: And we owe Disney money now.

BW: John's here? Where?

Matt Groening: Cartoons are written?

DXC: Matt Groening!

MM: So now that I sound like a raving egomaniac 'cause I'm the only person who introduced all his credits. Ladies and gentlemen, please let me introduce MG.

MG: Hi, this is Matt Groening.

BW: Hi.

DXC: This is David X. Cohen. X-ecutive producer.

MR: This is Katie Segal and I have a cold. [people laughing] This is Mike Rowe, one of the, uh, writers somewhere in here.

Claudia Katz: Claudia Katz, producer for Rough Draft.

PA: It's Peter Avanzino again. Director.

LS: Uhh, Lee Supercinski. A producer.

JD: And I'm JJ. Voice of Bender and Randy, who you just saw a second ago. (as Randy): 'Cause he's great! I can't believe he's still around. My God! Stuff happens.

DXC: And, obviously, this movie actually starts out where the last one left off. Very surprisingly. Normally when a cartoon ends with the universe blowing up you just go, "Oh, it's a cartoon. They're not gonna deal with that," but we decided to deal with it so...

[Intro to Sports with Sportsbot 5000.]

JD: (laughing) I just noticed the dude playing marbles in the uh... There's a guy playing marbles in the highlights in sports.

PA: That scene is packed with great sports footage.

JD: I didn't - I... that's great.

MR: Rough Draft did a lot of work for that. It was a lot of animation for a joke.

PA: Ya, when you guys write a joke like that I don't like to cheat on it.

DXC: Well you have it even worse later. We'll get to it later, but there's that screen with 64 simultaneous bits of information later, so we'll talk about that.

PA: Yes and I think you guys said "Well, can't you just repeat some?" and... I'm not gonna do that.

[Professor ignites his own head.]

BW: Hey, he's burnin' up.

PA: This is the first time I'm seeing this, so I'm just gonna watch. [people laughing]

[Fry enters with Colleen.]

DXC: That's guest star Brittany Murphy there as Colleen. [people cheering]

JD (as Shaft): Yeah, that's right. Brittany Murphy. Aw, she a bad mutha'...

MR: Watch yo' mouth.

JD (as Shaft): I'm just talkin' 'bout Brittany Murphy, baby.

BW: We can dig it.

JD (as Shaft): Aw, man.

BW: L-O-L.

JD: (laughs) (surfer voice) Totally hot. Wow.

BW: Rofflemow {as in R.O.F.L.M.A.O.}

MR: I see her bellybuttons.

JD (as Shaft): That's crazy.

DXC: So, we had some qualms about this a little bit - although it didn't stop us - about Fry is immediately smitten with this other woman, apparently days after the last episode in which he and Leela has this real big love story going, but we figured "Ah, well, six months will pass between people actually seeing that one and this one so they'll probably forgive us about this story twist."

MM: Until now, you let the cat out of the bag.

BW (as Fry): I've always been a bit of a hussie.

PA: I listen to my commentaries at home in the nude.[ people laughing]

[Fry and Zoidberg talking about Colleen in the park.]

MM: I love this little bit right here with the... just snaking us in and then...

JD: I liked the little blood on the pancakes joke. I laughed [i]out loud[/i] when I heard that joke.

MM: A flashback within a flashback.

JD: Sorry. {for interrupting MM}

DXC: There used to be a third part to this sequence and if you watch the Deleted Scenes extras in the DVD you'll see this actually continued another step further. Fry and Colleen met each other the next day.

JD (as Shaft): Those Deleted Scenes are a bad mutha'-

MM: You chose to break the rules.

DXC: We stuck to two.

[Bender is turned back on.]

BW: Hey, is that Iron Man? (does excessive electronic sounds, then stops) Sorry.

LS: Nice segue, Billy.

DXC: MM, you have a lo-. You have, actually, a large role in this...

MM: I have a story line. Yah, I was very thrilled.

DXC: You're actually playing Kif, who's involved in this story line, and Calculon, who is heavily involved in another story line.

MM (as Calculon): Yes I am indeed, my friend, Mr. Cohen.

DXC: And Hedonism Bot, who also has a heavy role in that story and...

MM (as Hedonism Bot): I'm afraid you're making a weight reference and I will not acknowledge it. [people laughing]

DXC: And Morbo, who explains everything to us, so I'd have to say MM has a...

MM: I think we should just change it to "Mo-arama" at this point.

JD: Aw, yeah.

MM: And we're done. Yah, I actually selfishly went through and counted all my characters in the episode just to make sure I still work here. [people laughing]

JD (drowned MM's previous comments): Hey, did I...?

MM: Did you what?

JD: Never mind.

[Flying toward Amphibious 9.]

MM: Wait, we're on Amphibious 9 now.

JD: Yes, that's right. We're on your home planet.

MM: That's right.

JD: You're character's home planet.

MM: Alright. This is-

JD: It's about you, Mo. [MM laughing] It's about you.

MM: No, I'm just thrilled that I'm doing this.

[Leela exits the ship-eating plant with a blow torch.]

BW: That's sexy.

JD: I'll break out the... the Stoke-Longer. [people laughing] I just invented it.

MM: "Mo's Big Score."

JD: A new thing.

CK: The Back Patter.

DXC: Now this planet was established for "Kif Gets Up..." (confused mouth sound) "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch," episode 401.

MM: But we've never seen it at night.

[Enter Kif's parents.]

DXC: And we've never seen Kif's parents before. But one interesting this is when we last saw this planet Kif was giving birth to his and Leela's babies due to the strange circumstances of that episode and so we were originally planning to revisit their babies here but we just decided it was so confusing to anyone that didn't have a clear memory that it was him and Leela and he gave birth. They were tad poles so we decided we would not deal with that, but on the other hand the fact that they start as tad poles and turn into whatever Kif is inspired us to say, "Hey, what if they then turn into something else?" So that's where these flies came from.

MM: What David is saying...

JD: These Hook Flies, are these a real type of fly or did you make them up?

MR: They're very cool.

DXC: Flying Hook Worms?

JD: Yah.

DXC: I really don't think that's a real thing.

CK: I think they're...

JD: Okay.

BW (in Kif's father's voice): Nice to meet you.

DXC: That's a great effect though. That computer graphics there. And the audio.

JD: And that was Billy doing that voice without any...

DXC: How many flies are there?

MM: Billy was not audio effected. That's just Billy doing Billy. that's how genius he is.

BW (in Kif's father's voice): Thank you.

JD (weird voice): That's just Billy being Billy.

'BW (in Kif's father's voice): I love you.

DXC: There's also an audio effect on it, there is.

JD (weird voice): That's just Billy being Billy.

PA: Billy did the voice for each one of those flies. [DXC and KK laugh]

[Leela is playing Pong on her wrist.] [MM laughs]]

DXC: How many flies are animated there?

BW: Who cares? It was a buyout.

CK: Thousands!

PA: Uhh, those are 3-D. I dunno, somebody would have to count them.

CK: I think they're some sort of particle based effect.

PA: Yah, we... flying bugs are something that come out choppy a lot in 2-D so...

CK: The research was very difficult to...

MR: They were inspired by what we found on John's back. [people laughing]

JD: After coming back from Thailand.

MM: Tress MacNeille, ladies and gentlemen, coming up.

DXC: Tress also has a huge number of roles in this DVD.

BW: Yes.

MM: She's every woman in the...

MR: I had a number of roles for lunch. Does that count? [people laughing] I had to say it, I'm sorry. Cut that in post.

BW: I like the look on Leo Wong's face.

MM: I love that she's wearing something borrowed, something blue.

DXC: Oh, yah!

JD: Oh, she's got the blue garters on! Nice!

MM: Nice!

CK: We don't miss anything.

PA: This scene came from the inspiration of my wedding. [people laughing] Don't want to get into it, but...

JD: Nice.

PA: There ya' go.

JD: Did the mud burn? That's all I wanna know. Did it burn?

MG: I want a transcript of this audio commentary. [DXC and MG laugh]

DXC: Uh, by the way, I gotta credit Eric Kaplan, the writer of the DVD who could not be here today. In fact he's out of the country, but fantastic script Eric Kaplan.

BW: Abu dabu.

PA: Long story.

BW: Yah.

CK: Is he coming back?

JD: I actually drove past him on the street the other day and noticed it was him as I passed and I yelled out "Mister Kaplan!" And I looked in the mirror and he was like. [people laughing] Where did that mystery voice come from?

DXC: John is acting this out on a voice commentary.

JD: Yes! It's something that you can't see at home!

MM: But the facial expression was priceless.

JD (high pitched voice): Wow! Incredible!

[Kif pulls out his bouquet.]

MM: Now is this some organ of Kif's or umm...?

BW: Yes.

MM: Cause I played it that way. [DXC and KK laugh]

[Fry and Colleen star into each others eyes.]

JD: Wow.

MR: Which one is Fry? [people laugh]

[Zoidberg devours the bouquet.] [groans of disgust are shared throughout the group]

BW (as Zoidberg): But I have sweet breath.

JD: I love this. This is great.

BW: Bed head. (does a electric razor noise) [people laughing]

JD: Awesome.

PA: Good timing.

MM: You know what happens is you create stuff like this in fiction and then people go on to create it in real, you know, actual scientists create it in real life. So within 20 years there will be Barb-O-Mite.

JD: Would you use it though? I wouldn't want mites on my hair. Even if they...

MM: If I could get the same haircut, the perfect haircut every time? I dunno.

JD: Only if you knew that the lifespan of the mite was, like if it ate that much it would die. Like, you'd have to... no there'd be too much!

DXC: So you're okay with having a head full of dead mites?

JD: Yah, see, yah. That's the thing. They'd be alive when you put 'em in and then like eat the hair and then because of that...

LS: Maybe they decompose.

JD: Yah.

LS: Into a nice conditioner.

JD: See, that's the other thing.

CK: A leave on conditioner.

JD: Well, you know. It's...

MR: The director's saying, "Why aren't they talking about the colours?"

JD: I don't know. All I know is Barb-O-Mite. (Bender as announcer) Everybody's favourite stuff to put in their hair! It's Barb-O-Mite!

[Bender pulls out a head of cabbage for Fry.]

BW: I love how... watch the cabbage.

JD: Done.

MR: How about the Flow-Bumblebee? [MG laughs]

MM: I love how Bender has the talent to actually draw.

JD: I like this part.

BW: Wilson!

LS: Bender draws a really good Fry for being upset.

CK: Yep.

MM: So, on the last DVD we did a full episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad. Can I put in my two cents now and say on the third DVD, a full episode of All My Circuits?

MG: Oooh!

DXC: Yah, get started on that. [people laughing]

JD: Nice job dude. Way to go.

[Fry and Colleen enter 2-D ride.]

MG: I think this is one of my favourite scenes of all time on the show. This is great.

JD: I like barker.

MG: This is conceptionally great and well executed.

DXC: Actually there's a shot coming up that we fought... :[side view of Fry.] Well that, that's a great shot in itself. Sterling animation. [people laughing]

CK: If you blow that up like 200 times you would not believe what's going on there.

LS: That is the scene that I animated myself.

DXC: I like this-... oh really?

MM: No, this is the scene I animated myself.

DXC: This is the angle I love, right there.

BW: That is great.

JD: And this one. wait... the one that. That one. [people laughing]

DXC: That, a credit to our editor Paul Calder who had the idea to use that as... to reuse that as a reaction shot.

JD: "At the fuut of the bed." At the...

DXC: And John DiMaggio, that dog whimper was not called for in the script. You just did that.

JD: I think I... yah...

DXC: It just had like "pathetic whimper" or something and then John did that dog whimper and we used it for Bender.

LS: I drew him like a cat though. [people laughing] A cat rubbing his head.

JD: See? Yep. There goes- there goes that Emmy award. [people laughing]

DXC: Get ready for our next guest star.

PA: Here he comes.

JD: Ah... oh... and...

DXC: Making his second appearance in Futurama.

[Stephen Hawking descends into frame.]

JD: Yah.

DXC: Professor Stephen Hawking.

[people clapping]

PA: Do you remember our discussion on how Stephen should...

MM: That was amazing. He actually has terrific timing. [DXC laughs] I was watching this last night going "Hawking is funny. He's got really great timing."

BW: You know what it is? He's got that Stephen Wright style of comedy. [people laughing]

MR: What's funny is his phone machine sounds normal. [people laughing]

JD: Hey, uhh...

BW (as Stephen Hawking): I saw a wooden man the other day.

JD: Hey is somebody... I don't mean to, I don't mean to bring it down, but somebody that was on the show, umm...

MM: Yah.

JD: Just passed away recently.

MM: Gary Gygax.

JD: Gary Gygax, and I think we should say just, you know... ah, best... you know... say the best.

DXC: Heavy inspiration of our third DVD, Bender's Game, um... so, yes, thanks to Gary Gygax for the inspiration and the good times.

JD: May he rest in peace.

MM: Not that we're giving away much about DVD three.

BW: (laughs) He's reduced to throwing his teeth now, that's so great. I'm not gonna come down there and punch him out. (chomps teeth) Ow!

JD: Ooh! (chomps teeth) Ow!

CK: Hey, Pete, is this our largest crowd ever in lab coats?

PA: In lab coats.

CK: Definitely.

MM: Are lab coats hard to draw?

DXC: There was an early version where this was called the Institute for Advanced Studlies and the scientists all had tremendous physiques. [MR laughs] We decided that it was just confusing the issue.

JD: "I didn't know I could do that." [MM laughs] Funny. Funny, funny, funny.

LS: I remember David, you were maybe contemplating Hawkins' head could actually move. Like his mouth would move, but he would still have the robot voice.

DXC: Yah, we had to decide what to do in the future, like, would he change technology, but we decided "you know what, everyone's preserved in the jar the way you best remember them." My guess from their career, what they're known for.

CK: Their quintessential version.

DXC: Yah, so we stuck with the straight up.

[Scene: Deathball.]

MG: So David and I can't get over this scene. We played this over and over again watching the animation in this. It's, uh...

BW: I love this.

CK: We actually built a life sized version of this at Rough Draft and our workman's comp. rates are just outta control. [LL laughs]

MG: Well, when Fry's riding that ball.

LS: This should be the next Halloween party.

CK: Yah, this should be the next...

JD: Oh, that would be awesome.

BW (as Zoidberg): Think of the insurance.

DXC: I'm gonna point out this scene that blows me away when it's gets there. I mean, it all does, but it's a use of 3D in a way we've not used it before. For one thing, you know, it's just a totally novel use of 3D in the show.

LS: I think we're gonna do a special on this somewhere, but...

DXC: Okay, watch Fry's hands in this shot, the subtlety of like...

MM: The finger movements!

DXC: He's balancing with, like, his fingers. That is unbelievable.

MM: That is great.

DXC: I actually thought you guys had done motion capture when I saw that shot.

LS: Please!

DXC: It's so... it looks so detailed.

LS: We did, uh... we did, umm... It's a weird combination, 'cause we built scenes like that one in 3D. The floor is tilting and then we print them out and the layout artist draws the layouts on top of those print outs. And then the end, we send all the print outs to Korea and they have to register all the drawings to each print out, one by one. And that shot of Fry on top of the ball, it came out really incredible and, um...

DXC: Who did the...

LS: J. Kim did the layouts. I should say, Edmund Fong boarded this whole section and we planned it from the start. We knew all the... everything, you know, all the scenes, but there's about a dozen or 15 where the floors really tilt well and then we replaced all the balls.

CK: In 3D, right.

LS: The bocce ball type things.

BW: Look at his little butt!

PA: We mixed these movies in 5.1 and that scene in particular, every... I hope everyone's listening to it in 5.1 at home. The subwoofer roar of the balls, and it's a fantastic mix on that part.

DXC: Yah, in the surround sound you can really hear that those balls weigh about ten thousand tonnes each as the "boom."

BW: Well, when I'm in my tub at night I-.. no! [people laughing]

MR: I like sitting on my subwoofer.

BW: You sunk my battleship! [JJ still laughing]

DXC: This is Phil LaMarr as Ndulu, Maurice as Schlomo and, by the way, the character of Schlomo with the bow tie there, that is... that's an old design based on Eric Kaplan.

MM: Eric Kaplan! I was gonna say.

JD: Totally.

DXC: And Bolt Rolands, the other boyfriend, is also Phil LaMarr from episode 104.

PA: Phil LaMarr was doing every voice in that scene at one point.

DXC: At one point he was also Schlomo.

BW: Did you guys ever think of having a..

MM: But you decided to give it to a real Jew. [people laughing] A real Jew with a fake French name.

MG: well... you're outing yourself.

CK: I had no idea.

MM: Once you've had your brake lines cut it's just... you know. Hey, I wanna tell ya...

DXC: Now, oh! A, just a general com-... oh and the Enema Bot.

JD: And the Enema Bot. I love the Enema Bot. That's hilarious.

BW: Was that... who was that?

DXC: That's Dave Herman.

BW: Oh, course!

MM: Course!

JD: Course!

BW: Dave, why are you never here?

JD: Dave "Everything I Touch Turns To Gold."

BW (as Dave Herman): Because I'm not stupid. I don't have money to travel like you guys do.

MR: Comedy gold.

MM: But we just live here.

BW (as Dave Herman): I live in Texas.

MM: Now they... that's how they load the Dark Matter onto the...?

DXC: This week.

PA: In this episode.

MM: That's very funny. Well enjoy that.

BW: They got strong.

DXC: We're gonna finally learn the deep dark secrets of Dark Matter in DVD number three.

MM: That's right! That was my cryptic comment.

[Kif's head expands with pressure.] [MM laughs]

DXC: Another new feature of Kif there.

JD: I like this part. :[Kif's eye sticks out and Amy pokes in back in.] Pow.

[Professor stands behind Enema Bot and slightly groans.]

JD: HA HOO! [people laughing] Sorry.

DXC: That Professor "moan" there is so disturbing. It sounds so...

JD: Well there's steam coming off his behind. You didn't see that? Of course you saw that.

MM: No, I missed that.

BW: Can you rewind?

JD: You missed that.

MM: I missed that, I did.

DXC: It's so, the moan is so quiet. It just sounds like he lost the will to live.

BW: That was the "death rattle."

JD: After a hot coffee enema, pretty much... yah.

[Fry fails to catch his futon.] [DXC laughs] </poem>

JD: Ow.

[Fry looks up at Colleen's apartment complex.]

MM: Any significance to the numbers there, David?

DXC: Ah, not that I know of, actually.

MM: Really? Just random 2-4...

[The complex lowers into the ground.] [BW laughs]

JD: This is a funny bit.

BW: It's gonna happen some day. [DXC laughs]

DXC: Here's a, I was gonna make a writing note to explain our thinking process a little bit with this non-monogamous relationship story here. The idea here, if it was not obvious, is that Fry gets involved with this relationship and he... it's just too much for him. He gets overwhelmed and he says, you know, "I can't deal with this woman who's got five boyfriends," but later he becomes the ultimate spokesman for the opposite point of view with Yivo where he is the pope of this religion espousing this relationship with a quadrillion people, so this is kind of a micro version of the giant story later in which Fry finds himself on the opposite side of the yard.

MR: Would that be foreshadowing?

DXC: I don't know what it'd be called. It might just be repetition.

MR: Oh, okay. But you need to know for the test.

LS: Maybe we should say spoiler at this point. [people laughing]

[Hermes performs the Crack-Slam on Wernstrum.]

JD: By the way, that made me laugh really hard. The crack-slam.

DXC: Really, a naked butt made John DiMaggio laugh?

JD: Yah. Yah. Yah.

CK: I think there's a lot less naked butt in this one than the first one.

MM: Do you think people...

JD: The crack-slam!

MM: ...people, there's nobody who's gonna listen to the commentary track first and then watch the movie.

DXC: No, no.

MM: We're not really spoiling...

JD: We're not spoiling it.

MM: They're watched the movie once, right?

JD: If they watch...

MM: Write us if you've watched... if you've actually put this in and watched this first and listened to us first and then watched the actual movie.

MR: But then mail the envelope first and then write the letter.

JD (as Bender): I love Bender dot com.

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