Space Pilot 3000

"Space Pilot 3000" is the first and pilot episode of Futurama and of the first season. It aired 28 March, 1999 on FOX. It guest stars Leonard Nimoy and Dick Clark as themselves in jars. Philip J. Fry, a New York pizza delivery boy wounds up in a cryogenics lab and wakes up a thousand years later, where he meets Turanga Leela and Bender Bending Rodríguez, whom all apply for a job at Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth's Planet Express.

Act I: "Here's to another lousy millennium!"
Pizza delivery boy Philip J. Fry hates his life; he has to deliver a pizza without pay, his girlfriend dumps him, and his bike is stolen, and it all happens on New Year's Eve of 2000. The pizza goes to someone named "I. C. Wiener" in a cryogenics lab, where Fry soon realises that it was a prank call. He sits down and drinks one of the beers, toasting to "another lousy millenium." The bell tolls midnight and he unenthusiastically blows a noise maker when it knocks back in his face, causing him to fall backwards into a cryogenics tube. The tube sets itself for a thousand years and Fry is frozen. As he lies in wait for the next thousand years, the city of New York changes&mdash;it is destroyed by a group of mysterious spaceships. It is rebuilt into primitive Medieval-era castles, only to be destroyed again by more ships. By the time Fry awakens, he sees that New York has become an extremely futuristic metropolis and immediately deduces that he is in the future. He realizes that he will never see his friends, family and girlfriend again...and he couldn't be any happier. The Opening Sequence rolls.

Act II: "Have a nice future!"
Fry is greeted by two workers at the lab&mdash;one of them gives an extremely melodramatic greeting ("Welcome to the world of tomorrow!"). He is escorted to the Fate Assignment Officer's Office where he meets Leela, a beautiful woman with a huge eye in the center of her face, who explains that it is December 31, 2999.

A DNA scan reveals that he has only living relative in this time period: his many times great nephew Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. Fry begins looking forward to his life in the future until Leela assigns him a permanent career as a delivery boy. Fry refuses to be a delivery boy again, but Leela says that everyone&mdash;even herself&mdash;has do do a job whether they like it or not, coining the phrase, "You gotta do what you gotta do." She tries to implant a chip that will label Fry a delivery boy forever, but Fry runs away. Leela ends up falling into one of the cryogenic tubes during the ensuing chase, which sets itself for 1000 years much like Fry's tube. Fry prepares to leave frozen there but, out of the goodness in his heart, decides to reset the tube to unthaw her in 5 minutes before he leaves the lab.

After witnessing the wonders of the city and how it has changed, he decides to call his descendant Farnsworth. He gets in line for what he thinks is a phone booth and meets a robot named Bender waiting in line. It turns out the phone booth is actually a Suicide Booth, and that Bender is eagerly awaiting his death, but they both manage to avoid death. Having failed at suicide again, Bender invites Fry to get drunk with him at a bar. Fry finds out that Bender wants to kill himself because of his programming as a girder-bender for Suicide Booths. Fry convinces Bender to abandon his plans at suicide and the two become friends when Leela finds them.

Act III: "Welcome to the head museum."
Fry and Bender duck into the Head Museum to hide and are greeted by Leonard Nimoy's head. Leela, along with two police officers Smitty and URL, finds the group in the museum, where Fry accidentally bumps into the shelves, knocking Richard Nixon's head down and provoking him to attack. Smitty and URL begin to use excessive force on Fry, but Leela tries to convince them to stop. After the officers insult her appearance (she actually took offense to a statement about her nose instead of her eye), and Leela knocks them out, prompting Fry and Bender to run for it. Leela demands to know why the officers would beat Fry like that&mdash;they explain that it's their job, saying "[they] gotta do what [they] gotta do."

Fry and Bender lock themselves in a room from Leela. Fry notices that there is a barred window and that Bender can bend the bars so they can escape, but Bender is unable to comply, saying he is only programmed to bend for construction. Fry, however, convinces him to break free from his dependency on his programming, and Bender manages to bend the bars apart, reaching the epiphany of bending whatever, whenever, and whoever he pleases. They go deep underground to the ruins of Old New York, where Fry realizes that he has lost everything he left behind in the past. Leela once again catches up with them, but Fry decides to give in to his fate as a delivery boy. But instead of implanting the carreer chip, Leela sympathizes his lonliness, saying that her parents abandoned her as a baby, thus giving her an unclear perspective of her heritage. She removes her own chip, thus quitting her job, and thanks Fry for helping her realize the nonsensicality of the quote "You gotta do what you gotta do," much like he did for Bender.

Act IV: "We have you partially surrounded!"
Since all three have quit their jobs, Fry, Bender, and Leela realize that they are now fugitives of the law, so they hide at Planet Express where Fry's nephew Professor Farnsworth lives. After confirming his connection to Fry for himself, the Professor shows them his intergalactic spaceship. The building is then (partially) surrounded by the police, so they use the ship to escape. While they take off, the police open fire&mdash;but the bell tolls the year 3000, and the ship cannot be seen through the fireworks. Fry, Bender and Leela begin to ponder their lives as they are now unemployed until the Professor decides to hire them for an interplanetary delivery service he founded to fund his work. He even kept the career chips of his old crew as they had apparently been devoured by a space wasp (in actuality they had been stung to death by space bees). Fry is assigned to be a delivery boy...and he couldn't be happier.

Production
The script for "Space Pilot 3000" change numerous times during writing, and included two hours worth of material, much of which was used in later episodes.

Ideas to get to the future included having Fry being sold to the Professor for spare organs and one with Fry being a watchman at Applied Cryogenics. It was originally considered for Fry to be the captain and he might had been an army man.

There were also ideas for flashbacks to describe Fry's past, such as birth, college, etc., but this was scrapped because the writers felt it was important to have Fry in the future at the end of the cold opening. These ideas, however, later made it into other episodes such as "Mars University" and "The Luck of the Fryrish".

Originally, the man entering the tube system just before Fry was supposed to say "JFK, Jr. Airport", but this was changed, when died in 1999, to "Radio Station Mutant Hall". In addition, Fry was originally going say "Empire State Building" and actually make his way to it, but this was probably scrapped because they wanted Old New York to remain more decayed.

There were plenty of ideas for the setting of Futurama considered to be established in the pilot episode, such as Statue of Liberty being robotic and the career chips.

The countdown sequence was the original brainchild of David X. Cohen, whom had considered this idea several times. Before putting it on the episode, Cohen as well as the animators were well aware that it would not happen like that due to timezones.

Reception
"Space Pilot 3000" aired on 28 March, 1999, 20:30 between The Simpsons and X-Files. In an review by Patric Lee for Science Fiction Weekly, who had only seen the first episode at the time of publication, described Futurama as a clever upstart, but did not feel it was as funny as its predecessor, though, it was certainly worthy of further viewings. Rob Owen for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted that the episode contained a similar skewed humour as The Simpsons, but felt it was not as funny and smart, however he attributed these issues to the fact that the pilot episode served for a lot of character introduction, and he felt that the show was "off to a good start".

Andrew Billen of New Statesman considered the first episode unoriginal, but praised its humorous background jokes such as during the sequence when Fry is frozen, but also criticised its use of in-jokes, such as Matt Groening's head at the Head Museum. He remained somewhat enthusiastic about the show. Joyce Millman from Salon Entertainment, on the other hand, praised the pilot's perception of American culture and the show's premise.

Despite airing between The Simpsons and X-Files it was Fox's most viewed show that evening, and gained exceptional high numbers according to with 11.2/17 in homes. And was in fact the most viewed pilot episode on Fox when it aired.

In 2006, IGN ranked it as the 14th best episode on its 25 best Futurama episode list.

Trivia

 * The first shot of New New York was also the first 3D sequence in the show, and an experiment of sorts.
 * Leela is officer 1BDI ("one beady eye")
 * It took the cartoonists over 2 years to come up with the look of the characters on the show.
 * In the intro, the Statue of Liberty holds a gun in her torch hand, but during the episode, in the future, she is holding part of the travel tube
 * The Original Alien Language devised by the writers and hidden throughout the episode was solved completely by fans after only the first and one airing. The Second language took several months
 * When Fry is delivering the pizza, he passes by a sign written in Chinese. When translated, the characters say "fire" and "women." This probably being loosely translated to mean 'hot women'.
 * Even though the show is supposed to begin in our time (1999), it is still in the future. (It premiered in March, showing December in the show.)
 * In the rough draft version of the script, Michelle was named Janet, and Fry was actually named Curtis Fry. It was changed to Philip in honour of Phil Hartman, who was set to have a recurring role as Zapp Brannigan on the series until his unfortunate murder.
 * John DiMaggio (Bender) had originally auditioned for the voice of the Professor, and co-creator David X. Cohen had actually considered doing the voice of Bender
 * This was voted the best episode of Futurama during the Adult Swim marathon.
 * The ship of the game Monkey Fracas Jr., at the start of the show, is the Planet Express ship.
 * This episode is the highest rated Pilot episode in the history of the Fox Broadcasting Company.
 * URL says he going to "get 24th century on his ass"; "get 24th century" has the same meaning as "get medieval." And partway through Fry's suspension, possibly around the 24th century, there was a medieval-type period, with New York rebuilt as castles before being destroyed again and rebuilt as the futuristic city.
 * Bender takes Fry to hide inside the Head Museum saying, "It's Free on Tuesdays." 31 December 2999 will, in fact, be a Tuesday.
 * Bender excretes a brick, a reference to a common slang phrase. He continually does this throughout the series when scared.
 * During the countdown scene at the end of the episode (in the year 2999), France is shown, yet the inhabitants there use the English language instead of French. It is assumed that French in the future is a dead language; this idea is supported in a later episode where Professor Farnsworth invents a universal translator that can only translate into "an incomprehensible dead language".
 * The places in the first countdown scene appear in this order:
 * New York; USA
 * Paris, France, Eiffel Tower Backdrop
 * Rome, Italy, Pope on Balcony turning "Calendar" of Roman Numerals
 * Cairo, Egypt, Desert, Sphinx and the other three Pyramids as backdrop
 * Athens, Greece, Acropolis as backdrop, two highlights next on the sides of it
 * China, Great Wall
 * India, Taj Mahal, some people counting down in Water
 * Small tribal village, Africa
 * Tokyo, Japan, very similar to New York shot except for the Japanese handwriting font
 * The entire Earth, shot from space.
 * All the people in line before Fry select the "quick and painless" method of killing themselves.
 * If one looks closely at Leela's computer screen, it actually reveals that Fry's full name is "Phillip J. Fry", which becomes an established fact in (however, his name is spelled with two L's instead of one). His blood type is said to be 'B'.
 * The tube Fry falls in is number 40.

Continuity

 * Bender believes a phone booth is a Suicide Booth, similar to what Fry did.
 * Leela's (lacking) depth perception is mentioned again.
 * French is proved to be a dead language.
 * A couple passes by Fry, when he is walking, wearing mostly transparent clothing, censored with black bars.
 * These people have moved to Los Angeles by the events of 2ACV19
 * Leela's single eye is explained.
 * The shadow under the desk Fry sits at is explained.
 * More information about the Professor's old crew is revealed.
 * It is revealed that Bender is the one who destroyed New York the first time.
 * Bender visits a suicide booth again and even does the coin-on-a-string trick again.
 * The shadow under the desk Fry sits at is explained.
 * More information about the Professor's old crew is revealed.
 * It is revealed that Bender is the one who destroyed New York the first time.
 * Bender visits a suicide booth again and even does the coin-on-a-string trick again.
 * It is revealed that Bender is the one who destroyed New York the first time.
 * Bender visits a suicide booth again and even does the coin-on-a-string trick again.
 * Bender visits a suicide booth again and even does the coin-on-a-string trick again.
 * Bender visits a suicide booth again and even does the coin-on-a-string trick again.

Allusions

 * The space ships destroying the cities were similar to the ones in The War of the Worlds.
 * The first scene (Fry teaching a kid how to play a video game) might be a reference to WarGames. In the movie, the first scene with David Lightman has him playing Galaga. He has to go and gives control of the game to a kid.
 * A sign on the street says "AKBAR." Admiral Akbar is a character in Star Wars. Though it is more likely to be a reference to Akbar, a character in Matt Groening's "Life in Hell" comic strip, and it is the name of the Simpsons font.
 * One of the billboards in the future shows Angelyne, a real-life busty female entertainer that has billboards hanging around the Los Angeles area. In the cartoon billboard, she's hooked up to some sort of respirator.
 * According to Groening, the inspiration for the suicide booth was the 1937 Donald Duck cartoon, "Modern Inventions", in which the Duck is faced with—and nearly killed several times by—various push button gadgets in a Museum of the Future.
 * Professor Farnsworth is named after the inventor Philo Farnsworth, a Utah native and television pioneer whose invention was premiered at the 1939 New York World's Fair, along with the Futurama exhibit.
 * The feeding lady at the head museum is wearing a uniform like that at the corn-dog specific restaurant, Hot Dog on a Stick.
 * Fry's outfit is based on James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.
 * In addition to the setting, part of the original concept for the show was that there would be a lot of advanced technology similar to that seen in Star Trek, but it would be constantly malfunctioning. The automatic doors at Applied Cryogenics resemble those in Star Trek: The Original Series; however, they malfunction when Fry remarks on this similarity.
 * The introduction is reminiscent of Star Trek intros in TOS and TNG ("Space: The Final Frontier..." becomes "Space: It seems to go on and on forever...") and has similar music and voice-over.
 * Leonard "Spock" Nimoy says that he no longer does the Vulcan Salute, 'Live Long and Prosper'.
 * It is presumed in this episode it is simply because he has no hands, but the truth behind this statement is seen in the future episode,.
 * The rows of jars containing heads, with the one jar containing Nimoy's head in front to greet people, is reminiscent of the original series Star Trek episode "Return To Tomorrow", where the alien minds were preserved in glowing spheres, with Sargon in the one sphere in front.
 * The relationship formed between Fry and Bender in this episode has been compared to the relationship between Will Robinson and the robot in Lost in Space.
 * When Fry walks out of the lab, an ad on a taxi behind him reads "Got Protoplasm?", a reference to the series of "Got Milk?" advertising slogans.
 * Another running gag of the series is Bender's fondness for Olde Fortran malt liquor, named after Olde English 800 malt liquor and the programming language Fortran. The drink was first introduced in this episode and became so closely associated with the character that he was featured with a bottle in both the Rocket USA wind-up toy and the action figure released by Moore Action Collectibles.
 * In the earliest glimpse of the future while Fry is frozen in the cryonic chamber, time is seen passing outside the window until reaching the year 3000. This scene was inspired by a similar scene in the film The Time Machine based on H.G. Wells' novel.
 * When Fry awakens in the year 2999, he is greeted with Terry's catchphrase "Welcome to the world of tomorrow." The scene is a joke at the expense of Futurama's namesake, the Futurama ride at the 1939 World's Fair whose tag line was "The World of Tomorrow".
 * The heads in jars in order shown: Johnny Carson, Lucille Ball, Ed Begley, Jr., David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Elizabeth Taylor, Dennis Rodman, Billy Corgan, Matt Groening, Barbra Streisand, Rodney Dangerfield, a Hindu person (possibly Gandhi) and Dick Clark.
 * In the Hall of Presidents: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Warren G. Harding, Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison.
 * There are numerous Simpsons refernences:
 * Rodney Dangerfield is drawn similar to his appearance in the Simpsons episode Burns, Baby Burns as Larry Burns.
 * There's a Ralph Wiggum-like character when Fry rides the tube.
 * When Fry is going through the transport tubes, he passes by a three-eyed fish - which is Blinky, from the Simpsons.
 * Fry's middle initial is J. This seems to be a popular choice for Matt Groening characters, having used it for Homer, Bart and Grampa on The Simpsons. Matt uses the "J." middle name, referring to one of his favourite shows, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
 * The chef on the Panucci's Pizza box is very similar to the chef Luigi in the Simpsons.
 * In the Simpsons two part episode Who Shot Mr. Burns?, Smithers dreamt that Mr. Burns was in a race on the TV. The intro to the race was an information text saying "In Color". The same font and color like in Space Pilot 3000. It is also interesting to note that Who Shot Mr. Burns? aired four years before Space Pilot 3000 did.
 * Fry has 9 spikes in his hair just like Bart Simpson from Groening's hit show The Simpsons.
 * The film Sleeper has much the same premise as this episode. Also, the suicide booths are similar to Sleeper's Orgasmatron.
 * The cryogenic chamber may be a reference to Red Dwarf. The main character Lister is punished by being put in a cryogenic chamber for 15 years, except something goes wrong and everyone dies on the ship due to a fatal radiation leak. Lister is left for 3 million years until the ships computer decides that the radiation level is safe enough for him to be released.
 * When the head of Richard Nixon says "You just made my list!", this is a reference to the Watergate scandal. Nixon kept an "enemies list" of over 200 people whom he believed were part of a conspiracy against him.
 * The person who uses the tube system before Fry says "Radio City Mutant Hall", a reference to Radio City Music Hall - but his original line was "JFK Junior Airport", a reference to the John F. Kennedy International Airport. The line was changed after the death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. (though it can still be heard in the animatic).
 * Although the JFK Jr. reference has been dubbed out (even on the DVD) in the Spanish dubbed version of this episode the man can still be heard asking to be taken to JFK Jr. Airport.
 * Mystery Science Theater 3000 is referenced as the number "3000" is written on the moon. It looks like the MST3K logo, a planet with the name on it.  It's even in the same font.
 * Fry is playing a video game called Monkey Fracas Jr. at the pizza place, narrating it as he plays. The game starts out as a space shooter similar to Asteroids, Gradius and/or Defender, then approaches a Saturn-like planet at the end of the level. At that point, the planet breaks in half, and an ape resembling Donkey Kong emerges. The ape throws barrels at the spaceship and destroys it. The game's name itself is a parody of Donkey Kong, Jr.
 * The gag of Fry & Bender hiding with their heads looking through shelves and being disguised by lots of other heads is from Young Frankenstein.'
 * Star Wars:
 * The police use sticks that resemble the Lightsaber from Star Wars. Unlike their Star Wars counterparts, they are blunt weapons (like nightsticks/batons), rather than superheated blades.
 * When the policemen are beating Fry with their lightsaber clubs Leela says: "There is no need to use force" as a reference to The Force in Star Wars.
 * New New York is set out like Coruscant (mostly in the Opening sequence). The Planet Express Ship's entry, in the opening sequence, seems to be a parody of the Millennium Falcon's entrance into Cloud City in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
 * A guy on a jet bike is wearing a helmet like Leia wore in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi on the Speeder bike.
 * The part where Fry gets hit in the head by the remote door is a possible reference to the scene in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, where one of the stormtroopers accidentally bumps his head into a similar gadget.
 * People have chips implanted in their hands like in Babylon 5.
 * Back to the Future references: Fry's character is based on Marty McFly, Fry shows a little kid how to play a video game, like Marty (in Back to the Future Part II), and when Fry runs out of the building to begin with, and looks around at New New York, like in Part II.
 * When they go underground to the old New York is like Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
 * The countdown to the millennium occurred at the same time all over the world is like Doctor Who (1996 film).
 * The underground old New York City is similar to the slums underneath the city plates in Midgar in Final Fantasy VII.
 * The pneumatic tubes that transport people all over New New York are an allusion to Beach Pneumatic Transit, which was a failed attempt in 1870 by Alfred Ely Beach to move people around New York by air power.
 * The Robot Policeman, URL, says he would go "24th century on their ass." This being a reference to the 1994 film Pulp Fiction where the character Marsellus Wallace says to Zed and the Gimp "I'm a get medieval on yo' ass."
 * The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a similar premise as this episode, the cynical Bender is much like Marvin the Paranoid Android and the coffee machine in Professor Farnsworth's ship may be a reference to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe in which a spaceship's specialty was producing hot drinks.
 * The way Bender swallows his empty liquor bottle is reminiscent of a robot in the Isaac Azimov novel, The Caves of Steel
 * Implanting a 'fate chip' in the palm of your right hand is from Logan's Run.

Goofs

 * David Duchovny is seen in the Head Museum, but Calculon claims to be him in.
 * Before Fry enters the travel tube it went up and sideways not straight up as we see later in the next scene.
 * At the Cryogenic facility, right where Fry shouts "Pizza delivery for..." the desk is positioned almost parallel to the window, but when Fry sits down at the desk, its positioned perpendicular to the window.
 * In the 2999 countdown, Bender pulls the arms off the chair he was sitting on. A moment later, an armchair is missing.
 * Leela wasn't wearing a ring prior to the handholding scene with Fry.
 * After Bender gives Leela her ring back she puts it on, but then a second later it's gone.
 * They misspelled "Barbara" Streisand. It's actually Barbra.
 * When Leela calls for backup, her wristlojackimator is on the wrong wrist.
 * Bender breaks two bars from the window when they are trapped in the cellar. In the next shot, he holds the bars, but they have re-appeared back in the window.
 * The crowds in Paris at the New Year's countdowns for 1999 and 2999 are identical.
 * It's dark outside in New York at midnight when Fry is frozen, but a long shot of the planet actually shows the eastern half of the United States as being in sunlight.
 * Fry wasn't frozen for exactly 1000 years, as he was frozen at mid-night in 1999 but was un-frozen during the day in 2999. This may be explained by the leap days/seconds/weeks/years (more on Wikipedia).
 * When Fry and Bender are at the bar, the barman hands Bender a bottle of liquor. He takes a big swig of it, but the level in the bottle remains the same.
 * The year 2000 or 3000 are not the start of the new century or millennium contrary to what "Space Pilot 3000" says. In the Gregorian Calendar, this distinction falls to the year 2001/3001, because the first century began with year AD 1 (there was no year zero), and the thousand years spanned to years 1-1001.
 * Though, it is only Fry that specifically mentions it is a new millennium, which was commonly accepted among people that 1999/2000 was a change to a new millennium. One can suggest that the first millennium only contained 999 years and be done with it.
 * When Fry is queueing for the booth, he opens the piece of paper, showing the picture and writing. Just before he steps in to the booth, it's changed colour and gone blank, then in the next shot it's back as before.
 * When Fry falls into the cryogenic chamber his whistle drops right next to the chair. When it cuts, the whistle is gone.
 * The career chips system introduced here contradicts several times throughout the series through job changes, incompetents, examples of a free market economy and references to the Earthican dream. Supposedly, you are required to work the job you have the chip for and the assignment is permanent.
 * There is a bad framing error when Bender was carrying Farnsworth onto the ship.
 * During the Countdown at '9' when they showed Egypt, the people didn't seem to resemble Egyptians.
 * Since New New York was built on top of Old New York, the building the cryogenic lab was in should have been underground as well.
 * Prof. Farnsworth's slippers change color and shape from one scene to the next.
 * The last set of buildings built before Fry wakes up look different than it does when Fry wakes up and looks out the window.

Alien Language Sightings
Time:10:27

Location: Slurm advertisement in O'Zorgnax's Pub

Language: AL1

Translation: DRINK

Time:19:11

Location: Aliens counting down to 3000

Language: AL1

Translation: "6" and "7"

Time:15:26

Location: Graffiti in alleyway

Language: AL1

Translation: VENUSIANS GO HOME (Image)

Characters

 * 20th Century kid
 * Bender
 * Bike thief
 * Dave Borden (in script)
 * Dick Clark's head
 * Fry
 * Ipgee
 * Leonard Nimoy
 * Lou
 * Michelle
 * Mr. Panucci
 * Nibbler (unofficial)
 * Number 9 Man
 * Poster Guy
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Richard Nixon's head
 * Terry
 * Leela
 * Smitty and Url

Episode Credits

 * Writers
 * David X. Cohen
 * Matt Groening
 * Voices
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Dave Herman
 * Kath Soucie
 * Special Guests
 * Dick Clark
 * Leonard Nimoy
 * DVD Commentary
 * David X. Cohen
 * Gregg Vanzo
 * John DiMaggio
 * Matt Groening
 * Rich Moore