For those who don’t know, Futurama is the story of Fry, a pizza delivery boy who is down on his luck, and on New Year’s Eve 1999, he is given a new chance at life when he is accidentally cryogenically frozen for 1000 years. To make a long story short, Fry woke up in the year 3000, met an alien and a robot, and they fly around the universe delivering packages and/or having adventures. The show is a hilarious send-up of sci-fi and also a great animated series with great characters and humor. Futurama is created by Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons, and it’s just as funny if not funnier.
Anyway, the Futurama Volume One DVD collects the first season by production order, or the first 1.2 seasons by airdate order, or the first 13 episodes by either production or airdate order. They’re a great 13 episodes, and this DVD has some of my favorites. Like Space Pilot 3000, the first Futurama episode, which is still probably my favorite of the series. Also, there’s the roflicious Mars University and the Wonka-tastic Fry and the Slurm Factory.
As for the actual DVD, video looks great, much much better than it does on Adult Swim, and probably better than it looked when it first aired on Fox. I’d say the video looks about as perfect as it can look, probably the best-looking animated TV show I’ve ever seen. The show was animated on computer from the beginning, so everything looks clear and the colors are great. About the audio quality, I don’t really know because my stupid TV only has one speaker. But I’d say that the sound of the DVD is at least broadcast-quality.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE SPECIAL FEATURES??? Every episode has full-length scene-specific audio commentaries (still kind of a rarity on TV show DVDs) by creator Matt Groening, executive producer David X. Cohen, and some of Futurama’s writers, directors, and voice actors. All of them are interesting, and have lots of info on the episodes and the series, but overall they’re not really worth more than one listen. Also there are some deleted scenes, which are pretty funny. One of the coolest special features on the DVD (in my opinion) are the full-length animatics, storyboard, and script for Space Pilot 3000. They have lots of info on scenes that got cut out of the final episode, and they’re interesting to see. You probably won’t like these if you’re not an animation nerd like me, but I went through all of them and liked it. The other special features are a way too short featurette, which is pretty much a promotional fluff piece, and there’s an image gallery which is fun to go through if you like that kinda stuff. There’s also a bunch of easter eggs hidden all over all three discs, but most of them are just movie posters. Also, the packaging is goddamn amazing. You really have to see it, but it looks great.
This is an absolutely great DVD set, worth buying even if you watch Futurama every day on Adult Swim. Seriously, I didn’t even want to buy this DVD at first because it was on TV every day but once I bought it I was glad I did because it really impressed me. This is a must have for Futurama fans or animation fans or fans of TV show DVDs. As for whether to buy this or Family Guy on DVD, well that really depends on which one you like better. This is a better DVD set than the Family Guy set, but Family Guy is a better show in my opinion. But if you like Family Guy, you’d probably be happier having the first two seasons of Family Guy without many special features than with the Futurama set with lotsa special features. But if you like Futurama, there are a lot worse ways to spend $30, and this set is definitely worth it. Highly recommended. Fa’ shizzle.