writing staff held three PhDs, seven masters degrees, and collectively had more than 50

years at Harvard. Because of this, many of the secrets, jokes, and easter eggs hidden

within the show are incredibly elaborate and complicated. As an example, these symbols

can be found at random points throughout the show. Keen eyed fans noticed a pattern and

soon figured out that the symbols weren't just random nonsense but rather an actual

language. Well technically more of a ciphered form of English but still. When the creators

learned that fans had deciphered the first language they of course created another, more

complicated language. But it didn't take long for dedicated fans to crack the code on that

one as well. Now some fans believe there's a third language hidden within the show which

has yet to be discovered.

The name Futurama comes from an exhibition at the New York World's Fair in 1939.

The exhibit was presented as a possible model of what the world could potentially look like,

20 years in the future. A sort of envisioning of the world of tomorrow. Before the name

Futurama was chosen, names like Aloha, Mars! and Doomsville was considered.

Owls. In Futurama, they are seemingly everywhere and can often be seen lurking in the backgrounds.

But why though? Is it just a weird thing they added for fun? Actually, they have a

pretty good justification for their existence. At some point before the events of the show,

the city had a problem with animals like rats and pigeons. To solve this problem, they released

thousands owls into the streets. But instead of solving a problem, they only replaced it

with another.

Even the opening sequence have some pretty obscure easter eggs that can only be seen

if you pause at the right moment. For example, there are three signs with those strange alien

symbols we talked about before. They read Rent a human, 3D Rulez, and Tasty human burgers.

There's also this guy reading a newspaper. The paper says MOON PIE FIGHT IN MARS BAR,

which is of course a reference to the snacks Moon Pie and Mars candy bars.

Benders apartment number is 00100100. And as I've mentioned, the writers are clever so

this is most likely not random. If we take this number and convert it into ASCII we get

the dollar sign ($). This is obviously a reference to Benders greed and obsession with money.

In a similar fashion, Leela's apartment is named 1I.

The episode Jurassic Bark is for many one of the most sad, depressing, and overall emotional

episodes. It ends with a flashback showing that after Fry was frozen in the Cryogenic-Chamber,

his dog Seymour waited for him to return for 12 years before dying of old age. The original

idea however was to have the episode focus on Fry's mother. It would have been his mother

waiting for who knows how many years until she finally just passed away. But they soon

realized, that might push the depression factor a bit too far and decided to replace her with

Fry's dog instead. Speaking of, the dog and this whole plot point is actually based upon

the true story of a dog named Hachikō. Much like Seymour in Futurama, Hachikō waited

for his deceased owner at a train station for almost 10 years, until he eventually passed away.

The episode The Prisoner of Benda revolves around a machine called The Mind-Switcher.

Essentially a device where 2 people can switch minds with one another and thus take control

of the other persons body. Now here the thing. One of the writers, Ken Keeler, happens to

have a PhD in applied mathematics. So he decided to create a real-life mathematical theorem

for this fictional mind switching technology. The theorem basically proves that regardless

of how many mind switches between two bodies have been made, they can still all be restored

using only two extra people, provided these two people have not had any mind switches

beforehand. In short, it's complicated. The point is that it's the first time a theorem

has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment in a TV show. It's simply called The Futurama Theorem.

In the episode The Why of Fry it's revealed that Nibbler was responsible for Fry falling

into the cryogenic chamber. This plot point, along with Nibbler himself, was actually planned

from the very beginning because in the first episode, this shadow can be seen briefly as

Fry falls into the chamber. The shadow is of course that of Nibbler, which means it

took 64 episodes before the meaning of this shadow was revealed. I wan't to say foreshadowing.

The character Cubert was first introduced in the episode A Clone of My Own. As the title

suggest, he is the clone of Professor Farnsworth. But the character is far more interesting

then what meets the eye. While Futurama is in many ways a very consistent show, it's

also in many ways not. They constantly break the laws of physics and really every law in

the universe. And because it's an animated show, trouble with consistency are more or less

impossible to avoid. Seriously, it's a fucking knot! But if you're like me and probably like

90% of Futurama's audience, who the fuck cares right? Well, the other 10% of course do care.

And this is where Cubert comes in. The character was always planned to be included from the very beginning,

but they never fleshed out his personality until his introduction in the middle of season 2.

They decided to give him this aggravating personality who criticizes everything and

everyone, as a sort of payback and reflection of this annoying and specific group of fans.

When the writers created Hypnotoad, I doubt they though it would become such a fan favorite

and even spreading across the internet to eventually become a meme. In the Futurama

world, he is responsible for the most popular television series of that time simply titled

Everybody Loves Hypnotoad. Of course, this is only because he hypnotizes everyone who

starts watching. And while the show serves as a show within a show, there's actually

an entire real-life episode almost exclusively featuring Hypnotoad for 22 minutes. It's called

Everybody Loves Hypnotoad: Amazon Adventure and was included as a special on the DVD release

of Bender's Big Score.

I mean seriously though, it's such a stu-

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!