updated Anthology of Interest 2 capsule submission

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm sick. I've got a half gallon of orange juice and my season 4 tape.

OK, enough plagiarism. Here is the updated capsule submission I mentioned that I was going to work on. I've added many things to the already good start that Joe Klemm made, a couple of which I'd like some feedback on.

1. Someone please double check my comment about the # shots possible in Space Invaders. I seem to recall you could only fire one shot at a time, but it has been years since I played the original and there have been many clones since that I might be mixed up.

2. Need to fill in the other characters that comprised the Oompa Loompa's that greeted Leela in "Wizzen" I've made my best guesses.

All of the fields that are marked <blah blah> need to be verified or filled in.

-Tom

Here it is.

===========================================================================
Episode Capsule Submission
Official Title: Anthology of Interest II
Episode Number: <need to fill this in>
First Airdate : Sunday January 6, 2002
Written by    : "I, Meatbag" by Lewis Morton
                "Raiders of the Lost Arcade" by David X. Cohen
                "Wizzen" by Jason Gorbett & Scott Kirby
========================================================================
= Additional tidbits =

Opening theme promotion : Hey TiVo, Suggest This! Opening theme cartoon : <some Mickey Mouse bit?>

============================================================================== = Synopsis = Three stories unfold when Professor Farnsworth fine-tunes his "What If" machine. Bender discovers that if he were human, it would only take him a week to over-indulge and kill himself. Fry learns that his video game skills wouldn't be good enough to protect earth from Space Invaders if life were more like a video game. Leela wonders what would happen if she found her true home... but gets knocked out before she can see what the machine answers and dreams that her space ship crash lands on Planet Ozz and crushes an evil witch with ruby red boots. ============================================================================== = Did You Notice? = - The professor fine tunes his "What If?" machine with a hammer?

• Amy has won a Nobel Prize?

- The sign at Dinkin Donuts went from "Closed" to "Open" when human Bender entered, then back to "Closed" when he left?

- The bottles used for drink refills at each table in the Academy of Science were Erlenmeyer flasks?

-The professor was able to determine the time of human Bender's death by taking only his pulse?

- The Centipede game screens in the war room background? Each screen was of a different zoom view of the same game.

- Zoidberg vomits a pixel shaped pretzel, key, and cherry after leaving the escape tunnel.

- The ship Fry was piloting was able to fire multiple shots at the Space Invaders. (see comment)

- The space invaders video game characters that descended from the ship were Donkey Kong, Robotron Brain Wave, Frenzy robot, Burger Time egg, and Q*bert.

• Scruffy the Janitor was the Man-Witch of the West?

- Scarecrow Fry never complained that he wanted a brain, but everyone suggested that the Professor could give him one?

- Scarecrow Fry gently patted out the fire on his arm caused by Tin Man Bender's whiskey induced burp, instead of freaking out?

- The professor used three different methods to query the "What If?"
machine?
==============================================================================
= References =

I, Robot by Issac Asimov -First story title

T.G.I. Friday's -D.U.I. Friday's

Raiders of the Lost Ark -Second story title

Asteroids -Vector Planet Express spaceship

Battlezone -Vector Tank

Colin Powell, Pac-Man -Colin Pac-Man, escape tunnels

Super Mario Bros. - Exit tunnel from Pac-Man escape tunnel

Space Invaders -Space Fight between Fry and Nintendoians

Q-Bert, Donkey Kong, Burger Time, Frenzy, Robotron -Nintendians include characters from these games

Adventure for Atari 2600 -The blue key used to enter the War Room

Zero Wing -"All your bases are belong to us" (see comments)

The Wizard of Oz -Third story plot

NBC -Peacock in Oz world

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -One of the Munchkins is an Oompa Loompa (or Grunka Lunka, as they are called in Futurama)

The munchkins consisted of Tiny Timbot, Grunka Lunka?, amutant child, Cubert, <Neptunian couple from Tale of Two Santas>, <Worm from Parasites Lost?>.

Christine by <Stephen King or Stephen Kong> -The book Fry reads from to try to scare a crow

==============================================================================
= Freeze Frame =

Intro "Hey TiVo, Suggest This!"

O'ZORGNAX'S PUB Well Drinks $5 Sewer Drinks $2

MILATARI HQ

Signs on doors in Milatari HQ MISSLE COMMAND SECRETARY OF DEFENDER MOON PATROL

Logo on ProfessorLand Fun Bucks: "In Fun We Trust"

==============================================================================
= Comments =

TiVo is one of many TV set recorders available in the market. These devices allow you to record programs on television without the confusion of programming a VCR. Among the features on these devices includes one where the recorder would automatically record your favorite shows as well as record shows that the device feels you may like.

Zero Wing is a mediocre shooter video game that was released for the Sega Genesis in Japan and Europe, yet never arrived on American shores. However, it was able to receive some popularity in America thanks to one thing: the Europeon version of the game, thanks to some awful translating to English, has some of the funniest examples of bad translation. Among them is a simple quote going, "All Your Bases Are Belong To Us." That line has quickly become a recurring joke on the Internet, even inspiring a song about it.

The original version of Space Invaders would only allow the player to have one shot active at a time on screen, probably due to processing requirements for the CPU to keep up with multiple projectiles from the same shooter.

When Q-bert steps off the ship, he says one line in his characteristic backwards fashion. Thanks to miraculous PC technology, a wav file was created and played backwards to understand what he said. "Where can a guy get some pants around here?" Fitting indeed, since Q-bert only wears a shirt! ============================================================================== Joe Klemm Tom Georgoulias

Tom Georgoulias schrieb:

Didn't the professor say "Eat this, everyone who NEVER has won a Nobel Price, and this includes you, Amy"? This would make more sense in my opinion, considering Amy's intellectual capacity.

Benjamin Gaede wrote:

That's something I wasn't sure of. The DYN line was already in the capsule when I downloaded it and I didn't want to change the line without permission or feedback from the group. IMO, I don't think she has a prize, but I could be wrong.

Joe, are you still out there? Can you comment on that line?

In alt.tv.futurama, on the "Re: updated Anthology of Interest 2 capsule submission" thread, Tom Georgoulias wrote:

The odd thing is that when I first saw the episode, I thought Prof. Farnsworth said, "who ever has won ..." The joke here would be that in the future the standards for winning a Nobel Prize dropped quite a bit. On the second run through, it sounded like it could have been "never," with the joke being that professor was already lording his accomplishment over the rest of the crew.

If you have the episode on videotape, as opposed to Morpheus or whatever, and a TV with closed captioning, try running it through that and see what you get.

Benjamin Robinson wrote:

I don't, but if someone else does I'm all ears...

Tom Georgoulias wrote:

Slight problem, there was no blue key in Atari 2600 Adventure. White, gold (yellow) and black were the key colors in that game, matching the colors of the three castles.

More likely a rather 'generic' reference to the fact that most first person shooter games insist that you spend endless time finding colored keys to open specific doors. At least Fry et. al. didn't have to flip any switches or move any blocks around. I always hate those puzzles.

Lyle

Lyle McDonald wrote:

OK, good catch. I didn't have Adventure so I don't remember enough of the details to be accurate. I picked that tidbit up from one of the old newsgroup postings discussing the show.

I've added the URL submitted by Robert Muldoon for a history on "All your Bases Are Belong to Us" to the working draft on my computer. I will go through more of the postings and look for other tidbits later today.

On Sat, 09 Feb 2002 22:40:15 GMT, Tom Georgoulias wrote:

No, you're right - with some games you could 'self-destruct' a fired missile to enable you to fire another, but with SI you just had to watch it wander up to the top of the screen, helpless.