Time button

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Time button
Time button.png
The time button outside the Vampire State Building, in 3013. [7ACV26]
First appearance"Meanwhile" (7ACV26)
Episode

The time button is a pocket-size device that sends the entire universe ten seconds into the past. Each time it does, it takes ten seconds to recharge, so the user cannot go back in time as far as they want. It was created by the Professor, according to whom it is for scientific use only. Its effects can be shielded from by the Professor's time shelter.

In 3013, the Professor used the button to steal a ten-dollar bill from Zoidberg. [7ACV26] Fry then stole the button so that he could make a special moment with Leela go on forever. He used it to steal a diamond for her, used it to undo the severing of her hand, and used it, several times, to prevent himself from hitting the ground after jumping off the tallest building in New New York. During one of his falls, he accidentally let go of the button and died, so Leela used it to send him back in time again, which she also did several times.

The first time that Leela pressed the button, the Professor was not in the time shelter, so he was rotated into an orthogonal time, in which he tunnelled for decades, looking for the button. After many more falls, Fry fell on Bender's airbag, which caused him to land on the button, thereby breaking it and freezing time. Decades later, the Professor found Fry and Leela and fixed the button, which was in a bag in Fry's jacket. Fry had tried to fix it himself once, but he got mad and hit it some more. The Professor modified it to release a single huge anti-chroniton blast, which would rip them out of stasis, back to the instant before he conceived of the button, and allow them to live their lives over again.

Production

The time button was first referred to in a Countdown to Futurama post, in June 2013. [1] It was also featured in the Comic-Con reading for 7ACV26, in July. [2]

Additional information

Trivia

  • The time button may have been inspired by the Twilight Zone episode "A Kind of a Stopwatch".
  • The time button creates different coloured auroras depending on what it is used for. When reversing time by 10 seconds it emits a blue aurora, when it freezes all of time it emits a pink/red aurora, and when modded to rip Fry, Leela and the Professor out of stasis, it emits a pale yellow aurora.

Quotes

    Fry: Check this out.
    János: What is that? Some kind of time button?
    Fry: Exactly.

Appearances

References

  1. ^ Countdown to Futurama: Time Shelter. (Comedy Central's Tumblr page.) 15 June 2013. Retrieved on 06 September 2013.
  2. ^ David Perra (21 July 2013). Futurama Panel Comic-Con 2013 (Series finale act I). (YouTube.) Retrieved on 06 September 2013.