Difference between revisions of "Transcript:Commentary:Space Pilot 3000"

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*[[Rich Moore]] (RM)
*[[Rich Moore]] (RM)
*'''''Note:''' Question marks (?) means I am not at present entirely sure who it is that is speaking.''
*'''''Note:''' Question marks (?) means I am not at present entirely sure who it is that is speaking.''
*'''''Note:''' Three question marks (???) means I am not sure of whether the word I have suggested is the correct one.''


<poem>'''[[Matt Groening]]''': Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the audio commentary for the pilot episode of ''Futurama''.  This is Matt Groening.</poem>
<poem>'''[[Matt Groening]]''': Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the audio commentary for the pilot episode of ''Futurama''.  This is Matt Groening.</poem>
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<poem>'''MG''': This is inspired by the &ndash; you know &ndash; ''The Time Machine''.</poem>
<poem>'''MG''': This is inspired by the &ndash; you know &ndash; ''The Time Machine''.</poem>
<!-- more to come -->
<!-- more to come -->
<poem>'''?''': This is great...</poem>
<poem>'''JD''': Is that another secret?  Why that building didn't get destroyed?</poem>
<poem>'''DXC''': Err... sure.</poem>
<poem>'''JD''': A secret that you don't know!</poem>
<poem>'''DXC''': It is so secret, that there is not ''one'' person on Earth that knows the answer.  The script changed a lot &ndash; really a lot &ndash; from early versions of this, but we finally decided that it was kinda filmantically??? important to end this.  We want to end this cold opening at the moment Fry was in the future.  It seemed like, that was the big change in his life.  We decided that was ''the'' place to start the main title.</poem>
<poem>'''GV''': First shot of New New York &ndash; that was the first 3D shot that we animated.</poem>
<poem>'''DXC''': Oh really?  So that was sort of an experiment whether you could do that or not.</poem>
<poem>'''?''': Here is... the introduction of the theme song.  I think, the funkiest, by far, on the air of any other show.  Period.</poem>
<poem>'''DXC''': It's good.</poem>
<!--
-Moore
This opening sequence; when we saw it for the first time -- fully animated -- we
thought; "this is too fast, you can't see what's going on, that's too crazy".
-Cohen
Now it's like-- bring it on.
-Gregg
Directed by Mike Smith.
-Moore
Yeah, great animator.
-Gregg
Fantastic job.  Great.
-Cohen
In one of the early drafts, when Fry was first woke up, he was immediately dragged
to an auction, where he was bought by the Professor for spare organs.
[Matt laughs]
-Cohen
Now there was kind of goal for Matt and I from early on, that they would have all
this cool technology, like they have on Star Trek and Star Wars, but it was gonna
malfunction like technology always does.  So, you know, we show those sliding doors,
but they hit you in the head.
-Moore
I think this is the first time we see Leela.
-Matt
Yes.
-Cohen
You had, Matt.  Another thing, Matt had early on was the idea that he wanted this
one-eyed, beautiful character.  Where did that come from?
-Matt
Err... no, I just thought it would be really cool to do "sexy babe", err, you
know, science-fiction style heroine and -- but give her one eye.  And see if we
can still make her... comely and attacktive.
-Cohen
Were there--?
-?
And she is, I've seen her on the Internet. [laughter]
-Cohen
So, Rich and Gregg, are there difficulties in drawing a one-eyed character?
What problems did that cause?
-Moore
Well, first we thought it would be difficult, but now, we've gotten used to it,
so it's pretty easy to do.  Right, Gregg?
-Gregg
Yeah, it's--
-Cohen
You used the hair; you cheated a little bit?
-Moore
Yeah, learn cheats like the hair and the-- and again the expressions like a
frowning brow is diffuclt, but once we get down--
-Gregg
Like a sad eye and frown eye are a little tricky.
-Moore
Yeah, hopefully, she never gets a front haircut.
-Cohen
It was another long scene here in the pilot, actually which was even particially
animated where we had decided to rewrite it, where this complicated device was
hooked up to Fry's head, when they were studying him and we saw all these
scenes from his past, including his birth and going up to college, Coney Island,
guidance concellor.
-?
There was a lot of stuff.
-Cohen
We were very over amibitious in the beginning.  We probably had 2 hours of
material for the pilot and realised we could not possibly use it all.
-John
Wasn't this the highest rated debut in Fox history?  Am I mistaken in saying
that?
-?
I think it was.
-Matt
I can't remember.  It did really well.  And much to the surprised of Fox, because
they were very alarmed by this show-- this episode.  David and I waited to pitch
this thing and-- everybody got really excited and they ordered 13 episodes on
the spot.  And they said, "well, show us what you got" and all we had was some
notes for this script and-- they couldn't understand.  'cause we said that
we didn't want the people to be dark and drippy like Blade Runner, but we didn't
want it to be blant and boring like The Jetsons.  And the loved The Jetsons.
And they said, "argh, it's the greatest!", you know and-- they couldn't understand
how the future could be fun with a one-eyed alien woman and-- a crazy--
-Cohen
And a suicide bo--
-Matt
And a suicide booth, but they said, "why are people lined up to kill themselves
on New Year's Eve if it's so great, hmm?"
-Cohen
The decission we came to was basically that if we wanted to be able to do any
kind of commentary on life today, then the future would have to have good
elements and bad elements.  It couldn't be a Utopia or a total Distopia.
-Gregg
Yeah, you know, exactly, either way, a Utopia or a complete Distopia would be
boring after a while.
-? John or Moore
Yeah, that line was originally "JFK, Jr. airport".
-Cohen
That's right.
-? John or Moore
But unfortunately--
-Cohen
It actually aired once with that guy saying he wanted to go to JFK, Jr. airport
and then there was the tragedy with JFK, Jr. in the plane crash, so we decided,
because it was a plane and an airport, we should change it.
-Moore
This is our only Simpsons reference?  Right?
-Cohen
What was it?
-Moore
Blinky, the three-eyed fish.
-Cohen
Oh, that's right.
-Gregg
That was a joke that went around and around with him coming out of the tube,
that he was going to hit a mattress or [something] at the end.
-Moore
Yeah, we didn't wanna kill him.
-Gregg
Yeah, it was lots of different ways.
-John
This is the introduction of Bender!  Hey!  There I-- [Bender voice] there's me!
-John
Now, that's the first words, but-- you know what, I audienced for the-- when I
audienced for this show, I audienced and I audienced for the professor as well.
And I used that voice for the professor and I used that voice, and I also used--
[URL's voice] I also used URL's voice [normal] for Bender.  So I did a couple of
different things.
-Cohen
It was actually a producer we worked with named Jason Grood(??), who came up with
the idea that you should reaudience with your professor voice as Bender and that's
what we went with.  It was very hard to decide what a robot should sound like, we
auidenced dozens--
-John
Every robot in Hollywood. [laughter] David Duchovny was around, Kevin Causner(??)
was-- no.
-Matt
No, we did.  Because how does a robot sound?  I mean, if you're doing comedy,
you don't want [mechanical voice] the robot to sound like this [normal], which
most people did.
-Cohen
There was another early version of the script, inwhich Fry woke up and went
straight to Eller's Island and the Statue of Liberty for prossessing.  And he
fell out of the head of the Statue of Liberty and the statue moved and cut him.
These are all the things you missed, viewers. [pause] Its weapons are great.
-Gregg
We gotta bring those back.
-Matt
Be quienup??? suicide booth was inspired by a Donald Duck cartoon, in which
Donald Duck went to a museum of the future and he did all these quienup???
devices that injured him.
-Cohen
I have to admit that we kinda let the idea of these chips fall by the wayside
over the years, people kinda take the jobs they want to, we've dodged this issue.
But it's an interesting idea.
-?
No, they have chips.
-Cohen
They have the chips.
-?
We just don't talk about it.
-Cohen
On the show, yeah.  On the show we don't talk about it.  They've come back once
or twice, but turned out not to be that pevidible??? in their use.  Olde Fortran
is a joke on Olde English.  And look at that, that's a critical thing in the
background, there, that sign for Slurm.
-?
Is that a stone? (???)
-Cohen
Exactly
-John
And that's a real belch, by the way.
-?
What does it say, "drink"?
-Cohen
"Drink", it's the alien language letters say D-R-I-N-K; "drink Slurm", elsewhere
in this episode we showed a banner all in English, that said "drink Slurm".
That was our clue to people, how to translate those *five* letters, D, R, I, N,
K.  Based on that, they translated all of the alien language within a couple of
hours since this being on the air.  We thought it would be more challenging than
that, but people were pretty on the ball.  So, we later introduced a second
alien language, which is much hard to translate and people finally got it, but
only after--
-Moore
Did they get it?
-Cohen
Yeah, they got it.  Took a few months though.
-Moore
Wow.
-Cohen
We may have to do a third one, that's computational difficult to translate.
-John
To master the Bender belch, by the way--
-?
We worked hard on that alien language too.
-John
Ah yeah, all you have to is go, is say "ai-".  Just go "ai-", when you're
belching and it's a Bender belch, just go "ai-".  And it'll be a Bender belch.
-?
That's it?
-John
O oh, now there's gonna be kids Bender belching all over.
-Gregg
And yes, we know the wrist banner is on the *wrong* arm.
-Cohen
Oh, is it?  She wears it on the right arm?
-Gregg
Yeah.
-Cohen
You kinda think it's the kinda thing you can get away with easily.
-Gregg
Those people on the Internet, they're-- they're brutal.
-?
Ah, the Head Museum.
-Moore
Ah, having Leonard Nimoy coming in and do the-- do this, actually in this very
studio--
-Cohen
This room.
-Moore
- was-- that was a real treat, that felt like an endorsement.  Hey, we can't go
wrong now.
-Cohen
Yeah, that's was a truth reel??? for me.
-?
Hot dog on a stick.
-Cohen
Any specific place the heads in jars came from?  The idea?
-Matt
That was just a standard science-fiction cliché.  [him] Yay!
-Cohen
And there is Matt's appearance in series. [pause] I remember Matt just taking
glee in the idea that so many years down the line, we could still make a living
making fun of Richard Nixon.
-Matt
I was so mad at Nixon, you know, as a kid growing up, he was just a jerk.  To
be able to-- if I could have known back then, in 1999, I'd still get to make fun
of him.  It would have cheered me up.
-Moore
Actually, the nose thing, that was a-- that was a big thing to actually get the
designers to draw her nose that big, because they thought it was hideous.  That
it-- that cartoon heroines must have tiny noses.
-Cohen
How does the character designs differ from your original sketches, Matt?  I
know Bender had antennas that were like ears.
-Matt
Bender is-- except for having little ear antennas, but that's pretty close,
Bender's pretty close.  Fry's definitely been cleaned up, but I have hysteria
about animation design what makes memorable characters are characters that you
can identify in silhouette.  Look at the characters on The Simpsons and my comics
Life in Hell, if you put them in silhouette, there're still very easily
identifiable and I try to do the same thing on Futurama as well.  So that's why
Fry has those two fork things in his hair, Bender has a little antenna and Leela
has her ponytail.
-Matt
Oh and, Fry's wearing James Dean's outfit in Rebel without a Cause.
-Cohen
What was the animation difficulties in making Bender speak?  He is the only
robot, for the most part on our show, that has lip sync.
-Gregg
We tried doing a test where his mouth just lit up, you know when he talks, the
syllables, I love the dialogue.
-Moore
It just wasn't looking good?
-Cohen
Less expressive for a major character to not have lip sync.
-John
Let me ask you something, now you said it was James Dean's outfit from Rebel
without a Cause.  It's kinda funny, because we had the Greemer??? at The Griter's???
Park Observatory.
-Cohen
That's right.
-John
You know, I am-- on the planitarium screen -- which was really amazing experience
-- but, you know, it was our little tribute to Led Zeppelin or something like
that I guess.  But it's kinda interesting that we just did that... and that night
I visited Salminou's??? grave.
-Cohen
That above there was some alien graffiti, that was our test to see if they had
translated the language, it says "Venusians, go home".  And sure enough, they
were able to translate it in one airing.
-?
Wow.  Old New York
-Cohen
See this drawing here of Bender's angry eyes?  One of our producers, Claudia ???
and I used to just laugh at avariciously??? when we watched this animation first
came in.  It's so funny about him for no reason to be mad, evil...
-Gregg
I always love that shot.
-Moore
The master of the lean in.
-John
Yes!
-?
Reveal!
-Gregg
A lot of storyboard artist will ask on a Bender line boarding, "is this line--
should this line be a lean in?". [laughter] "Nah, just a regular."
-Cohen
In the very early conception of the series, Fry wasn't even a delivery boy, he
was a night watchman at the cryogenics lab.  One very early one.
-Moore
We went through a lot of editing to figure how we were gonna get this show off
the ground, figure out what the premise was and he's a delivery boy in the
future and what the whole series is about.
-Cohen
We also considered making him captain of the ship at one point, instead of Leela,
but it seemed more fun to have him be an underdog.
-Gregg
Wasn't he in an early early version a soldier or something like an army man?  I
remember drawing you had--
-Cohen
You're thinking of G.I. Joe.
-Matt
You may be right, I can't remember.  I can't remember, that'll be in the book.
Copy table bar.
-Cohen
That's his first appearance.  That's really Dick Clark.  Actually, there's a
whole bunch of Dick Clark that we just could not use 'cause we didn't have
enough time to get it on the air and it was very funny.
-?
The heads of Shana--?
-Cohen
The heads of Shanané???.
-Moore
Dick Clark was a really good sport and he came in and he read the script and
like after having it read'en it, he said, "I have no idea what I just said".
[laughter] "I don't get it, but I take your word for it."
-Gregg
I love this machine that seems to be the only use that it has is for people to--
-Cohen
Nephew detector!
-Gregg
Stick your fingers in and the detector relation--
-Matt
With a little light bulb.
-Cohen
This is -- if you compare the professor's voice hear to subsequence episodes
and seasons, it really changed a lot.
-Moore
This is the introduction of the ship?
-Cohen
Yep, first appearance of the ship.
-Matt
Notice the ship has an overbite, like all other characters.
-Cohen
One of the interesting things about this ship and other parts of the shop
is that certain things like that is done in 3D - computer graphics, but then
blended in with the 2D, which is not easy to do and still make it look
like a drawing.
-John
Brick drop!  Brick drop!  The brick-- [laughter]
-Cohen
Secret phrase comes to mind.
-Moore
Fox didn't like that joke, either, did they?
-Cohen
I doubt it.
-Moore
Then use it in the promo!
-Cohen
You reminded me of one other funny thing from Fox, from the very beginning when
Fry is on the propulator, we had a note from the Fox censor, and I quote from
betam???, "standard caution on the propulator".  [laughter]  You would never
figure what that meant.  Apparently, they had seen the propulator in many other
episodes of other series and they had some standard...
-John
By the way, URL is me in the morning, for any ladies who have the DVD, they'd
be watching.
-Cohen
You notice, they would say-- there's a joke there in the future, the French
language is gone and they just speak English in France.
-Cohen
That's a cool shot.
-Gregg
That whole sequence, I think came out really good.  I remember seeing it, and
hoping, "god, I hope we can do this on a weekly basis".
-?
Is that a speaker right there on the floor?
-Gregg
[laughs] Yes.
-?
Without it, you ??? on it.
-Cohen
That was little improv by Billy West there, we left in.
-?
Oh really?
-John
Katey Saegal.  Just felt like saying it.
-Cohen
I love that...
-?
It's great.
-Gregg
Wow, it really has-- it's changed a lot.
-John
[immittating the professor's voice and muttering]
-John
By the way, Billy West and I do duelling professors, we David Bowie.  The
professor sings David Bowie.  [professor's voice] Ground control to major Tom.
-Cohen
So, Matt, what you think now looking back at the pilot?  How does it hold up?
-Matt
I-- we did a good job.  I mean, everybody did.  Great voices, great writing,
and-- great music, Christen??? did great animation-- incredible animation.
Unlike anything.  I just gotta talk about the Curiosity Company, the-- production
company with this thing, I use a clip of my father, called a study and ???, which
he made in 1964 using that little bit [water drop sound effects] or water drop
sounds.  It's a tribute to my dad.  That's reflection of a surfboard.
-John
Ah, wow, secret...
-->

Revision as of 21:19, 27 June 2009

Episode Transcript Listing Navigation in production order Next →
Transcript for
Commentary:Space Pilot 3000
Written byMatt Groening & David X. Cohen
Transcribed bySvip


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Commentary Participants:

Matt Groening: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the audio commentary for the pilot episode of Futurama. This is Matt Groening.

Gregg Vanzo: Gregg Vanzo, co-supervising animator, director.

John DiMaggio: John DiMaggio, voice of Bender and other characters.

David X. Cohen: David Cohen, executive producer, head writer.

Rich Moore: And Rich Moore, co-supervising director and co-director of this episode... with Gregg.

GV: Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

DXC: Oh, and Matt and I wrote this episode, also.

MG: This is a tough thing, to get the show off the ground. And pilots in general probably are pretty tough for everybody. But to do a show where you're setting up a story that takes place a thousand years in the future, and what we tried to do, we tried to lay in a lot of little secrets in this episode that we would pay off later. [pause] Should we tell some of them or just leave them?

DXC: Maybe we'll just point them out and let people figure them out for themselves, and say "secret!". There's a cool one coming up in a— just a few minutes.

MG: What's great about this, and I – tip of the hat to Rough Draft, is how good this looks. The first episode is – the show have evolved a little bit, but it doesn't – you know – it doesn't look like a different show.

DXC: Rough Draft are our animation studio, by the way.

MG: Right.

DXC: [I.C. Weiner note is shown.] That's my parents' home address; 405. Different street, but that's where the number comes from.

?: Wow! Everything is of significance! [Fry is opening his beer and making his mockery toast; so along with Fry] ... millennium.

DXC: [Over the countdown montage] This idea came to me in the shower. I remember thinking about it in the shower one morning.

MG: The fact that they are during the countdown for New Year's, all around the world, is a bit of a stretch, but—

DXC: The idea that they are in different timezones—

[Nibbler's shadow appears.]

MG & DXC: Secret!

[Laughter erupts.]

DXC: That's gonna pay off in a few years from now. [Fry has fallen into the tube, and the days are starting to spin away.] Matt, I remember an early drawing you did that looked just like this. Your conception for this scene was in your mind early on.

?: And I have that drawing.

MG: This is inspired by the – you know – The Time Machine.

?: This is great...

JD: Is that another secret? Why that building didn't get destroyed?

DXC: Err... sure.

JD: A secret that you don't know!

DXC: It is so secret, that there is not one person on Earth that knows the answer. The script changed a lot – really a lot – from early versions of this, but we finally decided that it was kinda filmantically??? important to end this. We want to end this cold opening at the moment Fry was in the future. It seemed like, that was the big change in his life. We decided that was the place to start the main title.

GV: First shot of New New York – that was the first 3D shot that we animated.

DXC: Oh really? So that was sort of an experiment whether you could do that or not.

?: Here is... the introduction of the theme song. I think, the funkiest, by far, on the air of any other show. Period.

DXC: It's good.

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