Presentorama

I couldn't tell you when exactly I began loving Futurama, but it is one of my passions in life.  I remember watching it back when it first came out mostly because it was on before The Simpsons and was made by the same guy.  The Simpsons was starting to suck at that point as Homer made the slow transition from lovable moronic oaf to sociopathic lunatic.

How... lovable...

However, Futurama is a more acquired taste.  I remember not really "getting" the show until the episode "A Big Ball of Garbage".  Then it was renewed, but FOX bounced it around the schedule so it was too hard to follow.  One week it was on at 8pm on Thursday, and then the next week, same time, same channel, I'd turn on  the TV and be greeted by Calista Flockhart's duckface as they decided to show an Ally McBeal rerun.

All glory to Futurama.

I tried my best to follow the show, but I'd already been burned by Firefly being cancelled and could not devote myself to another show.  Oh, and I suppose was massively depressed, addicted to MMORPGS, and living in a spare room of my mom's home.  It's probably not a coincidence that Futurama was there when I turned my life around, though.  In 2003 I went to grad school, had a studio apartment with a TV, and evening classes.  I would come home from classes and watch Adult Swim.  This block featured bizarre anime, Family Guy, and Futurama.  I'm one of those guys that falls asleep with the TV on so I would usually fall asleep to Adult Swim.  You could make an argument that I only like Futurama due to subliminal influence, but I don't really like Family Guy (though I did grow to love Cowboy Bebop and FLCL).

Erwin Shrodinger: Evil Genius

So what is it about Futurama that now makes it the show I watch pretty much every night as I drift off to sleep?  I'd say that except for a dip in form during early season six and "Bender's Game", they don't go for the low hanging fruit.  They pass on the simple, obvious joke and try harder or at least they usually make the writers work hard to bring in that simple joke.  They're also not afraid to assume their audience has a brain. For example, in "Law and Oracle" we have a scene involving Schrodinger's Cat, Lorentz Invariance, refracting combined with Andy Warhol style portratits, Tron, and then they wind it all down with Fry getting attacked by Shrodinger's cat. How do you even pitch a joke like that?