Futurama, I’ve missed you. Simpsons, are you still here? You stopped being reliably funny several years ago. However, it’s been awhile since we visited, so I’ll sit down with an open mind. You really could be funny (yes you could! Who’s a funny animated movie? You are!).
The Simpsons Movie was funny for the length of a regular episode – about 22 minutes – after that there were a few laughs, but not enough to make the 87 minute running time feel like less than two and a half hours. Once the nooses appeared, it lost me.
I guess what’s most disappointing about The Simpsons Movie is that it’s a reminder that the show used to be daring and did stuff we’d never seen on television, before Fox was the conservative media juggernaut it is today. The Simpsons Movie may be funny compared to the mediocrity we accept as genius anymore, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the tv show in its prime.
And really, how many times can you watch Homer do something stupid and still find it funny?
A delivery boy’s butt holds the key to time travel. Moronic television executives who cancel good shows are ground up into a pink powder with multiple uses, including coating one’s groin for chafe-free movement. The Harlem Globetrotters are quantum physics geniuses.
Now, that’s funny.
Futurama: Bender’s Big Score doesn’t have the same level of social commentary as the tv show, which was one of the things I loved so much about it. However, its portrayal of internet scammers as globby, hairless, naked aliens is dead on accurate (that’s what you people are inside – yeah, I’m talking to you mister pharmaceutical discounts man).
It was fast paced and witty, it brought back characters and ideas we knew while continuing to throw new ones at us. Bender’s Big Score is for people who liked Futurama when it was on the air, pestered their friends and family to watch it and gasped incredulously when someone uttered “I don’t get it. When is The Simpsons on?.” (actual quote from an ex-boyfriend).
The Simpsons Movie was a disappointment, while Futurama: Bender’s Big Score was a nice surprise. Futurama wins.
Tournament Prize Pack So Far…
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
While I do appreciate The Simpsons, I find that most of their episodes nowadays hit or miss. Lisa is still tops though, as proven by a recent episode where she was toting around a Ghost World graphic novel.
Futurama was my favorite of the pair, and still is. One of the things I’ve always liked about the show is that despite being a comedy cartoon, it still had these great Whedon-esque story arcs that brought the seemingly random episodes together brilliantly.