Futurama

Futurama is an animated television series created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and David X. Cohen (also a writer for The Simpsons). Set in New New York City in the 31st century, it was introduced on the Fox Network and received airplay between March 28, 1999 and August 10, 2003. It is currently in syndication on the [adult swim] segment of Cartoon Network and TBS in the United States, on Teletoon in Canada, on Channel 4, Sky One, Sky Two and Sky Three in the UK, and on Fox8 and Network Ten in Australia.

The series begins with Philip J. Fry, a New York City slacker and pizza delivery boy, who is cryogenically frozen by accident on New Year's Eve, 1999. He is defrosted one thousand years later on New Years Eve, 2999 and finds himself in New New York City. Fry thinks he has a chance at a new life, only to find himself being permanently assigned a career as a delivery boy. Fry's attempts to escape from his now-mandatory job assignment end at Planet Express, a small intergalactic package delivery company run by his distantly descended nephew, where he is hired on as a delivery boy. The series covers the adventures of Fry and his colleagues as they travel around the universe making deliveries on behalf of Planet Express.

Setting
The setting is first and foremost a backdrop for humor, and the show is not above committing continuity errors if they serve to further the gags. The capabilities of many things (and even characters) vary according to what is most appropriate for the situation at hand.

The visually retro-futuristic world of Futurama is not a utopia but neither is it a dystopia. Unlike past cartoons like The Jetsons, which showed an efficient, clean, happy future, Futurama portrays a less idealistic view, with humans still dealing with many of the same basic problems of the 20th century. The show's vision of the future is very similar to the present in many ways: the same political figures and celebrities that we know today survive as heads in jars (a method invented by Ron Popeil), television remains the primary means of entertainment, the Internet is still slow and filled with ads and pornography, problems such as global warming (although this was revealed to be canceled out by a nuclear winter), inflexible bureaucracy, and substance abuse are still pressing issues. This is probably due to human civilization being wiped out and replaced twice while Fry was in stasis, along with many other events including various enslavements of humanity and nuclear wars.

Race issues in 3000 are now centered around relations among humans, aliens, and robots. A common clash between the former two is alien immigration plaguing Earth. Humans find it hard to treat aliens with respect because of their differences, as is seen with the Decapodians, who probably evolved from something resembling a lobster, and because of various invasions and obliterations of Earth in the past.

A specific issue on Earth is the large population of super-intelligent/super-incompetent robots (homeless robots and orphan children robots, like Tinny Tim); they are generally lazy, greedy and surly (with the exception of the sycophantic super-efficient Robot 1-X), and often unwilling to assist their human creators. Almost all robots are fueled by alcohol -based substances, leading to widespread enviromental pollution. Robots are treated as independent beings