History Futurama / TropesEToH

* EasilyForgiven: In ''Recap/FuturamaS4E5ATasteOfFreedom'' the Decapodians conquer and enslave Earth. After that episode no-one on Earth seems to hold this against them.

** Amy is an ABSOLUTE {{Ditz}}. However, as the episode "That Darn Katz" [[BrickJoke reminds us]], she IS an engineering graduate student who designs a machine to harness the rotational energy of the Earth. Also, she officially gains her doctorate at the end of the episode, so she is the ultimate Genius Ditz.

---> '''Kif''': That's all the resolution we have. Making it bigger doesn't make it clearer.\\
'''Zap''': It does on ''Series/CSIMiami''.

-->'''Bender:''' What an awful dream! 1s and 0s everywhere! '''(shudder)''' And I thought I saw a 2.\\

-->'''Robot Devil''': Wow! That was pretty brutal, even by my standards.\\
'''Bender''': [[CrossesTheLineTwice No backsies.]]

---> '''Fry:''' [[spoiler:You mean Bender is the evil Bender? I'm shocked! ''Shocked!'' Well, not that shocked.]]

---> "You mean somewhere [[LampshadeHanging there's a more evil Bender than me?]] I do my best, dammit!

--->'''Fry''': "Nothing in here but a couple of elephant skin rugs. (beat) Eeew!"\\
'''Farnsworth''': Oh yes.

--->'''Zoidberg:''' Alright, open your mouth and say "ah". No, no, your other mouth.
--->'''Fry:''' I only have one.
--->'''Zoidberg:''' ''Really?''

--->'''Doctor:''' Man, the guy who did this must have been a real Zoidberg.
--->'''Hermes:''' It ''was'' Zoidberg!

--->'''Fry''': Co-ed steam rooms? I love the future!\\
'''Leela''': Fry, you're in the ''women's'' steam room.\\
'''Fry''': Futuristic.\\
'''Amy''' ''(aside to Leela)'': Psst! Look what life was like before genetic engineering.\\
'''Leela''': Those poor 20th-century women.\\
''(Fry swings his legs closed)''

---->'''Leela''': It was brisk. I dressed in layers.

-->'''Hermes:''' Concerning our pest problem: somebody's been leaving food around, and it's attracting owls! And I, for one, am getting tired of cleaning those owl traps. [Trap snaps, an owl hoots]
-->'''Igner:''' We're owl exterminators! (repeated throughout "Bender's Game")

-->'''Fry''': I just saw something incredibly cool. A big floating ball that lit up with every color of the rainbow, plus some new ones that were so beautiful I fell to my knees and cried.
-->'''Amy''': Was it out in front of Discount Shoe Outlet?
-->'''Fry''': [''hesitantly''] Yeah.
-->'''Amy''': They have a college kid wear that to attract customers.

-->'''Fry:''' [{{beat}} as he stares at the stump of his arm before he flies into a rage and starts slapping Zoidberg with his own severed limb]: You ''bastard''! I'll kill you! You '''bastard'''!

-->'''Amy''': Oh, so this is where you shop for your boots!

* In "How the West Was 1010001," Roberto plays a game of FiveFingerFillet, but instead of stabbing the space between his fingers with a knife, he uses a revolver that fires knives to shoot between his fingers.

* {{Flanderization}}: Fry was always a fairly dim-witted underachiever but seems to get progressively stupider as the series goes on. In the first episode, in the process of escaping Leela, he notices that in entrapping her in a cryogenic chamber, its setting ensures that she will be frozen for a thousand years. Not wishing to rob her of that much of her life, Fry adjusts her chamber to a mere five minutes, still ample time for him to get away. The Fry of later seasons wouldn't have been capable of noticing this on his own, and it's also arguable as to whether or not he'd even be competent enough to accomplish something as "complicated" as turning a knob to a lower number.
** Early on, it's occasionally mentioned that Hermes is an accountant, but it's mostly an informed attribute, secondary to being vaguely Jamaican. Ten years later he has eaten a calculator "to gain its power" and solves (or tries to solve) most problems via limbo.
** Bender's characterization is always somewhat inconsistent, but in general he's much crueler and more selfish after the first run. His impulsiveness now seems to inspire only unambiguously evil actions, even though it once also inspired ones that were well-intentioned, albeit still often questionable, and his cruelty has become more inexplicable. For example, in "Crimes of the Hot", he's willing to die because robots are a threat to organic life on Earth[[note]]as mentioned, even his well-intentioned actions are often questionable, and here he doesn't seem to consider simply leaving Earth and doesn't try to warn the other robots that Nixon plans to kill them[[/note]], but in "Cold Warriors", he intentionally spreads a likely-deadly illness for seemingly no reason and doesn't seem to feel even remotely guilty after it nearly gets Manhattan thrown into the Sun. That said, he still has hints of a more nuanced personality in the late episodes.

--> '''Fembot''': "Have you any idea how it feels to be a fembot living in a manbot's manputer's world?"
-->'''Bender''': ...What?

-->'''Bender''' "LOUDER AND SADDER!!!!!!!"

--->'''Bender''': You people have convinced me to live, but only by showing me how boring my funeral would be!

--->'''Fry:''' The what?\\
'''Farnsworth:''' Like [[Franchise/StarTrek the Federation from that show]]

--->'''Bender''': What do these humans use this ''for''?

-->'''Don Bot''': I knew Bender would turn up purely by coincidence.

-->'''Leela:''' "Fry, stop. I don't wanna hurt you, but there is absolutely positively no way that you and I will ever, ever--" (time skip)\\
'''Preacher:''' "--man and wife. You may kiss the bride."
** It was used in the new season 6 episode as well, where the crew stumble upon a bus filled with skeletons of dead people. When Zoidberg shoves the bones off of a bed, the Professor scolds Zoidberg for desecrating the bones of the dead people. However, when Amy says that she found a safe, cut to Farnsworth using a skull to break into the safe

--->'''Fry''': Now that I'm single, I'll attract all sorts of women.\\
'''Amy''': Actually, with my body, you'll only attract one kind of woman.\\
'''Fry''': ''(intrigued)'' Ohhh. ''(realizes, and then disappointed)'' Oh.

---> '''Entity''': If you've done it right, people won't be sure if you've done anything at all.

-->'''Leela''': Hmm... If we can re-route engine power through the primary weapons and configure them to Melllvar's frequency, that should overload his electro-quantum structure.\\
'''Bender''': [[LaymansTerms Like putting too much air in a balloon!]]\\

'''Leela''': It's not working! He's gaining strength from our weapons!\\
'''Fry''': Like a balloon and... [[{{Metaphorgotten}} something bad happens!]]

---> '''Lrr (Ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8!)''': "THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!"

-->'''Zoidberg:''' I want the tactile pleasure of chopping him right ''here'', in the gonads! *points approximately to Fry's collarbone*
-->'''Fry:''' ''Nobody correct him!''

-->'''Shatner:''' ''(reading aloud in bored monotone)'' Alas, my ship, whom I love like a woman, is... disabled. ''(to self)'' Oh, Lord!
-->'''Nimoy:''' ''(reading aloud in bored monotone)'' Fascinating, Captain, and logical too. Yet we need some help.
-->'''Takei:''' ''(reading aloud in bored monotone)'' Look, Captain, Melllvar will help us.\\
''(A little later)''\\
'''Nichols:''' ''(reading aloud in bored monotone)'' My, what a handsome energy creature you are. I love you.
* {{Hermaphrodite}}: This is Hermes' actual name (but pronounced "Herm-Aphrodite") when he is turned into a centaur with breasts in the third movie, 'Bender's Game'.
** ...which is technically the correct (the best kind of correct!) pronunciation of that word as a proper name.

* later* \\

-->'''Scientist''': I have combined the DNA of the world's most evil animals to make the most evil creature of them all!\\
(''A naked man walks out of the chamber'') \\
'''Naked Man''': Turns out it's man.

''(zoom out to reveal Hermes)''\\

--->''(while Fry and Leela run out heroically, Bender runs slowly and heavily panting like he just ran a whole marathon)''\\
'''Bender''': Hold the elevator for me!

** Stench and Stenchability has Amy in a nurses outfit. Complete with ass cleavage.

* FantasticLivestock: By the 31st century, cattle are extinct and have been replaced by giant black-and-white spotted beetles called buggalo.
* FantasticRacism: Played for laughs with the robots, sorry..."electronic americans". In the future, robots have personalities indistinguishable from humans, attend learning intuitions, and have voting privileges (There was even a robot president, John Quincy Adding Machine). However, robots are still machines that are built and destroyed at the discretion of humans and ordered to perform unpleasant tasks. This causes friction in a few episodes.

** In "Ghost in the Machines", Bender is mad at Fry for saving a human’s life at the expense of a robot’s life. To which Fry points out that “A human’s life is worth more than a Robot’s life.”

** "Oh why couldn't he have joined one of the mainstream religions? Like Oprahism, or Voodoo?"

** Done purposefully by a group of colonists; they modeled the planet after Ancient Egypt. Apparently the ancient Egyptians [[AncientAstronauts taught them about space travel]].

* FictionalColor: Once made mention of a color called Blurple. Oh, and there was also Fry's description of an amazing, indescribable thing he saw that day at the beginning of ''I Dated A Robot'':

** In a Black and White episode Fry's over-sized diamond ring creates a rainbow that combined with the shards of other diamonds created a brand new color which was "in no way a combination of different colors". All we saw was a slightly different shade of grey.

* FictionalUnitedNations: The Democratic Order Of Planets, or DOOP, which Hermes identifies as being analogous to the Federation of Planets from ''Franchise/StarTrek''. In practice however, it appears to be closer in function to the modern United Nations: an international (or rather, interplanetary) forum for mediating disputes and cooperating on greater-scope issues, with each member retaining unilateral sovereignty.

* FinishHim: In "Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love", Fry dramatically refuses to kill his friend, and Zoidberg takes the opportunity to ''chop off his arm''.

* FirstStepFixation: In one episode, Bender winds up on a small planetoid and needs to jump over a ravine. He backs up so he can get a running start—and keeps backing up until he's circumnavigated the planetoid and winds up at the spot he was trying to jump to in the first place. Then he runs and jumps over the ravine anyway.

* {{Flanderization}}: Fry was always a fairly dim-witted underachiever, but seems to get progressively stupider as the series goes on. In the first episode, in the process of escaping Leela, he notices that in entrapping her in a cyrogenic chamber, its setting ensures that she will be frozen for a thousand years. Not wishing to rob her of that much of her life, Fry adjusts her chamber to a mere five minutes, still ample time for him to get away. The Fry of later seasons wouldn't have been capable of noticing this on his own, and it's also arguable as to whether or not he'd even be competent enough to accomplish something as "complicated" as turning a knob to a lower number.
** Early on, it's occasionally mentioned that Hermes is an accountant, but it's mostly an informed attribute, secondary to being vaguely Jamaican. Ten years later he has eaten a calculator "to gain its power", and solves (or tries to solve) most problems via limbo.
** Bender’s characterization is always somewhat inconsistent, but in general he’s much crueler and more selfish after the first run. His impulsiveness now seems to inspire only unambiguously-evil actions, even though it once also inspired ones that were well-intentioned, albeit still often questionable, and his cruelty has become more inexplicable. For example, in "Crimes of the Hot", he’s willing to die because robots are a threat to organic life on Earth[[note]]as mentioned, even his well-intentioned actions are often questionable, and here he doesn’t seem to consider simply leaving Earth and doesn’t try to warn the other robots that Nixon plans to kill them[[/note]], but in "Cold Warriors", he intentionally spreads a likely-deadly illness for seemingly no reason and doesn’t seem to feel even remotely guilty after it nearly gets Manhattan thrown into the Sun. That said, he still has hints of a more nuanced personality in the late episodes.

* FleetingDemographicRule: In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' season 5 episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E10Springfield $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling)]]", Barney mistakes a cup of quarters for a cup of beer, and ends up swallowing a bunch. As he starts burping them out, one of the patrons nearby says, "Hey, this guy's paying off!" Barney is then surrounded by gamblers picking up the quarters as he keeps burping. This episode aired in 1993. Cut to 2012. After ''Futurama'' is {{Uncancelled}}, there's the season 7 episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS7E12VivaMarsVegas Viva Mars Vegas]]". The Planet Express crew steals a bunch of money from a casino taken over by the Robot Mafia by [[ItMakesSenseInContext having Zoidberg eat everything in the vault, as he's currently invisible]]. When the crew attempts to wheel Zoidberg out of the casino on a shrimp serving cart, he starts burping out dollar bills. And just like in "$pringfield", a bystander shouts "Look! The shrimp cart's paying out!" before a horde of gamblers follow after it to pick up the bills. In essence, they reused a joke ''nineteen years later''.

** Implied in the episode "Overclockwise", where Bender responds to being told that a video game console uses motion capture tehcnology by raising his hand and saying "Oh, yeah? Track ''this'' motion." The gesture isn't seen, but anyone watching can tell that Bender was giving the bird.

* FlowersForAlgernonSyndrome: Fry's intestinal parasites improving his body and mind to near superhuman levels, then revert when he kicks them out.
* FluffyTamer: Lrr and Nd-Nd towards Bigfoot in "Spanish Fry."

*** [[spoiler:Nibbler's shadow also appears for a brief second the moment Fry falls back into the cryo chamber.]]
*** This gets worked even harder in season 5. During "Jurassic Bark" we once again see the scene. However, for observant viewers, [[spoiler:this time there are ''two'' silhouettes seen when Fry falls into the chamber. This sets up "The Why of Fry" a few episodes later, which reveals both Nibbler and a Fry who was sent back in time were under the table and it's Fry himself who sends his past self into the chamber]].

*** "And so on" means "every two generations", i.e. father Fry, his grandfather, his great-great-grandfather, .... Of course they are all called Yancy: they are all [[spoiler:the same person]].

** "[[Recap/FuturamaS2E18TheHonking The Honking]]": "Project Satan" was an attempt to build the most evil car ever from pieces of other evil cars. The first car the project created included the steering wheel from UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler's Mercedes-Benz limo, the left turn signal from UsefulNotes/CharlesManson's Volkswagen van, the windshield wipers from the Pontiac that played KITT in ''Series/KnightRider'', and the electric motor from Creator/EdBegleyJr's car.
** "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E11WhereNoFanHasGoneBefore Where No Fan Has Gone Before]]": The Planet Express crew are stranded on a planet with the cast of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''. After learning that the former group's ship has broken engines but a working life support system while the latter's has the opposite, Leela attaches the engines of the ''Star Trek'' group's ship to the Planet Express ship to get off the planet.

** On "Saturday Morning Fun Pit," G.I. Zapp's enemies are part of a terrorist group called A.C.R.O.N.Y.M (A Criminal Regiment Of Nasty Young Men)

* FuturisticSuperhighway: All cars are hovercars, so there are skylanes along with regular ground roads. In "Bendin' In The Wind" the Golden Gate Bridge is now a hoverbridge, so it doesn't need an actual road on it... which is a problem, since the gang is on a 20th Century VW Microbus. Intergalactic trucking routes and railroads are also present, and "Rebirth," the first episode after the series was UnCancelled, features the Panama Wormhole.

* GenderBender: Done with Bender himself. Of course how robots have genders shouldn't matter. RuleOfFunny and all that.

** Dr. Zoidberg. Even though he's the staff Doctor, he knows absolutely nothing about the Human Anatomy. We later find out that he IS a doctor - of [[NotThatKindOfDoctor Art History]]. What's more impressive is that there were a couple of occasions where Zoidberg actually performed operations successfully. Impressive, considering he doesn't actually have any medical training. He may not know anything about human anatomy but he is a terrific alien Doctor.
** Despite being an IdiotHero, Fry is a very strange variation of GeniusDitz, in that sometimes he does things ridiculously well to the point of brilliance (e.g. writing a symphony, driving the ship and shooting at a chasing car of robot mafia ''at the same time'', and re-arranging an entire galaxy with a gravitational array to write Leela a love message). Also when he decides to become a police officer, he is shown to actually be quite competent.

** The first two seasons were pure comedy, with little emotional investment in the characters. Starting from the third season, they put some emotional pathos into Fry and Leela's relationship, and had a couple twist endings that really made you feel something, the most famous examples being "The Late Philip J. Fry," "Jurassic Bark," and "The Luck of the Fryrish." This was done the most in Season 4, which is why it's often considered the best season.

** ''Godfellas'' is this trope in compact-episode form. Bender becomes a god, [[spoiler: fails horribly,]] meets something that ''might'' be God, and then proceeds to learn the ultimate godly lesson:

* GoodNewsBadNews: Whenever the professor says "Good news, everyone!", he's inevitably going to announce something horrible. Parodied in one episode when he's announcing something even worse than normal and simply says "News, everyone!" in exactly the same tone of voice as normal and {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in "The Sting" when he says (in exactly the same tone of voice as normal) "Bad news everyone! Now normally when I say "Good news" it's usually bad news. So you can imagine how bad this news actually is." Also, in another episode, the Professor purchases some [[strike:IKEA]] πKEA science instruments which... go exactly how you'd expect them to. He is blown through the wall in to the next room. As he stands up, he says "Bad news, no one."

** The first one was "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings", which was notable for featuring music more prominently than any other episode in the series. It ended with badly made holophoner images of Fry and Leela walking off into the sunset holding hands.

* GreenAesop: Parodied in "The Bird-Bot of Ice-Catraz" and "Leela and the Genestalk". In the former, Free Waterfall Sr. is dead-set on saving the lives of Antarctica's threatened penguin population until he learns the birds are breeding out of control, at which point he [[AnimalWrongsGroup organizes a cull to kill them in the most agonizing ways imaginable]]. In the latter, while it's shown that Mom's agribusiness holdings are run purely for her own greed than any sort of charitable motivation, they ''have'' managed to cure various diseases and breed fast-growing crops (which, by the end, have totally blanketed New New York).
* GreyAndGreyMorality: "Benderama", interestingly enough. The giant starts smashing up everything, only because he has some self-esteem and anger issues and everyone is insulting him. Everyone except Bender is entirely drunk and so can't really be held accountable, and while Bender stops the giant, he really was the only sober one and isn't any better than everyone else drunk:

* GroundhogDayLoop: The final episode of season 7 has one in the form of a device with a single button Farnsworth made that can send the person back in time ten seconds, and explicitly takes ten seconds to recharge so you can't just continue to go back in time further by repeatedly pressing it. To actually show it's effects to other people he created a "time shelter," so others won't be affected by the time jump. [[spoiler: Breaking the device created a TimeStandsStill situation for Fry and Leela, who live into old age together with the rest of the universe frozen, until Farnsworth was able to do a literal ResetButton]].

** Fry's parents. Also Hermes and Labarbara Conrad, usually.
* HappyBirthdayToYou: In "I Second That Emotion", the crew celebrates Nibbler's birthday by singing, "What day is today?, it's Nibbler's birthday,what a day for a birthday, let's all have some cake". Fry then adds, "and you smell like one too".

* HauteCuisineIsWeird: In the episode "Three Hundred Big Boys", Zoidberg spends his $300 refund on foie gras and caviar, but is disappointed to find out that it's just goose liver and fish eggs. Chef Elzar tells him that "This is what rich people eat: the garbage parts of food."

* HeKnowsTooMuch: When the crew is throwing away their "overly-complicated Japanese toilet", it offers them "Happy Poopy Time" if they'll spare it. Fry responds with this trope.

** The aptly-named Hedonism Bot.

* HeinousnessRetcon: During the Fox seasons, Fry's parents were depicted as quite cold and emotionally abusive, with his father berating him and his mother ignoring him in favor of sports. When Fry initially learns he'll never see his family again in the pilot, he ''cheers.'' Even when Fry's mom says she misses him in a flashback, she also remarks that all his "crap" is still in the house. The first movie and episodes in the later Comedy Central seasons depict Fry's experiences with his family as much happier. "Cold Warriors" still depicts Fry's dad as harsh but gives him the excuse of trying to toughen Fry up through tough love. "Game of Tones" is much more sentimental, as Fry gets to relive the last time he saw his family and has such a lovely time that he doesn't want to leave them, especially his mother. In the end, Fry [[spoiler:ends up in his mother's dream, and it's made more obvious that she still loves him]].

-->'''Shatner:''' ''(reading aloud in bored monotone)'' Alas, my ship, whom I love like a woman, is .. .disabled. ''(to self)'' Oh, Lord!

* HeroicBSOD: Bender enters this combined with {{Roaring Rampage Of Revenge}}, of all things, after realizing he was built without a backup unit, and therefore is both imperfect and mortal.

* HigherUnderstandingThroughDrugs: In the episode "Parasites Regained," the Planet Express crew shrinks down and ventures into Nibbler's litter-box, where there exists an orange powder that can expand one's mind, allowing them to see the complex web of species that exist within the litter-box, largely because Leela never cleans it out. The episode is partially a parody of the ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' franchise, with the sand of the litter-box correlating to the desert planet Arrakis, the presence of worms in both deserts, and the orange powder being a stand-in for the mind expanding Spice.

* HolidayPersonification: Around the holiday time, we see three beings who represent their respective reglious holidays: Robot Santa, who is made to be the physical version of Santa in the future, but as his faulty programming causes him to deem almost everyone as not only unworthy of receiving a gift, but also unworthy of life, he instead tries to kill anyone he sees on Xmas Eve, turning the holiday into a night of terror for anyone who doesn't hunker down. There's also Kwanzaa-Bot, who tries to give out books about the holiday since (according to the show) no one really knows what it celebrates and "Bender's Big Score" showcased the Hanukkah Zombie who's a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Jewish zombie]].
* HolidayVolunteering: In the episode "Xmas Story", Bender volunteers at a Liquor Kitchen (for homeless robots) only to pose as a homeless robot himself, and drinks all the free booze. In the end he invites some of the robots back to have X-Mas dinner with the rest of Planet Express.

* HopelessSuitor: Fry, so very much. He spends years trying to win Leela's affections, only for her to constantly reject him. She does eventually fall in love with him and they become a couple in later seasons. It actually was the intention of the creators for Fry and Leela to never get together, until they saw how much fans like the relationship, something they didn't expect.

** Leela is once impressed with a handsome doctor, which makes her all flirty: "A tall doctor, you say?" His name is Adlai Atkins and they grew up in the same orphanage. He's an eye surgeon, and it doesn't hurt that most doctors are rich.

* HughMann: The episode "A Taste Of Freedom" provides the picture for this trope's page, due to the unconvincing crustacean in disguise (who's even named Hugh Mann) who fools Zap Brannigan.

** Also Leela, Bender, and Fry in "Less than Hero" (see INeedToGoIronMyDog).

** In ''Bender's Game'', following a particularly brutal TakeThat to Creator/RobinWilliams (in form of a horde of [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Morks]], a combination of orcs and, well, [[Series/MorkAndMindy Mork]] who can only repeat his catchphrases and are messily slain in great numbers for being annoying) for supposedly not being funny, we are subjected to ''[[OverlyLongGag The Eviscerator]]'', which seems like the exact kinda joke Williams would make in his stand-up routine.

* EarlyBirdCameo: [[spoiler:Leela's parents]] appear in "I Second That Emotion" in the background as the two nosed mutant is telling the legend of a swamp monster, two seasons before "Leela's Homeworld" where they were formally introduced.

** In the earlier episodes, Professor Farnsworth was actually nice. A little dotty and lazy from old age, but nowhere near as heartless and insane as he would later be. On top of that, Billy West's voice for him was softer, and the episode that introduced Mom of Mom's Friendly Robot Company didn't even mention that Farnsworth and Mom used to be a couple (despite the scene of Mom confronting Fry right at Planet Express, there wasn't so much as a throwaway line about Mom and the Professor).

** Several episodes in Season 1 had [[TheTeaser cold openings]], which were dropped near the end of that season (though "Brannigan Begins Again" from season two has the cold opening of Fry and Bender playing a violent, futuristic version of chess).
** For those who are used to seeing the head of UsefulNotes/RichardNixon as Earthican President, "When Aliens Attack" is going to feel weird to watch as it had an Earthican President named [=MacNeal=] (whom the Omicronians mistake for Jenny [=MacNeil=] from the legal dramedy ''Single Female Lawyer''), though [=MacNeal=]'s getting shot does set up for the events in "A Head in the Polls".

** A subtle example appears in "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" when Zapp tricks Leela into thinking that Earth was destroyed and they're the last Earthicans left alive, and stranded on a suspiciously Earthlike planet.
** Parodied in "The Late Phillip J Fry" where they find the Statue of Liberty blown up... then an ape Statue of Liberty... then a bird one... then a cow... then a slug maybe?

** Robot Santa's naughty setting kind of falls under Easy Road To Hell. He condemns Scruffy to the naughty/death list just for picking his nose. Apparently Zoidberg is the only one who meets his standards.

** Free Waterfall, Jr.'s fate in "The Problem With Popplers" episode, at the hands (jaws?) of Lrrr.

** Malfunctioning Eddy, who will explode for nearly all pieces of information he's fed.

* ElderlyAilmentRambling: Professor Fansworth, who's a man of ''160'', has a tendency to talk about his medical conditions:

** Yivo's something between this and a GeniusLoci. It ("Schle"?) is sentient and has enough area to store everyone in the entire universe but Yivo is also very personable and tries to interact with the universe without dragging everyone to itself ("schlimself"?) first. Yivo's also for all intents and purposes a living FluffyCloudHeaven, which gives Yivo another dimension.

** Played straight. In the year 3000, there are only a few notable language changes. "Ask" is now always pronounced "aks" (except when the writers forget it), and not just by African-Americans, and "X-mas" is actually pronounced as "ecksmass". Also, people still speak modern English in the year 50 million.

* EvilFeelsGood: Bender does this a lot. He seems aware that stealing is bad but he sure enjoys it.
* EvilLivingFlames: "The Inhuman Torch" features one of these as the main villain. It's an extraterrestrial being of pure solar energy named Flamo, whom the Planet Express crew accidentally brings back to Earth after a visit to a helium mining facility on the sun and who spends the episode trying to turn the Earth into a new, incandescent sun for him to rule over.
* EvilOldFolks: Mom. Professor Farnsworth had a tendency to fall in love with her and leave her (again) when he discovered she was evil. This happened several times.

* ExtinctInTheFuture: Pine trees, poodles, cows, and [[TaxonomicTermConfusion anchovies]] are all extinct by the year 3000.
* ExtraordinaryWorldOrdinaryProblems: Fry is initially dazzled by the New New York of 3000 A.D. after being frozen for 1,000 years. However, he becomes more blase' about the setting as he finds he still has to do the same things he did back in 1999 like earn money, get a job, find a place to live, and pay taxes.

* TheFaceless: Leela's boyfriend (or later ex-boyfriend) Sean is alluded to multiple times across the show's run, but is never actually seen (although he is described) until the episode "Fry and Leela's Big Fling."

** In "Jurassic Bark", Fry walks in on Leela and Amy wrestling in revealing outfits for no discernible reason (Leela claims, "We need to practice hand to hand combat in case an enemy knocks the laser gun out of our hands and they slide ''way'' across the room."), but [[NotDistractedByTheSexy Fry is too busy prepping for the cloning of his dog to care about seeing a girl-on-girl fight]].

** "Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love?" has Fry [[AccidentalPervert accidentally going into the women's steam room]], where Leela and Amy are relaxing naked. Amy moves the hand covering her chest, but just enough to keep it still covered (according to the [=DVD=] commentary, the writers used this scene as a bargaining chip for the FOX censors when they wanted to get away with something that the censors would immediately decline, telling them "You let us get away with this. Why can't you do the same with this scene?").
--->'''Fry''': Coed steam rooms? I love the future!\\

** In "A Taste of Freedom", the whole crew takes a nude bath in a hot tub to celebrate Freedom day.
** There is a nude conga line in "Time Keeps On Slipping":

** The straight-to-[=DVD=] movies kick it up a notch. The first one begins with a visit to the "Nude beach planet." In nonsexual fanservice, all the {{Continuity Nod}}s qualify.
*** Additionally, a huge part of the first movie's plot revolves around Fry's ass, which is frequently bared.
** In the second movie, Amy bride outfit for the Fon Fon-Rubok ceremony and, after, the [[http://33.media.tumblr.com/4c9b82a213a668658308ab143a77c423/tumblr_inline_n2ahoegESE1szcb3x.png funeral outfit]]. And she was the WIDOW!

** In "Neutopia", most of the first calendar shoot with Leela, Amy and La Barbara. Particularly when Leela is wearing nothing on her upper body ''except suspenders.'' HOW DID THEY GET AWAY WITH THAT?

* ForWantOfANail: Paul Revere only has access to one lantern in one episode.
** In ''Bender's Big Score'', Fry, now back to the 20th century, uses the code to go back in time a few more minutes to eat the pizza he was supposed to deliver. This minor event resulted in [[spoiler: creating a time duplicate of Fry who eventually becomes Lars]].

* In "How the West Was 1010001," Roberto plays a game of five-finger fillet, but instead of stabbing the space between his fingers with a knife, he uses a revolver that fires knives to shoot between his fingers.

* HippieVan: In "Bendin' in the Wind", an ancient, abandoned VW bus is discovered. After Fry explains how it works, the crew get it repaired and go off on a hippie-themed road trip, following {{Music/Beck}} on tour.

* HurricaneOfPuns: Numerous examples, but the one that really takes the cake is the LeadIn to "The Luck of the Fryrish", containing every joke imaginable about horse racing, and, JustForPun, a joke about Quantum Physics.

* HalfwayPlotSwitch: Like [[Franchise/TheSimpsons its big brother series]], ''Futurama'' also used these, though they were mainly only prevalent in the earlier seasons. "Hell is Other Robots" features ''two'' Halfway Plot Switches: The episode first mainly revolves around Bender's antics to maintain his electricity addiction, then it switches to Fry and Leela trying to get Bender to go back to his old self after he finds religion, and ''then'' it switches to the two of them busting Bender out of Robot Hell.

** Implied in the episode "Overclockwise", where Bender responds to being told that a video game console uses motion capture tehcnology by raising his hand and saying "Oh, yeah? Capture ''this'' motion." The gesture isn't seen, but anyone watching can tell that Bender was giving the bird.