History Futurama / TropesOToS

* ObfuscatedInterface: The naughty and nice switch on the back of Robot Santa's head just has the letter N for both settings. So, in [[Recap/FuturamaS8E6IKnowWhatYouDidNextXmas "I Know What You Did Next Xmas"]], Farnsworth has no way of knowing that it is already on the nice setting.

* OfficeRomance: Fry and Leela are the main example, but there's also Fry and Amy in ''Put Your Head On My Shoulder'', Amy and Bender in ''Proposition Infinity'', and Bender and the Planet Express ship in ''Love And Rocket''. Leela attempted one with her former boss at the cryogenics lab, but he was already married to a woman he met through an office romance. Farnsworth also had a relationship with Mom, his former boss.

* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Farnsworth focuses mostly on inventing devices, but will readily delve into other sciences.

* OneCastMemberPerCover: The 2012 rereleases of Volumes 1-4 and the original releases of Volumes 5-8 feature a different cast member on the cover. For instance, Volume 1 has Fry, Volume 2 has Morbo, Volume 3 has Professor Farnsworth, Volume 4 features Amy Wong, Volume 5 features Bender, Volume 6 features Leela, Volume 7 features Zoidberg, and Volume 8 Hypnotoad.

-->'''Hermes:''' Didn't we used to be a delivery company?

* PacifismIsCowardice: This is referenced in "When Aliens Attack"; Bender declares himself a "conscientious objector... you know, a coward." Then his patriotism chip is activated and he becomes gung-ho against his will.

** Possibly averted in a later episode. [[spoiler:''Bender's Big Score'' shows a back-from-the-future Fry happily reuniting with his family. Until that moment, all the information showing the horrible neglect Fry grew up with came from an early, immature Fry and his even less mature girlfriend. Why would it be a waste of taxpayer money to have the police search for Fry? Because Fry's family had probably just seen him, and didn't feel like giving his horrible ex the time of day.]] Regardless, some evidence exists that Fry's feelings about his family are skewed, right down to his hatred for his older brother, who "always stole everything from him". [[spoiler: Yancy Jr. and Fry just experienced normal sibling rivalry. Upon having a son, Yancy Jr. names the boy "Philip" for Fry; his wife treats the choice as a foregone conclusion, knowing how much Yancy Jr. loves his little brother.]]

** Dr. Zoidberg receives a few of these courtesy of Robot Santa in Xmas Story. He chastises Fry and Leela for never thinking about Zoidberg's feelings, and he is also the only one in the entire world that is shown to be on Santa's nice list.
** KickTheDog: "Robopuppy mistreatment alert! Robopuppy mistreatment aleeert!"
* PhotoprotoneutronTorpedo: Positron shooters are apparently standard issue for DOOP soldiers. They play "Pop Goes The Weasel" as they're wound up.

* PhysicalGod: Sorta, in several occasions.
** Fry as the incarnation of the Known Universe could be this for the Parasites.

** Yivo must be this, being some sort of Eldritch Abomination.

-->'''Hermes:''' Didn't we used to be a Delivery Company?

* PlanetOfHats: Virtually a RunningGag -- except for Earth, every planet has one (1) characteristic, as well as being named after it. Farnsworth's "good news, everyone!" CharacterCatchphrase was originally used to refer to the planet he was sending them to next.

** There's Doohan 6, planet of borderline-incomprehensible Scottish sheep-herders...who are all named Angus.

* PlanetaryNation: Played with in regards to Earth itself. Earth has its own overarching government ([[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld that is somehow also the American government and based on American governmental traditions]]), but other nations are shown to still exist with their own set of laws. And then its usually played straight when any other planets show up (which is normally OnceAnEpisode).

** "[[Recap/FuturamaS4E8CrimesOfTheHot Crimes of The Hot]]" has global warming caused by robot emissions cause Nixon to resort to gathering all robots to the Galapagos Island in order to kill them with an EM blast. In order to both save them and solve the problem of global warming, Farnsworth has all the robots vent their exhaust upwards to physically move the Earth out of the way and into a larger orbit, thus cooling it(and also extending the year by a week).
** "[[Recap/FuturamaS7E2AFarewellToArms A Farewell To Arms]]" has the threat of a dangerous solar flare actually hit Mars instead of Earth like the people on the latter planet thought, causing the methane pockets to ignite and blast Mars out of its orbit. It just ''narrowly'' avoids [[ColonyDrop colliding with the Earth]] before leaving.

* PoorlyTimedConfession: In "Love and Rockets", Bender has been dating the Planet Express ship's AI, and decides to break up with her while the crew is trying to escape from angry Omnicronians. The ship is so distraught she gets hit, leaving the crew stranded in space. Later, Bender says "the moment seemed right" and he likes his break-ups to be as devastating as possible.
* {{Portal Book}}s: "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid"

* PowerTrio: The three dominant characters who appear in every episode; Fry, Bender, and Leela. They usually represent the ego, the id, and the super ego respectively.

* PrecisionFStrike: Zoidberg at the end of the episode "The Silence Of The Clamps."

** Also another earlier in the episode, when he says "My name isn't Slick. It's Zoidberg. JOHN ''[beep]''ING ''ZOIDBERG!!''

* PromotionToOpeningTitles: Originally Billy West, Katey Segal and John [=DiMaggio=] were the only castmembers credited as regulars. Maurice [=LaMarche=], Lauren Tom, Phil [=LaMarrr=] and David Herman were all recurring or special guests for the first four seasons (despite appearing in most episodes). Tress [=MacNeille=] was added to the main cast in season 2, [=LaMarche=] in season 5 and the others followed suit in season 6.

* PseudoSanta: Robot Santa Claus was built by [=MomCorp=] and was supposed to fly around the world and deliver presents. Due to a glitch in his judgement circuits, however, his standards are impossibly high and he instead flies around every Xmas Eve killing anyone he comes across for being "too naughty". He spends most of the year preparing weapons in his death fortress on Neptune, alongside the enslaved Neptunians that stand in as his elves.

-->'''Roberto:''' I was designed by a team of engineers attempting to build an insane robot but it seems, [[GoneHorriblyRight they failed!]]\\

* PsychosexualHorror: The third act of the second movie, ''[[Recap/FuturamaM2TheBeastWithABillionBacks The Beast With A Billion Backs]]'', has a giant tentacle monster named Yivo descend onto the universe and penetrate every living being with shkler tentacles, converting them all into a massive polyamorous relationship. While the phallic imagery is only implied at first, it becomes explicit right before the fourth act, when Leela (the only one to [[FinalGirl avoid the brainwashing]]) reveals the monster was secretly ''mating'' with the universe. However, the rest of the movie downplays the ImpliedRape as Yivo retracts shkler tentacles, focusing more on Yivo as symbolic of both heaven and a suspiciously idyllic polyamorous relationship.

* PublicExposure: Bordering on DeliberateValuesDissonance; the nudity is TV-safe, but is very frequent (even more so in the Comedy Central seasons).

* RealityIsUnrealistic: In one episode Fry checks to see if his old bank account is still there, from 1000 years ago. It is, and he can even use his old ATM card to get access. He is told that after 1000 years of an average of 2.5% interest, his original 93 cent deposit has grown to 4.2 billion dollars. Presumably the producers thought the actual figure would be too far-fetched, which is ''49.2'' billion dollars.

** The series ends on one, in which Farnsworth says that everything will be restored to just before Farnsworth invented his [[spoiler:10-second time button. Leela and Fry had enjoyed a several decades long honeymoon thanks to Fry freezing time when he broke it. The final lines lampshade the trope.]]

* RewritingReality: Fry writes the reality at the end of "The Day The Earth Stood Stupid", and he saves the Earth in the process.

** And in "The Beast With a Billion Backs":

--->'''Zapp:''' Tell me, Kiff. What is the most degrading position in this unit?\\
'''Kiff:''' ''(more to himself)'' [[DeadpanSnarker Being your assistant, sir.]]\\

* RiddleForTheAges: Whatever Nibbler meant when he referred to Leela as "the Other" in ''The Why of Fry'' looks to never be answered.

* SpaceClothes

* ElSpanishO: Bender's attempts to speak Spanish tend to turn out this way.

** The final episode implies that [[spoiler: the entire series is one: after repairing the Time Button, the Professor says that the modified device will transport Fry and Leela back in time to shortly before the Professor invented the device. As soon as the episode ended, without even pausing for a commercial break, the network immediately aired the first episode, implying that the entire series has been reset.]]

** In "Obsoletely Fabulous", the Planet Express crew buys a new robot, the 1-X, that replaces Bender, and Bender is brainwashed into loving it. While it appears as a cameo throughout the rest of the series, the specific 1-X owned by the Planet Express crew is never seen again.

'''Fry:''' If you think bad luck can defeat me, than you don't know my name is Phillip J.-- ''(As the rake makes contact with the wire, Fry is electrocuted ("fried"), but survives, with a trail of smoke billowing off of him)''

** In "Benderama" a whole bunch of tiny Benders put so much alcohol in the water system that everyone on Earth experiences a huge...''bender''.

* StomachOfHolding: Most of the robots in Futurama have some sort of chest compartment. Bender's is the most blatant, regularly played to be big enough for whatever joke situation, and even in one instance, fifteen robot clown midgets.

** In the first of the "Anthology of Interest" What If style episodes there is this trope in the context of the short. It turns out that Fry not getting frozen and getting on with his life would lead to a TimeParadox (he's much happier in the future, but he doesn't know that). Parodied when a team lead by Al Gore try to kill him under the assumption he was meant to die (with the implication that they've done this before), before realizing that he was meant to be frozen. Subverted when Fry learns this, he destroys the cryogenic pod instead of being frozen, and the universe is destroyed, leaving the group to play ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' for the rest of eternity.

* StrongFamilyResemblance: All of Fry's relatives (Professor Farnsworth when he was younger, Cubert, Fry's parents, etc.) share his distinctly spiky orange hair The only deviation is Fry's dad's brown hair.

** The comic book Fry wrote in "Lrrreconciliable Nd-Ndifferences", and pretty much any book Fry writes.

** Invoked hilariously in ''Ina Gadda De Leela'', the show begins with a cheap-effects space opera being narrated by Zapp Brannigan, ending with him and an actress playing Leela (complete with crappy eye-patch thing) in bed.

* OnePersonBirthdayParty: In "Time Keeps On Slippin'", time jumps to Amy's birthday party, which is attended by everyone at Planet Express, to Zoidberg's birthday party, which is just him alone and crying.

** When Decapodians mate, they ''will'' die soon after, like many real-life crustacean species. However, they can mate with Yivo and, apparently, [[spoiler: with humans, as a certain incident involving Fry being in Zoidberg's body and Leela being in Farnsworth's proves]], without dying.

* OverlyLongScream: Leela does this in Reincarnation

** In the movie ''[[Recap/FuturamaM4IntoTheWildGreenYonder Into the Wild Green Yonder]]'' Fry uses his newfound telepathy to cheat at a poker tournament, while Bender loads up on lucky charms (most notably, the Donbot's lucky robot's foot). In the last hand Bender wins by not looking at his hand, which turns out to be all four kings plus a coaster labeled "King of Beers" that got shuffled into the deck by accident, beating Fry's Straight Flush.

* PineappleRuinsPizza: In the episode "[[Recap/FuturamaS6E9AClockworkOrigin A Clockwork Origin]]", the Planet Express crew end up trapped in a cave after fleeing self-evolving robots. They decide to eat the pizza the Professor got them as payment for helping him move in order to keep their strength up, only to toss it all aside when they see that they're all Hawaiian.

* PoisonedDrinkDrop: In "The Thief of Baghead", Calculon faces Langdon Cobb in an acting competition with his scene of choice being Romeo's death scene from ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''. To ensure his victory, he opts to actually poison himself using food coloring, which is deadly to robots. Calculon drinks the food coloring then drops the bottle and after a significant amount of gasping and retching, keels over and dies. Unfortunately his method acting does not ensure his victory, as Cobb easily wins.

** In "T, the Terrestrial", Fry eats what he thinks is colored candy, but it turns out to be Omnicronian poop. ("Feces Pieces?") They apparently don't' taste so bad, as Fry keeps trying to eat them even after the reveal.

* PostPeakOil: Fossil fuels eventually run out in the 2050s, forcing vehicles to run on whale oil. But for a while, vehicles run on dark matter. Which is actually [[spoiler:Nibblonian poop]].

* PowerTrio: The three dominant characters who appear in every episode, Fry, Bender, and Leela. They usually represent the ego, the id, and the super ego respectively.

* ThePrecariousLedge: In the first Christmas episode, Fry buys Leela a bird. It escapes its cage and flies off. He chases after it, ending up along a building edge, then dangling from the numbers of a gigantic digital clock.

* RaygunGothic: Done stylistically, like the design of the Planet Express ship or the various transport tubes around New New York. Other crafts like the ''Nimbus'' are more in line with SpaceOpera-type ships (and some spacecraft are just flying versions of things like box vans).

** Also Hermes when Zoidberg celebrates his 10th year at Planet Express:

** After the events of "The Late Philip J. Fry", Fry, Bender, and the Professor are all technically twice as old as the universe itself, having lived through two separate incarnations thereof while stuck in the Professor's one-way time machine.

** On the episode ''T The Terrestrial'', Bender accidentally abandons Fry on Omicron Persei 8, but doesn't want to let the rest of the cast find out. The only recoding Bender has of Fry is his outgoing voice mail. Luckily for Bender, the outgoing message is lengthy enough and Fry is TheDitz, so no one notices the strange syntax or awkward pauses from Bender repeatedly rewinding and fast-forwarding the tape.

* ReferenceOverdosed: The show is full of pop culture references, from various sci-fi stories being influential (r even outright canonical) in the show's lore to the various celebrities that show up as heads in jars.

** The series ends on one, in which Farnsworth says that everything will be restored to just before Farnsworth invented his [[spoiler: 10 seconds time button. Leela and Fry had enjoyed a several decades long honeymoon thanks to Fry freezing time when he broke it. The final lines lampshade the trope.]]

** Also, in the first episode featuring the sewer mutants, the way the characters talk before entering the sewer, it seems that mutants have not yet been confirmed to live down there, and the crew were making a discovery by finding them. It was established in later episodes that they've been a known society for quite some time, and that there have been discriminatory laws set against them by New New York.

** The tasty, highly addictive Popplers are actually [[spoiler: the babies of aliens of Omocron Persei 8.]]

* RidingIntoTheSunset Ending: Except the sun in this case [[spoiler:is a collapsed star]].
* RightOnQueue: Played with with the queue for the Central Bureaucracy, which got longer every time someone had a baby in it and had an old man still waiting in line for his birth certificate.

* OverlyLongScream: Bender is quite fond of these:
-->'''Leela:''' They're [[[ScaryDogmaticAliens the Omicronians]]] back!\\
'''Bender:''' We're Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-- [[[{{Beat}} stops to inhale]]] --oooooooooooooooooooooooooomed!

-->'''Music/{{Beck}}:''' Come on, move it! We have to get to the concert and make the audience wait for it to start.

* SpacePirates: You know, pirates - but ''{{in space}}''!

* SpiritualSuccessor:
** To WesternAnimation/TheJetsons to which it has given a few ShoutOut (namely Amazon Women in the Mood's opening nightclub is done in the same retro-future aesthetic). The Jetsons expressed the 60s view of the future, and projected the nuclear family and "man in the gray flannel suit" into the far future. Futurama on the other hand is a 90s view that is informed by both the utopian views of the future formed early in the 20th century and the more cynical and jaded, dystopian vision of the 70s-90s and early 2000s. Indeed, the line "Here's to another lousy millennium" that originated from ''Futurama'' was a typical expression of 90s disillusionment that the future would be as fun and awesome as everyone expected.
** Likewise it's also one to WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons, even if Groening and Cohen went out of their way to make sure the show isn't "The Simpsons [-[[RecycledINSPACE IN SPACE!]]-]". The Simpsons was largely based on tropes and ideas from the 50s and 60s having a fairly anachronistic portrayal of suburbia and the American nuclear family, based on Groening's youth. ''Futurama'' on the other hand deals with a more grown-up early adult and mid-20s world and deals with office culture, workplace and corporate control, and the changes that technology can bring to society. The tenor of The Simpsons is that it stays essentially the same despite the passing of many real-world decades and updating of cultural references, the tenor of Futurama is that the future is constantly in flux and keeps changing and nothing can be taken for granted.

** The numerous ShoutOut diseases that Zoidberg causes Fry to go through in "The Tip of the Zoidberg." For reference, Fry starts out with "[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpson's]] jaundice", then progresses to ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} syndrome, to [[Series/TheMuppetShow Muppet]] Gangrene, and, finally, an unnamed [[WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs Smurfs]] disease, exhibiting characteristics of the main characters of each respective series.

* SeasonalRot: In-universe - in the episode "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV," Fry comments that ''[[ShowWithinAShow Everybody Loves Hypnotoad]]'' has been going downhill since its third season.

* ScienceFiction: Set in a distant future full of spaceships, alien, robots, mutants and time travel.

* ReferenceOverdosed

* RelationshipUpgrade: In the closing moments of ''Into The Wild Green Yonder'' when Leela officially returns Fry's feelings by kissing him. Appears to stick with the premiere of the new season.

** Lrrr is the ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8, a fact that is reiterated [[{{Catchphrase}} every single time he appears on the show]].

* PlanetOfHats: Virtually a RunningGag -- except for Earth, every planet has one (1) characteristic, as well as being named after it. Farnsworth's "good news, everyone!" CatchPhrase was originally used to refer to the planet he was sending them to next.

** Igner is [[spoiler: the bastard offspring of one of Mom's trysts with Professor Farsnworth.]]

** [[spoiler: Hermes]] is the inspector who originally passed a defective, newly created Bender, sparing him an early termination.
** Lars Fillmore is actually [[spoiler: a time-displaced Fry.]]

* SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids: Bender seems to have much more gadgetry than would be useful or even practical for a robot whose only purpose is to bend girders. It could be justified as he works for Professor Farnsworth, who would be more than likely to experiment on the robot.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The Professor is quite fond of this.

* SweetPollyOliver: Leela as "Lee Lemon" in "War is the H-Word".

* PhysicalHell: Robot hell of course! In [[AcceptableTargets New]] [[{{Joisey}} Jersey]].

* StrongFamilyResemblance: All of Fry's relatives (Professor Fransworth when he was younger, Qbert, Fry's parents, etc.) share his distinctly spiky orange hair.

* StockYuck:Fry buys the last can of anchovies in existence to serve to his friends on a pizza. He enjoys them, but his friends (except Zoidberg) do not (which he puts down to them being an "acquired taste").

* StomachOfHolding: Most of the robots in Futurama have some sort of chest compartment. Bender's is the most blatant, reguarly played to be big enough for any joke, and once, fifteen robot clown midgets.

* StinkyFlower: Zigzagged. Zoidberg meets a flower girl who has no sense of smell, and [[InterspeciesRomance the two fall in love]]. Eventually, Zoidberg uses his surgical expertise to grant her the ability to smell, all while accepting that she will hate him for his tremendously awful odor. To his surprise, she instead hates how the flowers smell and believes he smells just fine.a

'''Fry:''' If you think bad luck can defeat me, than you don't know my name is Phillip J.-- ''(As the rake makes contact with the wire, Fry is electrocuted, and survives, with a trail of smoke billowing off of him)''

* SpaceSailing: The Titanic, now a ''space'' cruise ship.

* SpaceSailing: The Titanic.

* SpaceshipGirl: Parodied in the episode "Love and Rocket", where upgrading the Planet Express ship's computer caused it to become a love-obsessed and unbalanced female voiced by Creator/SigourneyWeaver, no less!. Interestingly, the voice was male by default, until they fiddled with the settings.
* SpaceshipSlingshotStunt: In one of the Futurama comics Leela did this with the Planet Express ship to avoid being late to class, unfortunately destabilizing the star she sling-shot around.

* SpaceSailing: The Titanic