A gleaming spaceship rockets through the heavens, weaving between planets and pulsars until at last unerringly reaching a giant ringed planet. Then, an ape in overalls pops out and starts throwing barrels.

It was actually an Atari-like video game being played by a meek delivery boy, but I wouldn't have been surprised if something like that actually had happened in Futurama, the latest animated brain child from Matt Groening.

In the span of half an hour, we watched as hapless hero Fry was cryogenically frozen and preserved until New Year's Eve 2999. In that time, humanity survived two attacks by alien forces and rebuilt itself into a glittering metropolis. Fry recovers only to quickly find himself branded a delivery boy, forever, courtesy of a Probe-u-lator. In his efforts to evade sexy one-eyed alien Leela, who suffers from poor depth perception, Fry encounters hard-drinking, chronically depressed robot Bender, who invites him to bite his shiny metal ass.

Their quest across New York takes them to many locales, the best of which was the museum filled with disembodied heads of famous people, including Leonard Nimoy, who tells Fry that their purpose in life is to share their knowledge with those who would seek it.

"It's a life of quite dignity", Nimoy explains. Then, a museum employee enters with a loud "Feeding time!" and proceeds to feed Nimoy like a fish.

Leela chases Fry and Bender into the decaying ruins of old New York, where she finally realizes the value of thinking for yourself rather then obeying palm-implanted "career chips" that determine your eternal occupation.

Being job deserters, however, makes the trio fugitives, pursued by Richard Nixon's head and an army of peace officers. Fleeing to the lab of Fry's last living descendant, a decrepit nephew fascinated with different lengths of wire, they escape in an intergalactic spaceship, where said nephew offers the three heroes new jobs as planetary couriers.

If you reread the last couple paragraphs, you might notice the same thing I did about Futurama: the action. This single premiere episode had more action in it than any Simpsons episode I've even seen. And it was actual fun, exciting action, not just lame running scenes where the background repeats itself every few feet.

On top of that, it was damn funny. Granted, it was not as uproariously, laugh-out-loud funny as the average Simpsons episode, but it will be, in time.

As with the Simpsons, Futurama will need tie to truly evolve into a mature state when it can regularly turn out the kind of gut busting humor the Simpsons distinguishes itself on.

Still, the police batons that both sound and look like lightsabres and the baritone robot officer that suggests "giving them an ass full of laser" got me laughing. The best line of the show, however, came after Fry learned of his exciting new profession.

"This is awesome!" Fry exclaims. "Are we gonna fly through space, fighting monsters and teaching alien women how to love?"

It's an obvious question and a terrific promise for the future of this show.

Futurama's unique blend of humor and action, always something that I look for and always something that is done horribly wrong, is great. Groening's demented designs are apparent everywhere in this vast future environment, which, for dedicated fans like us, is the greatest treat possible. Even the opening theme song is a catchy percussion number with as much appeal as the Simpsons theme. Plus, this series utilizes computers to enhance the animation, allowing huge, detailed environments to be inserted in the picture that drawing alone couldn't create. Thanks to this, Groening's NYC of the future is filled with thousands of separate elements to gaze at.

Undoubtedly, Futurama has a lot to live up to, after all, and Groening must follow his own first act with an equally promising second. But, I can confidently say that I trust in Groening and his work, and I thoroughly enjoyed Futurama's premiere episode.

With this well of humor not yet tapped and several major characters not yet introduced, Futurama will be churning out a quality half hour a long time to come, and, dare I suggest it, may even surpass the Simpons, given time and attention. It's been many, many long months of anticipation for this show, and it's been well worth the wait.

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John Paige
3.31.1999