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Futurama: Bender’s Big Score

It’s back baby! And its about freaking time.

But first, a bit of history. Ever since Fox first put Futurama on the air, I always had the feeling that the Brainless Corporate Retards™ running the network not only had no idea what they had, but no idea what the hell to do with it. Ultimately I would once again be proved right!

Futurama’s original time slot, sandwiched between ratings monsters, The Simpsons, and The X-Files was the best place for it. It was getting great ratings, good buzz, and Emmy nominations to boot. All signs pointed to a long, successful run, one day even taking over the coveted Simpsons time-slot one day.

So the genius at Fox Corporate decided to move it. Two or three times, never letting the viewing public know when or where the show might turn up next, until they eventually sticking the show with the murderous Sunday at seven time-slot head to head against 60minutes. That is if it wasn’t pre-empted randomly by football, or baseball, or whatever crappy Fox Sunday Movie they decided to cram onto the slot. Then they wondered why Futurama wasn’t getting the ratings they wanted it to.

I can see why these Fox execs make the kind of money they do, what with their fingers being so far from the pulse of what is hip, edgy, witty, and cool. So far from the pulse of pop culture, one might think their fingers were mostly shoved up their collective asses!

This all changed one day when the single brain-celled collective known as Fox Corporate noticed that Futurama, a show they despised, kicked in the nuts, then unceremoniously cancelled, was getting HUGE ratings in syndication on the Cartoon Network in the USA and Teletoon in Canada, oh and it was also making them HUGE BANK in DVD sales worldwide. So, with caps in hand they crawled back to Matt Groening and David X. Cohen and begged them to make a deal.

The result is a four DVD deal, the first of which is Bender’s Big Score. Oh man, what can I say about this apart from YES!!!! This is what Futuramafan™ has been waiting for since those idiots cancelled the show.

The whole cast returns for this feature length film that finds the earth conquered by a group of naked alien identity thieves. Without giving too much away, the Planet Express™ crew get naked, the secret of time travel is revealed (on Fry’s ass), and Leela meets the only man she will ever love.

The DVD includes an awesome commentary featuring Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West, and many others. The picture has a sharp 16x9 enhanced transfer, and a decent Dolby 5.1 surround mix. Disc One extras include a live comic book reading by the cast, a full-length episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, deleted storyboard scenes, 3-D turnaround models, and a heap of other things. Disc Two extras include storyboard animatics, layout animatics, and a preview of volume 2: “The Beast With A Billion Backs.”

For being everything I want it to be and more, Futurama: Bender’s Big Score gets a Five out of Five. Disc extras also get a Five out of Five, which makes this a definite BUY!

Go get it. NOW!!!