R&R The Futurama Holiday Spectacular

[Magnum]

comes on tonight

[Magnum]

yeah i forgot a poll. fuck you

[HRH Sir Prince Charles]

christmas before thanksgiving

[Jesse Pinkman]

i haven't been watching for a while. i still need to see all of the mutants are revolting, the one about Lrr's midlife crisis or whatever, and the prisoner of benda. comedy central like rarely aires those and i don't believe they are online anywhere. so, i might watch this.

btw isn't this the last episode till sometime in 2011?

[HRH Sir Prince Charles]

I think it's the last till next summer

[Sniper Squirrel]

all right, could've been a lot better

[Jims]

Thought it was okay.

The trilogy format took me by surprise at the end of the first segment, because the thing really did seem like the first act of a typical Futurama episode... Well, until the planet exploded. That kind of tipped me off.

Killer Trees > Robonukah > Kwanzaa Bees

The first segment about the killer Christmas trees had the most interesting premise and really did have the potential to carry a whole Christmas special. When they were walking around the forest, I was really wondering where the story was going to go next, and then boom. It's over. It wouldn't have been so disappointing if the other two segments stacked up as well... But they really didn't.

There's not much to say about the Robonukah segment; it just kinda came and went. I really loved the fake-out wordplay joke about the albino humping worm (didn't think I'd type that sentence today). The conclusion with the crew turning into petroleum was kinda clever too, I suppose. Otherwise, it's your typical Futurama Quest for Quasi-Futuristic MacGuffin fare.

Even though the Kwanzaa segment had the best song of the three, the plot was the biggest mess. It was weird that they hung the plot on the beeswax candles and used that to go back to the space hive. Just an odd choice to make.

[HRH Sir Prince Charles]

I get what they were going for with the environmentalism theme, but overall it hurt the episode by giving the segments very little room to develop organically. There were some quality lines, but for the most part it felt very meh. I did love that Cheney's head is now Vice President... hope that recurs like Agnew did. Not a lot to say really, glad it's non-cannon because they got extremely kill happy. Fry's voice seemed painfully off after months of primarily watching original episodes... took me a while to get used to it initially. I co-sign Jims ranking of the segments

3/5

[Dark Homer]

poll added

it kind of felt like the recent simpsons halloween episodes: devoid of ideas and primarily an excuse to kill a bunch of characters. the "this is a holiday special" wraparounds (?) and songs were really groan-worthy

[DotheBartman]

For better or worse, it's become kind of a standard thing for most of these animated sitcoms to do three-story episodes, despite no one in particular actually requesting them. They tend to come with the inherent problem that it just isn't easy to become invested in a story - even, or perhaps especially, a non-canon, purposely silly one - that only lasts a few minutes away. Given this constraint, for a show to completely overcome it or even just have the episode stand up nicely next to the show's average, the writing better be damn funny. Honestly, for all the times they tried, The Simpsons only ever truly succeeded with the first Treehouse of Horror and the two Mirkin ones that eventually followed it.

On the note of the Mirkin specials, this episode seemed to borrow a few cues from them, establishing a few running themes and ideas that actually carried over from segment to segment (I half-expected Scruffy to die in each unique story). A few jokes didn't work ("nutso good"...ugh), and the first song was pretty hit or miss (the others were better, most notably Robanukah), but all in all this special worked, mixing some nice dark humor with spoofs of Holiday-episode traditions. It wasn't as good as the other X-Mas episodes, though, or for that matter the other Anthology of Interests, and like many of these trilogy-fests, it's fun enough but does beg the question of whether a regular episode in the same slot would likely have been better. I'd say probably so. But, it was still pretty funny, and if nothing else a nice change of pace from all the treacly holiday garbage about to endlessly pollute our televisions for weeks.

[EthanRunt]

Didn't laugh once, stories felt lame, whole idea was awful and the songs? Why?
Just a bad episode, a shame.

[Friz]

It's impossible to find a download of this, so I'm rating this 1/5.

[Paul]

Did the Torrent people forget this aired or something?

[qwerasdf]

That was awful

[Real Melvin]

oh thank god, I thought my tv bootleg finding skills were waning. was it just not advertised and none of the "usual" uploaders expected it? I for one had no clue the Val-U-Pak was set to air last night (or this month even).

the clips on Comedy Central's website look pretty bad, though.

[DotheBartman]

The Val-U-Pak name seems to have been officially changed, so I wouldn't search for it under that title. If that helps any.

Also, for those desperate enough (and in America), it's up on Amazon and probably iTunes by now.

[Paul]

That was just weak. I don't really have much more to say.

[Postmaster]

Yeah that was dull, it felt like a collection of discarded story ideas they couldn't be bothered to develop into proper stories. Usually with these episodes the idea is to do something different that steps outside the normal universe, with Futurama there's less need for that because almost anything could be justified, but these really could have been regular episodes apart from the fact that the crew all die at the end, which isn't really a worthwhile concept to base an episode around.

Not to mention having the entire earth destroyed at the end of the first segment just destroys any tension the other episodes had created. I mean it could have been a good shock ending if it was the third segment and the other two hadn't had the crew being killed then yeah that could have worked well. But if you blow up the earth in the first part, well where do you go from there? Anything else that happens in the episode was just tame by comparison. Of course all that stuff might not really have mattered if it had been especially funny, but it wasn't. Nothing truly dreadful like Susan Boil, but just generally mediocre stuff.

Glad I've still got the Venture Brothers finale to look forward to later.

[hammster]

It was okay, I guess. I don't think I actually laughed out loud though which was kinda disappointing. Each plot was more like a sketch and the songs were just godawful. The worst songs that Futurama have done, no doubt.

Each segment felt unbelievably quick. The first one would have actually made a decent full length (non-canon) episode if they'd done it properly and at full length but whatever. The concept of it was a bit bizarre but that's what Futurama is good at, taking a ridiculous concept and making it almost believable. Alas, they didn't and it suffered from that. It felt stupidly rushed. The pacing was shit and this essentially applys to the whole episode and all the segments. I think that this was the main problem with the whole episode. All the plots felt lame because they weren't given proper time to develop or breath. The way each plot developed was pretty a much a joke in itself and that was really my main gripe. The songs all suffered from the same problems. They were just flat, boring and mediocre. They weren't even lame enough to get a laugh because I love the intentional lameness of songs like the one in Less than Hero. Lazy, mediocre stuff in this episode. I expect better from this show.

Ranking-wise:
1. Killer Trees - Had potential but was wasted in the trilogy format.
2. Kwanza - The plot actually sorta moved properly. Sort of.
3. Robonukah - Nothing horrible about it and it actually had the best joke in the episode (that worm thing) but the plot in this segment had the worst pacing and at times sorta reminded me of Bender's Game in the way it clunked about doing nothing exceptional.

So yeah, nothing intensely disasterous here but nothing particularly fantastic. Entertaining enough but it comes dangerously close to being the worst thing the show has ever done (Bender's Game still beats it out for that honour). I really don't want to be too harsh here but in the context of the show this gets a 1/5. Comparing it to current The Simpsons episodes would earn it atleast a 2 though so my cruelty isn't necessarily as excessive as it may seem.

[Muskrat]

I liked the ongoing theme through the episode (looking for a lost symbol of the holiday, and getting killed as a result) but it definitely could've been better. I still found it funny enough, though of the three Xmas specials this is worst by far. 3/5

[Tomacco]

Like others here, the ending of the first segment caught me totally off-guard. I thought it was the first act of a full episode, and ultimately the first story didn't stand on its own well at all (if you can even call it a story). Robonukkah was the best one, and Kwanzaa was the worst one. Though, honestly, I thought the whole episode was extremely dull and boring. I don't think I laughed once, and I cringed at a couple of the extremely forced jokes ("this is like the Jagermeister air show all over again"... really?). The albino worm joke got a "heh" from me, but that's about it. The songs were really off-putting too (by the third act I was already dreading what I knew would end up being some corny Coolio rap). Did anyone else repeatedly find it hard to even hear the lyrics to these songs? The plotlines were so uninteresting for all three stories too. I don't really care if there was some overarching environmental theme going on about resources depleting in the future, but seeing three stories in a row where the crew sets out to get extinct things (trees/oil/wax) was a drag.

Overall, I think this ranks in the bottom 5 of all-time for me. I'm pretty sure every Simpsons THOH ever made was better than this.

[Tomacco]

For better or worse, it's become kind of a standard thing for most of these animated sitcoms to do three-story episodes, despite no one in particular actually requesting them. They tend to come with the inherent problem that it just isn't easy to become invested in a story - even, or perhaps especially, a non-canon, purposely silly one - that only lasts a few minutes away. Given this constraint, for a show to completely overcome it or even just have the episode stand up nicely next to the show's average, the writing better be damn funny. Honestly, for all the times they tried, The Simpsons only ever truly succeeded with the first Treehouse of Horror and the two Mirkin ones that eventually followed it.

On the note of the Mirkin specials, this episode seemed to borrow a few cues from them, establishing a few running themes and ideas that actually carried over from segment to segment (I half-expected Scruffy to die in each unique story). A few jokes didn't work ("nutso good"...ugh), and the first song was pretty hit or miss (the others were better, most notably Robanukah), but all in all this special worked, mixing some nice dark humor with spoofs of Holiday-episode traditions. It wasn't as good as the other X-Mas episodes, though, or for that matter the other Anthology of Interests, and like many of these trilogy-fests, it's fun enough but does beg the question of whether a regular episode in the same slot would likely have been better. I'd say probably so. But, it was still pretty funny, and if nothing else a nice change of pace from all the treacly holiday garbage about to endlessly pollute our televisions for weeks.

What did you like about this? Which jokes/moments specifically? I'm ready to have an old-school 2003-style debate about this episode with you!

[DotheBartman]

Well, I pretty much just woke up and have only viewed the episode once, but just some off the top of my head.

-Al Gore's bit at the end (actually, Al Gore in general)
-Dick Cheney
-The Albino worm
-The Robanukah song
-For that matter, the payoff to that segment
-"Setting the bachman-turners to overdrive!" (I hope I'm not butchering that quote)
-"Hey Boondocks, put down that comic"
-The barking snakes, weird as they were
-The Gunderson's nuts wraparounds

I didn't absolutely love it, mind. And again I'd probably have preferred a normal episode, which is my reaction about 90 percent of the time to these things. (I might also add that, as a general rule, I don't think any show should have more than one or two holiday episodes ever, but this is a rule television producers seem incapable of following.) But I was entertained enough by it and it's probably the only holiday special I'll bother to watch this year. It delivered about what I expected from it.

[Comicshow MolemanBob]

The Futurama Holiday Spectacular: 6.5

Opening/Closing: 6.5

Xmas: 6.5

Robanukah: 6.0

Kwanzaa: 7.0

[Muskrat]

I'm pretty sure every Simpsons THOH ever made was better than this.

Um..........let's not go that far...

[DotheBartman]

Yeah, by sheer virtue of this having any laughs at all, it's automatically better than a good number of the Simpsons THOHs. They don't set a very high bar.

[hammster]

Did anyone notice that: 'In the shot where pine trees are springing all around Earth, we can see our planet is turning in the wrong direction, acknowledging the events of "That Darn Katz!".'? (taken from the infosphere)

[Tomacco]

Yeah, by sheer virtue of this having any laughs at all, it's automatically better than a good number of the Simpsons THOHs. They don't set a very high bar.

Heh, see, that's the thing though. I didn't think this Futurama had any laughs at all, and the stories were all weak. Every THOH has at least one story segment with a decent concept/story, and at least one laugh to be had. So, I actually do think every single THOH is better.

[DotheBartman]

I saw part of the THOH from last year and wanted to kill myself. But, to each his own.

[Tomacco]

I saw part of the THOH from last year and wanted to kill myself. But, to each his own.

lol. It wasn't great last year, I won't defend it as a good episode either. But one of the stories was still better than any of these three Futurama ones, so...