Anthology of Interest I

The first anthology of interest follows the plot structure of telling 3 stories in 20 minutes using a What-If scenario. This is basically the equivalant of the Treehouse of Horror episodes from the Simpsons, but in Futurama style basically.

The story opens with Farnsworth using his new invention called The Finglonger which is used to operate the What-If machine. Bender asks what it would be like if he was 500ft tall, and he befriends Fry, but gets into a war with Earth and ends up losing, claiming his dream to be to kill all Humans, ending with Fry saying "Good Night, Sweet Prince" The 2nd story focuses on Leela asking what it would be like if she was more impulsive. In A "Dial M for Murder" Futurama parody, Leela ends up killing everyone in impulse, but at the end, when Fry finds out it was her who committed all the murders, she sleeps with him to keep his mouth shut. The final story focuses on Fry and asks a question about what if he never fell into the Cryogenics tube and landed into the future. He ends up causing a time hole in which all of his future friends show up, and Stephen Hawking and Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons, end up trying to kill Fry to fix the hole, but in the end, Fry messes it up by damaging the tube he was supposed to fall in, sucking him and the others into a void with nothing in it, and Gygax suggests playing Dungeons and Dragons for the next quadrillion years. The end of the story shows Professor Farnsworth asking what it would have been like if he had invented the Finglonger, and it turns out everything happened in that What-If question.

Overall, the first AOE is very funny and the structure works very well. Not much more to say about this, but its on par with the 2nd one. The best story on this one is the Leela one by far, and the weakest is Fry's (his one in my opinion doesn't have as many gags as the other two), but they're all still really good, and its decent enough to round the score up to a 10/10.

By far the funniest episode of Futurama up until this point in the show's run and my favourite up until this point too.

This borrows the basic format of The Simpsons 'Treehouse of Horror' episodes (three non-canon segments) and it works much better than you'd expect.

The first segment sees what would happen if Bender was gigantic. It's a never-boring plotline and absolutely hilarious with a brilliant fight-sequence inspired by old Godzilla movies.

The second sees what would happen if Leela were more impulsive. This episode's plot is less interesting (but only slightly), but it's just as funny -the final joke in particular is amazing.

The final segment is by far the weak link in the episode. It sees what would happen if Fry never came to the future and even though it has some brilliant jokes (mostly involving Stephen Hawking), it also has some fairly unnecessary celebrity appearances -Hawking is the only really justified one. The plot also just sort of ends without much of a conclusion. It's not too much of a problem given that this is a small non-canon storyline, but still. Finally, there are some problems with the logic of it all. If Fry never went to the future, how would Fry, Bender and the Professor have met (they appear together in a rip in time).

Overall, it's a great episode and even the wrap-arounds are amusing. The final part especially. If you just want to laugh, this is the episode for you.