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Bender's Game available for preorder!
Posted on August 20, 2008 by Leandro Tim just sent me a message from the land that internet forgot to tell me that Enhas sent him a message to the land that internet forgot. And what were the contents of that message? Well, that Futurama: Bender's Game is now available for preorder at Amazon, that's what! There's also a Blu-Ray version out there too, which you can find at this link . But if you don't give a darn about Blu-Ray anyway, feel free to clicky that first link and get one of them good ol' fashioned deeveedees!
In other news, Sofia (also known as Yume93 if you're playing the match-the-userIDs game) sent the first five pages of her new Fan Comic, Something Sweet. Leela and Bender break Fry's favourite toy, and now Leela wants to do something to make it up to him. What will she do? (I can think of several ideas, but this is a kids' friendly site...)
In other completely unrelated news, if you want to do me a favor, head to this page and vote for the "Donuts" video. It's my entry for a machinima contest and I'm one of the five finalists, so go ahead and make me win! |
We're still alive, really!
Posted on August 19, 2008 by TimWoo Hoo! I finally found a high-speed connection!  Thanks a bazillion to Gail at the CCCOA for letting me tap into her DSL connection for a couple of hours.  So - real fast since I'm imposing on an acquaintence's hospitality and also balanced precariously on the edge of a desk and sitting in a really uncomfortable chair  - three fan fics:
First a couple of first time contributors: A big FM//TLZ welcome to Singer1108 with her dedbut fic The Poem in which Fry racks his brain to compose a poem for Leela for Valentines Day. Little does Fry know that Leela has a suprise of her own. This is only part 1, so there'll be more to come. 
And say hello also to Rush. Hello, Rrush.  Oh, and yeah, hiss fic - it's called The Devil's Microphone is an Idol Comedy Thing (can't imagine how he caame up with that title  ) and Bender helps Zoidberg in his lifelong dream to be an comedian and other random stuff. 
And lastly there's Part 2 of Hammer87's Futurama/M*A*S*H Crossover.
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The low bandwidth update
Posted on August 15, 2008 by TimGreetings from the land the internet forgot, coming to you over dial up at a blinding 19,000 bits per second. I'm pretty sure those old teletypes you used to see in the newsrooms in old movies were faster than this.  So anyway, everyone who's sent me fics, fan art, and anything else large, it's probably gonna be the end of next week before I start getting it put up unless I get lucky and score a high speed wired connection somewhere. And I need wired 'cause I need a unix environment to do some of this, and while I have been able to get my laptop to dual boot windoze and unix, I haven't yet figured out how to get FreeBSD to talk wireless.  So no pictures today, but some stuff that's on other websites. Hopefully it all works 'cause there ain't no way I can completely verify it with this connection.
First up, La Belle Leela says "I finally figured out how to use Windows Movie Maker, so I used my new found skills to put a little Leela tribute clipshow together". Once I get a decent network connection, I'll get it put up in Madhouse's Fan Videos section, but meanwhile, you can watch it on YouTube.
Ah, here's just the thing to sooth the pain from this internet connection, some nice refreshing crack. Except this vending machine is made of paper. I'd do a picture of it, but that would take another hour.  Kudos to KillaBob for finding this one. 
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A whole bunch of random stuff
Posted on August 11, 2008 by Tim So there's this Olympic thing going on over in China and to celebrate Smarty drew this Fan Art promoting the 3008 Olympic games. Leela as a wrestler, that's ok, but Bender as a blernsball ref?  Ohhh, there's going to be some issues there I can tell already.  And Fry, can't you just hear him: "Wow, there's a million aliens! I've never seen something so mind-blowing! Ooh, a reception table with muffins!"
 And now a twofer. Fans of the TV series M*A*S*H might recognize this pic by CosmicF. He drew it as a promo pic for Hammer87's latest time travel Fan Fiction, a Futurama/M*A*S*H Crossover. I'm guessing that I don't have to go into much explanation as to what it's about. 
 And at long last three new bits o' Fan Art from Reba 1X. The title of this one is "Ignar with a blue dress on", which, while obvious on the surface, is, I'm pretty sure, a parody of a song.
I haven't had the opportunity to rant about BWABB lately, that is until a couple of days ago when I discovered that over on CGEF there's a report by a Jon Hughes on the Futurama panel that was run by Matt Groening & David X. Cohen (among others) at last month's ComicCon. It's interesting reading, and some potential good news for the future of Futurama, but two lines that struck me the most were: the panel spoke of how fans were upset by Fry's new love interest in "The Beast with a Billion Backs." (they got that one right) and this was needed to keep things fresh. I'll avoid editorializing here, mostly because I can't use the words I'd really like to use.  If you really want to know, you can read my rant on our Message Board and tell us what you think about it.
Last thing tonight, updates here on the Madhouse are going to be a little hit or miss for the next couple of weeks 'cause I'm going on vacation to the land the internet forgot (or "up north" as we know it in these parts). Yes, the tropical paradise I'll be at has a telephone system that is barely out of the hand crank stage. DSL is unknown, a 19k dial up connection is considered "high speed", and wireless is what the old geezer with all the antennas around his house tinkers with. Maybe the other webmasters will put in an appearance and help out but I haven't seen (figuratively speaking of course, since they're all on different continents than I am) hide nor hair of them recently. Anyway, I still have lots of stuff in my queue and I'll be working on getting it all up as best I can. But don't let that stop you from sending more in. A few days after I get back is a "special day" so maybe we'll have the biggest update ever update, or something. |
I'm your bitch, yo!
Posted on August 8, 2008 by Tim I promised a certain person who shall remain nameless that they would see that headline on the Madhouse soon. You see, the conversation (via IM from another continent - I want to be clear on that) started with said person asking "Do you know trigonometry?" and ended with said person saying the above.  I won't bore you with the details of what went on in between save to say that I was once again reminded of a poster a former boss of mine had hanging next to his desk - the caption read "There was a hell of a lot of things they didn't tell me when I signed on with this outfit". And you thought being a webmaster was all fun and games and power and glory. 
 Well, ok, it is a lot of fun most of the time, and the power - well - I'll just say "Bwahahahahahaha" and leave it go at that. One of the times that I have especially come to enjoy is when Erik Heltner pops in with another Fan Comic. Now by "enjoy" I mean that I hoist up the draw bridge, quit feeding the alligators in the moat, and revert to dial-up for the next couple of weeks. So that being done, here is Erik's latest, Housewife At Play 2, the second in his Housewife At Play series (and yes, Erik has promised a third installment ). Reminds me of a song: Come on baby let the good times roll. Come on baby let me thrill your soul. ... |
Bender's Game plot revealed: Nibbler has constipation
Posted on August 7, 2008 by Tim Our high friends in low places turned us on to this Bender's Game Press Release. It says "With fuel prices skyrocketing, the Planet Express crew sets off on a dangerous mission to infiltrate the world's only dark-matter mine, source of all spaceship fuel. But deep beneath the surface, they discover a far stranger place...a medieval land of dragons and sorcery and intoxicated knights who look suspiciously like Bender."
Some extras on the DVD include a Futurama Genetics Lab (Cross-breed Your Favorite Characters - that ought to finally settle the age old debate about what the kids of Amy and Zoidberg would look like), a Dungeons & Dragons & Futurama feaurette,  How To Draw "Futurama" In 83 Easy Steps Featurette and A Sneak Peek at the Next "Futurama" Epic, Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder  and lots more. Thanks to Fry530 for the frame grab.
 Variety Magazine is reporting that Hallmark has struck a deal with Fox to use certain of their intellectual properties, including Futurama, in greetings cards. And this includes sound clips. Thanks to Whatever James for the tip, who says "I know this means quotes from Bender, Fry, and Leela, but personally I am hoping for a replica of Comrade Greeting Card!!!". "Comrades, throw off the chains of human oppression.". Of course, let's not forget that this isn't all that big of a deal 'cause you've been able to send a Futurama card here at the Madhouse for a long time, courtesy of our E-cards section.
 And lookie what you missed at ComicCon a couple of weeks ago: the opportunity to shell out fifty bucks for this special, limited to only 2000 sets, only available at ComicCon Robot Santa and Santa Bender set. SethSDB says "they're going for around $80-100 bucks on eBay right now". |
A Futurama Wedding
Posted on August 6, 2008 by Tim OK, first, I'd like everyone to go over to TSFFC and read this article. I'll wait.      Oh, you're back already? Cool. So, just to show that the Futurama fans are just as dedicated as Simpsons fans, we have A Futurama Wedding (cake). Back in January, Stephanie Frye (no relation to Philip that we know of) sent me a note asking if I knew what episode had a birthday cake in it and if we had any pictures of it. "Piece of cake" I replied and pointed her to the Framegrabs for I Second That Emotion.
 Well, on July 19th 2008, two Futurama fans got hitched  and, well, I'll let Stephanie tell it from here: "This was the first wedding cake I had ever attempted to make. Anna (the Bride) is my best friend and Dennis (the Groom) is my husband Cory's best friend. As a tribute to them - we wanted to do something special for their wedding. Futurama is their favorite TV show and we thought it was only appropriate to take the cake to the next level and make it to replicate the Futurama cake that Bender made... of course we added a few "extra touches" with the binary! The day was HOT - 90+ degrees... so the cake started to lean... even though it wasn't perfect it tasted great and surprised and pleased the bride and groom beyond what they had ever imagined having for a wedding cake!". Oh, and the binary around the cake - it says "Bite my shiny metal ass" There's a whole bunch of photos of it in the Fan Photos section. So, Anna and Dennis, congratulations from us here at Futurama Madhouse, and welcome to the world of tomorrow.
 Over in Fan Art land we have this kick ass picture of Leela kicking ass ... well ... face actually, but the face of an ass, so it counts. The pic is by El-Man. He got the itch to do a good action shot/kung-fu pose for Leela and I'd say he succeeded. And it is especially significant because it happens to be the 500th fan submission that I've handled as webmaster.  Wow, 500. That's a lot.
And speaking of hundreds of fan submissions, I was gone for a few days last week and so I've got a bit of an accumulation backlogged. So if you haven't heard from me not to worry, I'm working my way through it. |
Real World Futurama!
Posted on August 5, 2008 by TimOK, for the last month now, Futurama fans around the world have been keeping their cameras handy looking for stuff with Futurama names on it. Let's see what they found!
 Dingsda
Fry: Fry's Electronics store in Seattle, Washington (just off exit 5 on I-405). This is the picture that helped start this whole thing, along with ...
 Flounder
Bender: Flounder describes it thusly: An electrical ground detection device located inside one of my ship's main switchboards. The picture of our favorite booze-soaked bending robot was added by yours truly. No, the device was not made in America's heartland - Mexico, but rather in "Nazi-Planet-Episode-Land." These two photos arrived on the same day literally within a couple of hours of each other and I went "Ah Ha!"
 Flounder
Lars: Another shipboard device, this is a supply circuit breaker for a "remotely operated vehicle" (submersible unmanned survey craft) and the ROV's "launch and recovery system" (hence LARS). And some say Lars was just a load. Extra credit if you can calculate how much power that thing uses (hint: assume a power factor of 0.8 lagging).
 Derek Bayne
Bender: Law student Derek Bayne took a break from studying late one night to catch up on his favorite web site. He saw the announcement of this contest and realized that he had an entry right there in front of him so he snapped a pic with his cell phone.
 Ford Mustang
Farnsworth: Freeway exits for Farnsworth Avenue somewhere in the Eastern US.
 Ford Mustang
Wernstrom: A Swedish history book by an author named Wernstrom. FM says "It looks like a really happy book". She also says her brother went to school with a Philip J. Fry, but she didn't have a picture. 
 H.G. Heather
Bender: Before there was DeathBall there was BenderBall, which looks like some kind of cheesy exercise thing that only reduces the weight of your wallet.
 Ford Mustang
Elzar: Not only was there really someone named Elzar, but they (and I am not going to make any assumptions about gender here) died the same year as Futurama did. No word on if they've been resurrected though, although I'm pretty sure it would have made the news.
 El-Man
Leela: A road sign near Auckland, New Zealand. There are actually four roads in the region with that name, but it's not because there are lots of Futuram fans on the local road commission, no, it's because 'turanga' is actually a noun in the Maori language, meaning "stand, position, situation, site, or foundation".
 Spunk
Futurama: A door somewhere, no idea where other then the street address is 1513. This one was stretching the charter a little bit because Spunk found it on the web and didn't see it herself but it was cool enough I said what the heck. Spunk also had a teacher who's last name was Farnsworth and who claims to be the granddaughter of Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of electronic television and namesake of Professor Hubert Farnsworth. But unfortunately teachers are hard to find in the summer in these parts and she couldn't get permission to submit a photo.
 Whatever James
Mom: I'll let him tell it: "So I just welcomed a new daughter into the Universe on 5/31/08! Yay for babies, Boo for no Futurama-related names Anyway there is a product we are using for upset tummy called Baby's Bliss. I wasn't sure if the box was for real but if you go to the website: http://www.babysbliss.com/Default.aspx then scroll to the bottom you will see that everything is copyrighted to MOM Enterprises!!!!". Congratulations to Baby Whatever, start showing her Futurama DVDs right away.
 Smarty
Fry: Another Fry's store, this one sells Pianos and Organs. Not sure if it's related to the other Fry's store or not. This one is in the eastern US in the state of Connecticut.
 Flounder
Futurama: Another stretch but why not. They must have let Flounder off his ship 'cause he found this laundromat in Eugene, Oregon, USA.
 Red_Line
Futurama: So I was sitting on the throne the other day and there laying in the trash can was the August 1, 2008 issue of Entertainment Weekly and on page 14 was an article about some TV show called "Mad Men" set in 1960's New York. And down in the lower left hand corner was a bit about a company in LA called Futurama Vintage Furniture. They are apparently NOT the ones with Spunk's door.
So there we have it. An excellent collection with some surprising results. They're all collected together in the Fan Photos section under the heading Real World Futurama. A giant heap of official Futurama Madhouse kudos to everyone who sent pictures in! If I missed anyone, please e-mail right away and I'll dig out your pic and get it put up too. And of course, if you spot more, send it in. We can always add to it.
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Where is everybody?
Posted on August 3, 2008 by TimGuess I'm gonna have to try some different bait in the owl traps, 'cause I didn't snare any webmasters with the stuff I left in them this time. Must be they're wising up. No, really I think it's cause it's the dead of winter in the southern hemisphere and one of 'em is hibernating and it's the dead of summer here in the northern hemisphere and the rest of them are all on holiday.
 Whatever the reason, the fans aren't blowing it off, so we've got lots of stuff to show so first up is this Star Wars parody by Smarty of Fry and Leela as Fry Solo and Princess Leela. Good choice of roles Fry, at least in this one we know guy gets girl, of course, they have to deal with some serious crap in the process.
And as usual we've got a couple of new Fan Fictions. The first one is a follow on to Frosty's The Reunion called My Ex and an Engagement Ring wherein the newly reunited F & L go on a Xmas holiday, but running into Leela's ex and Fry's symptoms may put a damper on their celebrations.
And in this corner is part IV of xkathyx07x's fic The Fry Family.
 And lastly but by no means leastly (unless you're counting it's effect on our bandwidth ), BackToTheFuturama is back with another futurized movie trailer. This latest one is the I Am Legend trailer set to 'rama video clips. You can watch it in real time on YouTube or download it for your very own from the Video Clips section. We've also got his Gerorge Carlin tribute that we showcased a few days ago up there too.
Tommorrow - the results of The Great Real World Futurama photo contest! |
Man that's a lot of pink
Posted on July 30, 2008 by Tim Good News Everyone! !iMmOrTaL! rubbed a little miracle cream where the sun don't shine and cranked out another 13 pages (he says 12, but while I can't draw worth a hoot I can count ) of his comic The Wong Side Of The Law. There's a couple of cameo appearances in this one which he says will be explained near the end of the comic. I'm thinking that one of them will turn out to be !iMmOrTaL! but that's just my guess. Which begs the question, why is it that a self-insert is so awful in fan fiction and so cool in a comic? Anyway, while you're pondering that imponderable, check out the new stuff which starts on page 80.
Tell us what you think of The Wong Side Of The Law on our forum. Or you can always just click the artists' name and send them a note too - that's always a nice thing to do if you like someone's work - send them a note and say so. Artists and authors like that.
Ok, I'm going to take off again for a few days. I do that about every three weeks in the summer, and no, before anyone wonders, it's not to go get chemo treatments. When I get back, it'll be time to open the parabox and check out the submissions for The Great Real World Futurama Photo Contest. That means it's last call - you've got a few more days to get those photos in so keep some free space on your memory card and your eyes open for real world stuff with Futurama names on it. |
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