Tag: Matt Groening

“Sure, blame the wizards!”

From: Futurama

Genre: Cartoons, Television

Who said it?: A dark wizard

The story behind the quote: This quote comes from the sci-fi comedy, Futurama. The show was created by the same mind behind The Simpsons, Matt Groening. While not as popular as his other show featuring yellow skinned people, Futurama is still a good and vastly underappreciated show.

This week’s quote comes from the episode, Crimes of the Hot. With global warming running rampant and the Earth usual solution (dropping a large ice cube in the ocean) not working, the head of Al Gore delivers a speech stating, in order to stop this global disaster, the world has to stop pollution… and dark wizards. This is when the sole dark wizard in the audience delivers the quote.

Geek wisdom: Rather than trying to solve a problem, some people will be willing to find a scapegoat instead. However, this does not resolve the issue because assigning blame doesn’t fix anything. We do have to put in the work in order to solve them. It can be difficult but definitely more productive in the long run.

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“Shut up and take my money!”

From: Futurama

Genre: Cartoons, Television

Who said it?: Fry

The story behind the quote: This is another quote from Futurama, which is odd, since I’m a bigger fan of Matt Groening’s other show, The Simpsons. Anyway, the quote comes from the episode, entitled “Attack of the Killer App” from Season 6.

A new device called the eyePhone (obviously a joke on Apple’s iPhone devices) is being released and Fry is eager to get one. The retail sales clerk begins to warn Fry that the device is very expensive, he has no choice of what phone company to use and the battery life is poor. However, Fry angrily interrupts the person and shoves a lot of money into his face, exclaiming that he should just keep quiet since he’s going to buy the eyePhone.

The quote became somewhat of a meme because of the utter ridiculousness of Fry’s anger regarding the situation and him totally ignoring what the clerk was telling him.

Geek wisdom: We can be like Fry a lot of times, ignoring practicality to just get the next “big” and “cool” thing. We basically just want to be part of the “in” crowd and that’s normal. However, by doing this, we may experience remorse for purchasing an expensive item that really doesn’t meet our needs.

The first iPhone suffered from the exact same problems the fictional eyePhone had, yet a lot of people bought it. What happened afterwards? A lot of people complained that it was too expensive, you couldn’t choose what phone company you wanted and it had poor battery life.

Sometimes, it’s better to wait for improvements and be patient because good things come to those who wait.