Essential Episodes of ‘Futurama’ to Catch Up on Before the New Season

Not many adult cartoons have had as rocky a road to success as “Futurama.” Despite garnering critical acclaim and spawning a fervent fanbase, the show struggled to find its niche with FOX, leading its writers to pen multiple potential finale episodes before its original cancellation after its fourth season. Once it departed from FOX, “Futurama” found a new home with Comedy Central, which aired the series until its second cancellation after the seventh season.

Since its second cancellation, fans have devoured every scrap of “Futurama” content they could get their hands on, including an audio-only episode released as an installment of “The Nerdist Podcast” in 2017. The series found a streaming home first on Netflix, then on Hulu, the latter of which has revived the series for a third time. A new season of “Futurama” premieres on Hulu on July 24.

There’s a lot crammed into the existing seasons: episodes that make you cry, think, and laugh so hard you get Poppler crumbs all over the remote for your favorite streaming device. Whether you’re a longtime “Futurama” fan looking for a stroll down memory lane (or to argue with strangers on the internet about what the best episode of “Futurama” is) or a newcomer who has casually watched a couple of episodes and is wondering what all the fuss is about, take a look at some essential viewing in preparation for the next season.

*Author’s note: All episode numbers are as they appear on Hulu.* 

As cliche as it seems to put the first episode on this list, it’s important to remember these characters’ humble beginnings. As the series progresses, it’s fun to look back at Fry’s (Billy West) fateful cryogenic trip to the future. Keep an eye out for the shadow on the wall behind Fry when he falls into the cryogenic chamber and the ship that destroys the city while Fry is frozen — you’ll enjoy the “a-ha!’ moments.

Slurm, the popular soft drink in the “Futurama” universe, has a gross point of origin, but that isn’t where this episode shines. Slurms McKenzie (David Herman), the marketing mascot for Slurm, steals the show (and adds a fun Bud Light marketing homage) in this “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” spoof.

While we’re talking about food and drink of dubious origin, we’d be remiss in ignoring Popplers. Discovering the true nature of this highly addictive snack food leads Leela (Katey Sagal) to activism against eating Popplers, but nobody listens until the Omicronians show up.

We get a lot of “Futurama” side-character staples in this episode, where Fry and Bender (John DiMaggio) enlist in the Earth Army for a 5 percent discount on chewing gum: Zapp Brannigan (Billy West), Kif (Maurice LaMarche), and both Richard Nixon’s (Billy West) and Henry Kissinger’s heads. Throughout the episode, Bender is promoted to an officer for nefarious purposes (and we find out his least-used word is “antiquing”), Fry and Leela kick Zapp Brannigan’s ass, and the Brain Balls surrender.

This Emmy-nominated episode is a cautionary tale about what could happen when you use one of Zapp Brannigan’s pick-up lines. After crash-landing on the planet Amazonia, Fry, Bender, and Zapp make a handful of derisive comments that lead to their being sentenced to “death by snu-snu,” meeting a supercomputer voiced by Bea Arthur, and a “Wizard of Oz” moment that lets Bender save the day in the most Bender way possible.

This is one of those “Futurama” episodes that flips a lot on its head. We find out that Nibbler (Frank Welker) is much more than meets the eye, just like Fry’s stupidity. We won’t find out the source of Fry’s missing Delta brainwave, which renders him immune to the Brainspawn attack, until later in the third season, but ultimately Fry saves the day by trapping his adversary in a crummy world of plot holes and spelling errors and causing the giant brain to leave Earth “for no raisin,” as it states.

This is also the first episode where we see Hypnotoad. All glory to the Hypnotoad.

In this episode, we find out the source of Fry’s missing Delta brainwave and that Bender shares an alarming structural similarity to a traditional flying saucer, among other, more “Back to the Future”–style happenings relating to Fry’s ancestry. “Roswell That Ends Well” was the first “Futurama” episode to win an Emmy: It won in the Outstanding Animated Program category in 2002.

“Godfellas” is another in a long line of award-winning “Futurama” episodes. This one won the Writer’s Guild of America Award for animation in 2003. Using Bender as an avenue to ask questions about the greater nature of spirituality, divinity, and God serves up some hilarious moments, which mainly serve as a reminder that you’re watching a cartoon and not meditating on the greater intricacies of questions involving the divine and the universe. Or are you…?

Remember when I told you to pay attention to the shadow behind Fry in “Space Pilot 3000?” In this episode, you find out why, as well as how so many seemingly innocuous moments have been tied together the entire time. This is one of those episodes that makes you applaud the ambition of the team behind the show, wrapped up in lines like “So I really am important? How I feel when I’m drunk is correct?”

“Bender’s Big Score” was originally released as a straight-to-DVD feature-length film after “Futurama” was canceled the first time, and it would later air on Comedy Central as part of the show’s sixth season. We find out the hilarious details revolving around the destruction of New York we see while Fry is frozen in “Space Pilot 3000,” and we’re introduced to Torgo’s Executive Powder, which is made up of television network executives and serves as a thinly veiled middle-finger to FOX for canceling the show.

Many fans decry the later seasons as lacking in quality compared to the first four, but there are still great episodes to be found in the Comedy Central originals. In “Lethal Inspection,” Hermes’ bureaucratic obsessions are finally made personable, and we get to see Bender as a baby.

We can’t have a list of essential episodes and ignore the finale, especially not one as heartfelt as “Meanwhile.” This episode is centered around Fry and Leela’s love story like many of the more sentimental episodes, and watching the pair grow old together only to decide to do it all over again makes me feel like someone was trying to make a statement about reruns. Still, I’m not sure what it was because I got lost in the love story. Call me a sap.