Jurassic Bark - Right To The Heart

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Stuffurama
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Jurassic Bark - Right To The Heart

Post by Stuffurama » Wed Mar 20, 2013 8:16 pm

Hey Guys,

Jurassic Bark is one of my favorite / least favorite episodes, it really pushes the boundaries of what a cartoon can be. I also often vote for "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" as one of the best / saddest Futurama episodes...

Are there any other you guys feel fit in the same vein?

Side Note, I just wrote a blog post on this on my blog stuffurama.com if you guys would check it out and maybe leave a comment it would be much appreciated, maybe like the facebook page as well :)

Here is a direct link to the post Right to the Heart
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Re: Jurassic Bark - Right To The Heart

Post by missy_misery » Sun Mar 24, 2013 6:08 am

Hmm- Luck of the Fryish, Leela's Homeworld, Bots and the Bees, Fun on the Bun and The Sting - but I cry happy tears during those.
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Re: Jurassic Bark - Right To The Heart

Post by SirMustapha » Mon Mar 25, 2013 4:49 pm

It took me a long while to finally gather the decency and watch Futurama more frequently, so I had heard all of the hype before getting to see the real thing. And I have to say, Jurassic Bark has been the single most frustrating experience in the whole canon. I always heard of it has being "sad", "depressing" and all of that, but all I saw was a pretty weak and gratuitous attempt at black humour. That "depressing" ending? It's played out as a joke. It's sarcastic from beginning to end. Some other episodes have given me this recurring feeling that the writers and directors are afraid of letting real emotions flow out of the episodes, and cover them up with post-modernist irony and sarcasm -- just to make the clear to us, viewers, that "we are real men and we have balls, and we don't care about those sissy emotions". But Jurassic Bark went way beyond that: I had the clear feeling that the writers were peering from behind my TV, waiting for me to cry, so they could laugh their asses off at me. I had the very, very clear impression that the episode was a joke on the viewers -- and a very cheap, gratuitous one.
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Re: Jurassic Bark - Right To The Heart

Post by c_nordlander » Tue Mar 26, 2013 8:41 am

I personally like "Jurassic Bark" a lot, but I can see why other viewers see it as manipulative. However, I'm curious as to why you thought the ending was played as a joke. Because Fry says that Seymour lived a full life, and then it cuts away to Seymour just pining away for Fry for twelve years? If irony is the same as making a joke, then King Oedipus is the best comedy in Western history. :)

If anything turned Seymour into a joke, it would be Bender's Big Score, which gave him a one-second death scene that was not dramatic, not plausible, not even funny. In fact, it was nothing but the writers saying: "Hey, nerds? We're aware of the existence of previous episodes." Heck, even the fact that the cast apparently kept Seymour around as if he were a paperweight annoyed me. I would have expected Fry to bury him in some pet sematary cemetery once they decided not to clone him.

As for other emotional Futurama episodes: I know a lot of people mention "Luck of the Fryrish". Me, I liked it, but I wouldn't say it made me emotional. My personal picks would be: "Parasites Lost" (when Fry plays his holophonor for Leela); "Love & Rocket" (when Fry hooks Leela up to his oxygen tank without telling her, and then chokes on a Valentine candy with the words "You leave me breathless"); "The Sting"; and the very ending of "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", though I don't know how much of that is the writing and how much is the fact that it was the series finale. From the new seasons, Bender's ghost following Fry to the Amish planet in "Ghost in the Machines", even though he won't be able to show himself to him or do anything, comes to mind.
Last edited by c_nordlander on Sat Feb 01, 2014 8:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Jurassic Bark - Right To The Heart

Post by Stuffurama » Tue Mar 26, 2013 9:56 pm

I really did not see the ending of Jurassic bark as any type of joke. I don't know how you even got that out of the ending. Everyone interprets things differently but I really feel like there was no subtext there, that they were showing some glimpses of Fry's previous life (which to me are usually the "real" moments of the show) His family is so real and his life is so relatable to most people. A typical american life in a way and then off we go back into the future and there are still those types of problems it is just shrouded in comedy and "technology"

I think the writers meant it to be a sweet emotional moment, regardless of whether you cried or not it was certainly a real moment and a slight departure from the norm of the show.
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