“Rectified”? Someone hasn’t had enough caffeine yet this morning.
When looking at the Wiki article I invariably saw the initial airing date. It was indeed coming up on a freakin’ decade ago!
The Late Philip J. Fry was pretty sad (not as much as Jurassic Bark, though the two episodes have some elements in common), at least until the convenient plot twist allowed a happy ending.
I’m pretty good at night finding things sad that other people do, so just now I watched the “Jurassic Bark” episode to see if I’d be moved. Meh. The closing credits made me think “Aww, poor doggie,” which is more than I thought would happen, then I got up and had a soda. What’s all this about crying?
“Leela’s Homeworld” and the “Idle Hands” with the Robot Devil were pretty sad. The true story about the dog in Japan waiting on his owners is very sad. Poor guy!
What was the one where they kept slipping forward in time, and Fry somehow ended up married to Leela but because of the time jumps he couldn’t figure out what he did to win her over?
Owner, singular. The original post about Hachikō missed an apostrophe. The husband of the couple who owned him, a professor at Tokyo University, Hidesaburō Ueno. Every day for a year after the Uenos took him in, Hachikō would go to meet the professor at the station, and then they’d go home.
Then, about a year later, Ueno died, but Hachikō continued the ritual. Including going home, even if it was without Ueno.
He didn’t have a bad life, though, to be honest - people at the station loved him (played with him, fed him etc), and he went back home to his surviving owner each day. So it’s not like the blatantly manipulative JB at all.
Jurassic Bark is the saddest, but not crying sad.
The one that can really make me cry is The Luck of the Fryrish. Not truly out of sadness though.
Yeah, there’s a distinction between sad and touching – Jurrasic Bark is both; most of the other sentimental ones end on a positive note, even if it is tinged with meloncholy. Leela’s Homeworld showing the love her parents provided her, even if they never got to see each other. Luck of the Fryish showing Fry how strong his brother’s love was, even if they also never got to see each other. The Sting is sad for most of its running time, until it’s revealed that it was all a dream.
Off the top of my head, the only one I can think of other than Jurassic Bark that ends on a down note is Time Keeps on Slippin’, which is really just dejected rather than despondent.
–Cliffy
I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. Something can evoke different, even contradictory, emotions simultaneously.
Anyway, it’s Futurama. I view any answers in the context of “It’s Futurama” and even the most wrenching episodes aren’t exactly Sophie’s Choice.
My husband came in last night while I was watching this season’s ending episode and after trying vainly to explain the episode I finally ended up just saying “It’s Futurama.” 
And he knew what I meant.
But that’s what so got to me about Jurassic Bark (that, and having a real soft spot for pets). The episode moved along pretty much normally, then out of nowhere BAM! This soul-crushingly sad, tacked-on epilog! You simply so did not see it coming, and then was left hanging, thinking, “God! Was that really necessary!? It’s Futurama?!?” Like I said, it’s mostly a pet-lovers thing I guess.
According to the Wiki article instead of the Connie Francis song they originally set that final montage to some somber classical music (it was used in the 3rd part of 2001, when the camera is panning around & inside the Discovery spacecraft for the first time). I think that would have made it a lot worse! The Francis song is sad, but schmaltzy sad…
lethal inspection really got me, and the late phillip J fry
Zombie X 2.
Just sayin’.
I agree… and I think if you have a close sibling, it makes it that much more poignant in a way that “Jurassic Bark” just can’t compete with.
Jurassic Bark is shamelessly manipulative of an ending. It was sad but in a cheap way. Besides,
SPOILERS COMING
it’s not even that sad in the context of what has been revealed about what happened with Fry and his time duplicate since that episode. Seymour did NOT end up waiting around forever. In fact it was Bender who encased him in that stuff with some sort of gun as he went back in time and tried to kill Fry, turning him into Lars.
I find the Time Keeps On Slippin’, the episode that shows leela’s parents caring for her the whole time and she never knew about it, and the late philip j fry much more touching. Hell even the one with hermes and bender and bender’s history is quite touching and sad in some ways.
What was revealed five years later, that is. When people remember the episode, they’re thinking of their emotional response the first time they saw it, and since the episode was intended to stand on its own I think that’s the right way to evaluate it.
Sure I’m not saying people are “wrong” to evaluate the episode alone as sad (though I think it’s manipulatively sad and not particularly effective to me). Just that in the broader context of the show as a whole, there’s no reason to continue feeling sad about Seymour or to avoid the episode, which many people are claiming to do. The dog was fine and lived happily with (a) Fry for years.
BUMP
I just rewatched game of tones and it’s getting VERY dusty in here.
I really liked Futurama. I liked it much better than almost any other animated series.
But I can’t rank the saddest episodes because I just don’t feel like I know the series very well.
I don’t know who to blame. But I’m very angry that it got moved around so much that I have no idea how many seasons it ran or how often it was cancelled and then restarted.
It seems like it kept moving from channel to channel and from one broadcast day to another. I found it very difficult to follow this show with any reliability and that was such a shame because it was so good.
Can anyone tell me why it was cancelled and restarted so often and why it was moved around so often?
Or am I wrong about this? Is it true that it kept moving from one station to another and the broadcast time kept changing? If true, does anyone know why this was done and who was responsible?
The actors sure did deserve to be treated better than that. It really saddens me they were treated so shabbily. I hope I’m not mistaken about this.