It’s been 25 years since Matt Groening’s classic cartoon Futurama first aired, offering a hilarious portrayal of Earth in the 31st century.
In the cult sci-fi series, New York delivery boy Fry is cryogenically frozen on New Year’s Eve 1999 and wakes up 1,000 years later to a very different reality.
As Fry discovers, the world is full of technological wonders, from self aware robots to high-speed transportation tubes and celebrities preserved in jars.
Although many are still the stuff of fantasy, the last quarter of a century has seen a level of technological invention that the show’s producers surely didn’t anticipate.
As a new series airs on Disney+, MailOnline takes a look at Futurama gadgetry that’s now a realty, from sex robots to chip implants and even suicide booths.
From real-life sex robots to chip implants and even suicide booths, Futurama-inspired technology has become real since the show first aired in 1999
In ‘Futurama’, Fry and Bender meet queuing for a ‘suicide booth’ (pictured)
SUICIDE BOOTHS
In the very first episode of Futurama, Fry meets Bender, an alcoholic metalworking robot, while they’re queuing up to enter a ‘suicide booth’ in New New York City.
For 25 cents, the kiosk offers one of two death options – ‘quick and painless’ and ‘slow and horrible’, which involves getting stabbed with various sharp implements.
When Futurama debuted in 1999, the concept of a suicide booth was clearly satire, but a quarter of a century later a real version actually exists.
The Sarco Pod, developed by Australian euthanasia advocate Dr Philip Nitschke, looks like a cross between a one-man spaceship and a high-tech coffin.
At the touch of the button, the controversial capsule fills with nitrogen to starve the occupant of oxygen, rendering them unconscious before they die ‘within seconds’.
An early version of the Sarco Pod, which can be operated internally and works by reducing oxygen levels. No one has yet used it – yet
The device reportedly cost more than $700,000 (£540,000) to develop, but will cost each user as little as $20 (£15).
In July, the pod was due to be used for the first time, in Switzerland, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1942 unless it’s done for ‘selfish’ reasons by the assister.
But plans stalled after prosecutors warned anyone assisting someone to use the pod could face prison, accusing Nitschke of ‘inducement and aiding and abetting suicide for selfish reasons’.
An earlier suicide device called the Thanatron that delivered a killer dose of drugs intravenously, invented by controversial pathologist Jack Kevorkian, was first used in 1990.
But the Sarco Pod is said to be the first booth that people can pay to enter and choose to end their lives.
SEX ROBOTS
For many, Futurama introduced the concept of robosexuality – the sexual attraction between people and robots.
In one episode, Bender has a steamy relationship with human Amy, while in another episode Fry hooks up with a robot modelled on actress Lucy Liu.
While humanoids in the real world do not quite offer the capabilities as those seen in Futurama, ‘sex bots’ have filled the market in the last decade.
Much more technologically sophisticated than traditional sex dolls, these lifelike devices pack remarkable features (aside from synthetic genitalia).
In the 2001 episode ‘I Dated a Robot’, Fry hooks up with a robot modelled on actress Lucy Liu
Roxxxy, a life-size robotic girlfriend complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin, was introduced at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in 2010
In 2017, Canadian robotics firm called Realbotix released Harmony 3.0, a £12,000 sex robot with a self-lubricating vagina that can be taken out and washed.
The following year it unveiled a male equivalent called Henry with an impressive six pack that can woo ladies with jokes and romantic phrases.
Other models include Roxxxy who has synthetic skin and AI abilities that let it learn the owner’s likes and dislikes.
Industry experts anticipate sex robots eventually becoming so sophisticated that they’re indistinguishable from real lovers.
LANGUAGE TRANSLATORS
In Futurama, Fry’s distant relative and madcap scientist Professor Farnsworth comes up with elaborate inventions that often tread the line between pointless and ingenious.
One of these is the ‘Universal Translator’, a bright green device equipped with a microphone that’s designed to change audio of any one language into another.
Unfortunately, due to a technical malfunction it only translates into ‘an incomprehensible dead language’ (French), but more adept real life versions are now taking the tech world by storm.
Pictured, Professor Farnsworth’s ‘Universal Translator’ designed to translate audio of any language into another. But due to a technical malfunction it only translates into ‘an incomprehensible dead language’ (French)
Pixel Fold’s Live Translate interpreter mode uses both the inner and outer screens simultaneously for face-to-face conversations in different languages
Hong Kong firm Timekettle offers a $700 device called X1 that uses AI to ‘hear’ one spoken language and translate it into another
Google’s Pixel phones now include a tool called Live Translate, which turns a spoken language into the text of another, presented on the device’s screen.
Hong Kong firm Timekettle offers a $700 pocket-sized device called X1 that uses AI to ‘hear’ one spoken language and translate it into one of around 40 others.
Similarly, Chinese company Vormor offers a high-tech ‘pen’ that not only translates voices but unfamiliar text thanks to an inbuilt scanner.
Perfect for real-time communications between two people who don’t speak the same language, these little devices could soon become more ubiquitous in offices, restaurants and airports in the years to come.
DELIVERY SHIPS
He’s an eccentric boss delivering cargo beyond planet Earth in an elaborate spaceship.
And if you’re not sure if we’re talking about Futurama’s Professor Farnsworth or SpaceX’s Elon Musk, you could be forgiven.
The iconic green ship owned by Professor Farnsworth’s firm Planet Express delivers packages around the galaxy
Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has developed a spacecraft called Starship designed to transport crew and cargo to Earth’s orbit, the moon and Mars. Pictured, a Starship prototype in Texas, August 2021
In the show, Professor Farnsworth’s company Planet Express delivers packages around the galaxy in an iconic green rocket ship.
Similarly, Musk’s firm SpaceX is responsible for the most powerful rocket ever built on Earth – the Starship.
The multi-billion-dollar, stainless-steel, 165-foot vessel has been designed to transport crew and cargo to Earth’s orbit and the moon.
It’s due to land four astronauts on the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis 3 mission in 2026 – the first manned trip to the lunar surface since 1972.
Although the ambitious ship is still in its testing phases, Musk hopes Starship will eventually take humans to Mars – truly making us a ‘multiplanetary species’ worthy of Futurama.
CHIP IMPLANTS
As Fry finds out in the first episode, citizens are implanted with a small chip with a nasty-looking handheld puncture gun to assign them a permanent career.
As one-eyed mutant Leela warns, it is against the law to refuse the chip implant or have it removed – punishable with being ‘fired out of a cannon into the sun’.
In Futurama, citizens are implanted with a small chip with a nasty-looking handheld puncture gun to assign them a permanent career. It is against the law to not have these career chip implanted, or to have it removed, and the punishment for such an act is to be ‘fired out of a cannon, into the sun’. In the 2020s, implantable chips are all the rage among ‘biohackers’
Arnie Szoke, 40, paid £350 to have a safety-pin sized chip placed into his hand by surgeons
In the 2020s, implantable chips are all the rage among a growing global community known as the ‘biohackers’ – although don’t worry, you won’t be penalized for not having one.
These chips have a multitude of uses, from paying for transport to opening doors with the wave of a hand and performing magic tricks.
Among the most famous biohackers are British engineer Professor Kevin Warwick, who got his first chip a year before Futurama first aired.
Meanwhile, stunt performer Anastasia Synn in California holds the Guinness World Record for having the most implants – a grand total of 52.
Similar to the procedure on Futurama, biohackers tend to feel a sharp pain when they get their device inserted under the skin, similar to a body piercing.
But some amateur hackers are performing implant operations without proper medical assistance, leading to complications such as nerve damage.
FLYING CARS
In New New York, commuters travel in giant network of suction tubes, taking them from A to B in a matter of seconds.
Unfortunately, it may be several more centuries before this incredible conveyance system arrives in the world’s major cities.
But engineers are making great strides with another form of 31st century transport – the flying car.
Pictured, the ‘AirCar’ craft, which can transform from a road vehicle into a plane in under three minutes and is officially certified to fly after passing safety tests in Slovakia
California firm Alef Aeronautics has a vertical take-off and landing vehicle that can take off from conventional roads
In Futurama the Beta Romeo flying vehicle (pictured) can go from hovering above the ground to flying in space
Investors around the world are pumping millions of dollars into flying taxi projects, which are going through various stages of testing.
Alef Aeronautics based in California has built an electric car with a mesh-covered body that conceals eight propellers.
These propellers, which replace the traditional car motors, allow it to take off straight up into the air from a conventional road, without the need for any runway space.
Meanwhile, the ‘AirCar’ craft, which can transform from a road vehicle into a plane in under three minutes, is officially certified to fly after passing safety tests in Slovakia.
In just a few years the vehicles could make use of the vast untapped potential of airspace while completing journeys at a fraction of the time.
Of course, many 31st technologies portrayed in the show remain in the realm of fiction – at least for now.
Futurama depicts the heads of many modern-day celebrities kept alive preserved in liquid, such as Leonard Nimoy and Pamela Anderson.
In Futurama, heads in jars are kept alive by a unique form of ‘powdered crystaline opal’ that according to Professor Farnsworth has ‘unique temporal properties’
New New Yorkers travel in giant network of suction tubes, taking them from A to B in a matter of seconds (pictured)
But will a liquid that can keep people alive without the rest of their bodies – not to mention for 1,000 years – ever exist?
Dr Alexandra Morton-Hayward, a forensic anthropologist at the University of Oxford, said ‘anything is possible’ with such a timeframe.
‘I imagine you’d need a synthetic, oxygenated liquid that mimics our cerebrospinal fluid, which is clear and colourless, so at least you’d have a crystal-clear view of your poor disembodied mate,’ she told MailOnline.
‘Without a gut for digestion, it’d also be important that the head be able to absorb all necessary nutrients from this fluid – perhaps with dissolvable, fish food-style pellets.’
