futurama

So, Dr. Zoidberg Was Named After Qix

10:00PM Luke Plunkett | Continuing their look at Futurama’s obsession with gaming culture, Wired’s Chris Baker has today shed a little light on the story behind the naming of Dr. Zoidberg. Turns out series creator David X. Cohen was a gigantic nerd when he was younger, and loved playing arcade puzzler Qix. So much so that he went and coded his own Qix clone, and called it Zoid. And he loved Zoid so much that when Futurama needed a name for its alien doctor, he and Matt Groening settled on Zoidberg. So, there you go. Videogames & Futurama, Part 2: How Zoidberg Got His Name From a Game [Wired] More »

Wired Remembers Futurama’s Raiders of the Lost Arcade

4:20AM Mark Wilson | Wired’s Game|Life posted a fond tribute to Futurama’s ubergaming episode Raiders of the Lost Arcade. Most of the piece runs through the show’s various jokes (for instance, I never knew that Q*Bert had a line that, when played backwards, translates to “Where can a guy get some pants around here?”). David Cohen, co-creator of Futurama also reveals: I wrote ‘Raiders of the Lost Arcade…The origin of that idea was a whole movie about aliens invading earth in the exact pattern of Space Invaders. I had high hopes, but the feature idea got chopped down to five minutes. While we love the episode, we’d also enjoy travelling to a parallel universe and seeing Cohen’s original vision on screen. Hit the link for an article that will make you dust off that Futurama DVD set for another go (just make sure you have a 2-liter of Shasta and a Rush mixtape in the ready). Video Games & Futurama: Part 1, Raiders of the Lost Arcade [gamelife] More »