Commentary:Mars University

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Commentary for
Mars University
Production number	1ACV11
On DVD	Season 1 Disc 3
Additional
Transcript
Participants
Matt Groening Creator David X. Cohen Executive producer Rich Moore Supervising director J. Stewart Burns Writer Bret Haaland Director Gregg Vanzo Supervising director Billy West Actor (Fry, Professor Farnsworth, etc.)

Topics of Discussion

• Hovering technology was supposed to have completely replaced the wheel, but wheels still appear in some episodes.
• Remixed theme music is used, apparently after hearing this they decided never to do it again, but there are a few other cases of different theme music.
• Mars' sky is yellow instead of red to avoid Fry blending in.
• The library's sign refers to Marilyn vos Savant who had the highest IQ in the world.
• J. Stewart Burns regularly tries to add chess jokes.
• Ideas were "borrowed" from numerous college movies, such as Animal House, The Program, and Revenge of the Nerds.
  • Dean Vernon was named for John Vernon who played the Dean in Animal House
• The Simpsons characters are only to appear as objects, as they are a show in Futurama.
  • Interestingly, Futurama later became a show in some episodes of The Simpsons but real in other episodes. In the crossover comics however, The Simpsons retain fictional status and interacted with the crew via Mental Realms.
• Early versions of the characters had five fingers to diferentiate from The Simpsons, it looked weird and was changed, though Poster Guy sometimes retains the extra finger.
• Constant use of Apple Macintosh computers.
• Guenter was going to be more realistic, but it looked creepy.
• The Professor's eyes had at this point never been seen. Billy wanted to see them, Matt said that he shouldn't.
• Billy's high quality voice work.
• Very early on, Cubert Farnsworth was going to be the Professor's experiment and Fry's room-mate.
• The diagram "Witten's Dog" was drawn by a physicist at Caltech, it parodies a real style of physics diagram.
  • If you look closely it's also a faeces joke.
• Pointing out the urine on the floor of Guenter's parent's cage. Most of the commentators hadn't noticed it before.
• Frank Welker's animal sounds.
• Guenter was the name of Stewart's college room-mate.
  • His other room-mates are listed on the floor plan.
• Earlier versions had more animals fall from the tree.
• Fry's dancing was originally a random one-off character.
• Planning to bring Guenter back.

Highlights / Quotes

Brett Haaland: There's your phone number, how'd you come up with that?
J. Stewart Burns: The Lambda? That was a desperate effort not to have a phone number that went 555-0155.

Billy West: [about the Professor] Have we ever seen his eyes?
Matt Groening: No!
Billy West: One day, can we see them?
Matt Groening: You don't want to.

Billy West: Most of the animals that show up on the show, the voices are done by Frank Welker. He's like, the world's foremost authority. He could do, like, a chicken being chased by a steamroller.

David X. Cohen: It's funny, I was just thinking to myself, "Why is Fry laughing at what just happened?" Then I realized that's Billy laughing into the microphone.
Billy West: [as Fry] Look, I told you before! Don't push me or I'll snap!

Goofs

• This is said to be the first appearance of Amy's parents, but they were in the previous episode.

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