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1ACV11: Mars University
First UK airing: Sky One, 8:30pm, 29-2-00
"All he handed in was a paper
smeared with faeces. He tied with Fry."
I was a bit worried about this episode before I saw
it for one very simple reason -- American universities are very,
very different from British universities. The entire concept
of fraternities and sororities, for instance, is something with
absolutely no counterpart in the UK. Students in Britain find
similar people to get drunk with without the help of complicated
societies. With only Animal House and Scream 2 to provide background,
would I understand the jokes?
Fortunately, they turned out to be all I needed. Although
the promos had made it look as though Bender's antics with Robot
House would be the main focus of the episode, they turned out
to be the B-story -- and the A-story about Fry's rivalry with
Guenter was a procession of razor-sharp gags delivered with absolutely
perfect timing. Just as well, since if you were looking for insightful
character comedy, 'Mars University' did it as well as The Nanny.
(Ouch!)
Any show, whether comedy or drama, that allows a guest
star to take centre stage in a story is always running the risk
of failure. No matter how good the character, the fact is that
he or she isn't one of the people we've invested time and (hopefully)
some degree of emotional attachment into, so we really don't
care that much about them. With Guenter getting so much attention
-- easily as much as Fry, and certainly more than Leela -- 'Mars
University' was at times in danger of turning into 'The One With
The Talking Monkey'. The Simpsons can get away with the occasional
episode where a secondary character like Burns, Skinner or Moe
comes to the fore, because they're already quite well-defined
(you should hope so, after 11 years). Futurama,
on the other hand, is still building up its secondary cast, and
it's barely soon enough to give regulars like Amy or Hermes an
episode of their own, yet Guenter just appeared out of nowhere
(probably for this one appearance, though -- as I've since been
informed about the suicide booths from my review of 1ACV01 --
I should never totally rule anything out) and became the focus
of the episode. If the jokes hadn't worked so well, 'Mars University'
would have been Futurama's first
flop.
As for those jokes, they ranged from the clever (the
contents of the Wong library, "I don't know how to teach
-- I'm a professor!", Mentholyptus Hall) to good ol' toilet
humour (hey, even Shakespeare used it) via the amusingly cruel.
The Professor gassing a treeful of jungle creatures, and the
payoff, cracked me up -- all those Tom & Jerry cartoons I
watched as a kid must have made me a sucker for violent acts
against cartoon animals. It was also good to see the evil genius
side of the Professor getting a rare outing. Maybe he'll finally
get around to building those octagonal atomic monsters some day...
One bizarre thing was Guenter's voice, which sounded
so much like Nelson Muntz that I expected a "Ha ha!"
and was convinced Nancy Cartwright would be credited as a guest
star... but it turned out to be Tress MacNeille. Truly uncanny
mimicry. Either Fox has a backup plan for if the voice of Bart
Simpson wants a pay rise, or my official Simpsons book messed
up the 'Who Does What Voice' credits. (Another bizarre thing
was the opening theme -- I almost had a fit because for a few
seconds I thought that Sky had screwed up the sound!)
Incidentally, season two is turning Futurama
into The Parody Show™, at least based on its first three
episodes. Titanic in 'A Flight To Remember', a triple-bill of
Star Wars, Independence Day and Ally McBeal in 'When Aliens Attack',
and now Animal House here. I don't think even The Simpsons did
parodies three weeks on the trot. (Hell, I don't think even Spitting
Image did!) Time for something original, I think...
A final question -- what was Amy, who as we all know
is a member of Kappa Kappa Wong, doing on the Epsilon Rho Rho
float in the parade? That girl will go with anybody!
Rating: 
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