I know a lot of you out there are fans of a little show called Futurama.  I definitely was one, despite everything Fox could do to destroy the stupid thing; it was great to see science fiction and comedy so easily combine, and Futurama definitely had the market cornered when it came to that particular coupling.  In fact, I’m hard pressed to name a better example.  Oh, sure, stuff like Red Dwarf and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are definitely heavy-hitters in that category, but Futurama definitely had the legs that most competitors did not.  And in a new stroke, a whole lot of fan support got Futurama a whole new lease on life, spawning four direct to video movies.  Those were Bender’s Big Score, The Beast With A Billion Backs, Bender’s Game and The Wild Green Yonder.

Today, I’m going to give you a rundown on the newest–The Wild Green Yonder.

It can be summed up surprisingly effectively with just two words.  Those two:  It’s Futurama.  Just that simple two-word phrase tells those who enjoy the series already exactly what they need to know.  Thus, my following remarks will be generated toward those who haven’t yet seen Futurama, yet very clearly need to.

The series itself is about a twentieth-century moron of a delivery boy who gets cryogenically frozen to be thawed out in the year 3000.  Naturally, much has changed in the millennium he spent in cold storage, thus our delivery boy, Philip J. Fry by name, must adapt to the future he’d spent so much time dreaming about and the past he now longs to see once again.  This time around, Fry, as he’s known to his friends, finds himself part of a massive intergalactic conspiracy to destroy all live in the universe as we know it.  Only Fry’s particular brand of idiocy can keep him from having his thoughts read by the very galactic evil out to destroy all life.

The particularly good thing about The Wild Green Yonder is that you don’t necessarily need to have seen the series to get your entertainment from it.  If you go in cold, you will likely still get plenty of laughs out of the adventures of a time-displaced delivery boy and his motley crew of cohorts.  But, The Wild Green Yonder seems to have been designed more as a reward for longtime viewers, because a great many in-jokes will crop up throughout the presentation.  These in-jokes, of course, require a background in the show Futurama to fully appreciate and fully enjoy.

Make no mistake—there’s plenty of humor in there as The Wild Green Yonder cheerfully skewers sexism, film noir, environmentalism, political chicanery, and just about anything else that walks in front of it.  There is a LOT to love about this movie, and more to love if you’ve actually seen the show.  Longtime viewers should also bear in mind that this might NOT actually be the end yet, as rumors abound of yet another Adult Swim coup seizing the show out from under Fox.

But regardless of the state of the show, the movies were great fun, and even if The Wild Green Yonder happens to be the last tour of duty for Planet Express, it will still be an absolutely fantastic send off.