I want you to just stare at this picture and think about how and why this is such a beautiful and elegantly crafted gag.

How could you guys let me keep forgetting Futurama Friday these past few weeks?

That dog won’t hunt, monsignor.

I was feeling in a Futurama mood and a Star Trek mood. WHATEVER WAS I TO DO?

Today is a very special Futurama Friday, because today is the day you learn about Star Trek.  ”Fuck that, Star Trek is for nerds,” you say? Well you’re right.  Unfortunately, no matter how much Star Trek kicks ass, if you like it, you’re a nerd.  You’ll just have to get over that and accept that you’re a nerd like me.

   Now, the Star Trek franchise began life as a TV show on NBC in 1966.  This is WAY before my time.  Star Trek was on TV when my dad was in high school.  It was cheap and campy and only lasted three seasons.  It didn’t get very high ratings, but it had a devoted following.  There are two main reasons why Star Trek is an important show.

  First, it changed science fiction.  Most American pulp sci-fi you would find in the ’50s and ’60s was basically space opera, cowboys or knights in space.  You would have one hero like Flash Gordon who would go around defeating bad guys and rescuing the women.  You still have that in Kirk, of course, but now you have a whole team of characters on the Enterprise bridge who are equally important.  Gene Roddenberry’s vision was of a future where people worked together to bridge their differences and solve common problems.  It was an incredibly progessive show.  The television landscape of the time was overwhelmingly white, but on the Enterprise you had an Asian man, a Scotsman, a black woman, and an alien. Nowadays you would accuse a show of trying to be PC, but back then it was a statement.  In the second season they added the stupid character of Chekov, who was intended to be a major political statement at the height of the Cold War, but instead mostly just stood around making jokes about Russia while everyone was trying to work.

  The third season of Star Trek presented America with the first ever interracial kiss shown on television, between Shatner and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura).  I made that a separate paragraph because it’s a very important part of American history and I wanted you to see it.

Come on, this is practically giving it away.

It’s the one where Fry says “beep” a lot, and it doesn’t have William Shatner in it.

I didn’t have time to cap another episode, so today’s Futurama Friday comes from the same episode as last week’s.  I imagine you won’t mind.

That’s right, it’s Futurama Friday again.  Hooray!