Talking Futurama - Put Your Head on My Shoulders

Other folks have commented on the actual mathematical content, but as someone with a PhD in math (in theoretical computer science, no less!), I just want you to know - aside from the P vs NP problem (which is tremendously important), we *also* consider most of the math jokes in Futurama esoteric trivia. Kudos for always going out of your way on that stuff and being honest about when you don't understand. Incidentally, while I can't attest to this being universally true, a lot of my fellow students in graduate school were huge Futurama fans. I think something about this field makes you predisposed towards a specific type of joke construction in a way that Cohen and Keeler's writing reflects in turn, for obvious reasons.

SomeBloke

I remember LOVING this episode (and still do a lot) so it was super disappointing to see the transphobic joke with Zapp in the third act. Generally this show is a lot more modern than the Simpsons with its characters, even if it still has some dumb Battle of the Sexes stuff, so seeing them go for lunch low-hanging fruit was frustrating. I guess I'm just glad it didn't go further than it did

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

Yeah, Discrete Math is actually the "easier" version of high-level math. It's just math about things that are countable, including probabilities and logic. The complex non-real numbers/infinities and whatnot are more in Calculus and Geometry.

The strongest legacy of Crazy Eddie, for me, will always be in the Weird Al parody "Can't Watch This," where "Our prices are insaaaaaaaaaane" features prominently in the montage of TV commercial catch phrases during the second bridge. Hear it at 1:51 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HaZvJZaiYQ This version is so ingrained in my head that hearing the "real" Crazy Eddie say it on the podcast sounded like a bad parody to me.

Discrete mathematics is not very exotic. "How many different tetraminos (Tetris pieces) are there?" is a discrete mathematics problem, for example. As an aside the term "real numbers" is very unfortunate. The real numbers are actually very confusing and unusual in some respects, and not any more "real" than any other kind of number.

Jesse Onland

I remember a fun Ricardo Montalban story Mark Evanier told on Paul Dini's now defunct podcast. They had written a sketch that involved him hitting on an attractive women and after he read the script he goes up to the writers and says "I'm something of a role model in the Latino community and I would never want people to think I'm unfaithful to my wife" then asks them to rewrite it. So the writers re-group and come up with a new bit where he's just a jerk instead. He reads the new script and approves saying "I'd never want people to think I'm unfaithful but I don't mind if they think I'm an asshole." That podcast has a lot of TV/comics history to dig into if the archives are still up.

Kevin Mayo

Thank you for sharing that clip. I was about to give credit to SCTV and Eugene Levy's imitation of Ricardo Montalban for planting "rich Corinthian leather" in my generation's head. https://youtu.be/jjqVJwqd0zc

Kevin Nash

It was trippy seeing P != NP and then taking an algorithms class next semester and learning about things like the big unsolved problems in CS like Travelling Salesman. Discrete math deals with things like sets of items, combinatorics - lots of concepts from that could be taught to kids. High School is nothing but Algebra, Trig, and Calculus, but math more weird and wild outside of that.

John Simon

Something I really liked that what Bender was arrested for was “pimping” he never said “anti hooking” laws, just pumping the thing that SHOULD be outlawed It seems the future is ok with prostitution 👌

Tyler the Destroyer

As a son of a car salesman, I can tell you President's Day sales are still huge in that one particular industry. It's understood that everyone is working that weekend regardless of whether or not it's your turn to have it off. The big car companies also usually give large incentives to dealerships to hit a certain number that weekend in addition to their usual monthly goals. It's apparently so important that sometimes the dealership owner at a place my dad used to work at would even go to sales people and tell them, "You're buying a car this weekend," to juice the numbers. I also have to say, Pop Tarts are a low tier breakfast item. That's what I will turn to if I have either nothing in the house or am in a real hurry and just need a jolt of energy. If I'm going to eat one though, I'm staying clear of frosted. That stuff is gross. Unfrosted brown sugar Pop Tarts are where it's at. You just slather the things in butter and you end up with something that's almost good. And if you haven't had it in years, which is usually the case for me, you may even enjoy it. Though in order for that to happen you probably need kids in the house as that's the only reason why I ever have Pop Tarts in my cabinet.

Joe Hodgson

If you can solve that P versus NP problem somehow, you’ll win $1,000,000. It’s one of the Millennium Prize Problems, and the answer would be very beneficial to improving the time and effort it takes to solve computational problems

AllTheTrophies

I took a Discrete Math course in college and I couldn’t tell you what Discrete Math is.

Joshua Bjork

Ricardo Montalban did multiple ads for Chrysler over the years. In this 1980 ad for the Córdoba he does use the phrase “rich Corinthian leather”. I loved when TV Land would run old ads in its early days. https://youtu.be/uvyTTx33PPQ

Brian Hortin