Jurassic Bark

Infobox Futurama episode
episode_name = Jurassic Bark
episode_no = 61
prod_code = 4ACV07
airdate = November 17, 2002
country = USA
writer = Eric Kaplan
director = Swinton O. Scott III
opening_subtitle = "not" AFFILIATED WITH FUTURAMA BRASS KNUCKLE CO.
opening_cartoon = Hiss and Make Up in Merry Melodies
guest_star= Tom Kenny


caption = Fry's dog Seymour.
season = four
"Jurassic Bark" is the seventh episode of season four of "Futurama", airing November 17, 2002. It was nominated for an Emmy Award, but lost to "The Simpsons".cite web|title=Farewell to the funny future|url=http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-14221036_ITM|author=Azrai, Ahmad|date=2004-10-31|accessdate=2008-01-10]

In 2006 IGN ranked this episode #8 in their list of the top 25 "Futurama" episodes, with critic Dan Iverson remarking that the climax was "one of the saddest endings to a television program that I have ever seen".cite web| url=http://tv.ign.com/articles/716/716663p2.html| title=Top 25 Futurama Episodes| author=Dan Iverson| date=2006-07-07| accessdate=2007-09-21]

Plot

Fry decides to take Bender to a museum exhibit, showing a reconstructed pizzeria from the 20th century. To Fry's surprise, the restaurant is Panucci's Pizza, the very place he used to work. On display are many of the things he remembers using a millennium before—and, to his shock, also on display is a fossilized dog, which he instantly recognizes as his pet Seymour.

In a flashback (one of several throughout the episode), Fry remembers how he met Seymour. Fry goes to an address to deliver a pizza, only to realize that the name given ("Seymour Asses") means it was obviously a prank call. He finds a starving dog and feeds him some of the pizza, jokingly saying that he is the "Seymour" the call talked about. The dog then follows him back to the pizza parlor, and subsequently begins to hang around there so much that Mr. Panucci dubs him their "mascot". Fry, for all intents and purposes, becomes his owner, and teaches him tricks, including how to bark "Walking on Sunshine".

Back in the future, Fry begins a disco dancing protest in front of the museum to get Seymour's body back, which proves successful. The professor then examines Seymour's body, and concludes that, due to his unusually rapid fossilization, a DNA sample can be made to produce a clone, and it would even be possible to copy Seymour's brain waves to recreate his personality and memory. Fry is ecstatic and begins to prepare for a dog; however, Bender becomes instantly jealous, especially as Fry calls Seymour his "best friend," and seems incapable of understanding how Fry could care for an animal. Bender tries to make Fry jealous, to no avail.

In another series of flashbacks, it is revealed that the night when Fry was frozen, Seymour was anxious about him leaving, and as he left Fry reassured him, telling him to "wait for [him] " outside the shop. He is then frozen. On New Year's Day, when Fry does not return, Seymour goes on a quest to find him, and manages to get into the Cryogenic Lab, where he whines outside of Fry's freezer. The owners, not understanding or realizing that Fry is not supposed to be frozen, call Fry's parents, who take Seymour away without noticing their son is in the freezer.

In the 31st century, the professor is ready to clone Seymour, which requires going deep underground to harness geothermal power. Bender arrives and, annoyed that Fry will not spend time with him, grabs the fossil and throws it in a pit of lava, apparently thinking that destroying Seymour will instantly restore his friendship with Fry. Fry is, of course, furious and hysterical, and Bender realizes how Fry could love a lesser creature, as (from his perspective) a human loving an animal is the same as a robot loving a human. The professor explains that the fossil may not have been instantly destroyed, as it was made of dolomite. Bender—who claims to be 40% dolomite—dives in and manages to recover the fossil.

The professor is about to clone Seymour once again, when his computer tells him that Seymour died at the age of 15. Fry is upset by this—Seymour had only been three when he was frozen—and destroys the professor's machine so that the cloning does not occur. He explains that, as much as he loved Seymour, Seymour had apparently lived twelve years without Fry, and probably moved on and had a full life of his own, and that thus, he was only a small part of Seymour's life.

The episode ends with a flashback, where it is implied Fry was wrong and rather than moving on, Seymour spent the rest of his life in front of Panucci's, waiting for Fry to return. The tragic scene shows a slow montage of passing years, as Seymour continues to wait outside Panucci's. Finally, significantly older and bent with age, an elderly Seymour lies down, closes his eyes, and goes to sleep, dying while still faithfully waiting for his beloved master.

Bender's Big Score

However, Seymour's actual fate is explained in the DVD movie "". After Fry was frozen, Seymour didn't actually wait the rest of his life, as a temporal double of Fry had returned to the past and resumed his old lifestyle living above Panucci's. It is revealed that Seymour's rapid standing fossilization — unexplained in the episode itself — is a result of an explosion overcoming him after Bender, who was sent back in time to kill Fry, blew up the apartment of Fry's temporal double above Panucci's Pizza.

Production notes

* According to the DVD commentary, the last part of the episode where Seymour is waiting outside on the sidewalk was originally set to "Gayane's Adagio" by Aram Khachaturian (known to most science-fiction fans from the sequence introducing the "Discovery" spacecraft in ""), but it was exchanged with the song "I Will Wait For You" from "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" as sung by Connie Francis, which writer Eric Kaplan's grandparents sang and played on the piano while he was a child.
* According to the DVD commentary, the original idea for the episode was to have Fry's mother fossilized instead of Seymour, but this idea was scrapped after it was thought to be too upsetting to the audience.

Continuity

* At one point in the episode, Fry is again seen being frozen, as in "Space Pilot 3000"; similar to the original scene, a shadow is seen under the desk, the silhouette of Nibbler. However, an additional shadow resembling Fry is also seen. This is later explained in "The Why of Fry".

* It is also possible to see Nibbler's top eyeball poking out of the trash can for a brief moment as Fry places the pizza box on the desk before he is frozen, and it seems to look in Fry's direction.

* When Fry and Bender go to the 20th century Pizzeria exhibit, a sign says "Treasures of the Stupid Ages". In "Space Pilot 3000", Leela mentions to her boss that Fry is from the stupid ages.

* The fossil of Seymour can be seen on a shelf in the back of the Planet Express living room in later episodes, as well as in the movie "Bender's Big Score".

Cultural references

* The title is a reference to the popular book/film series "Jurassic Park", as is the idea of cloning a long-dead life form from DNA preserved in a fossil. At the history museum, a pimp is seen frozen in amber, another reference to "Jurassic Park".
* The fate of Seymour in the episode's climax is a direct reference to Hachikō, an Akita dog who waited for his master at Shibuya Station for ten years, not knowing that he had suffered a stroke and died. Hachikō is a permanent fixture in Japanese culture.
* When Fry is protesting in front of the museum to get Seymour back, he starts to dance to "The Hustle" by Van McCoy. Three days later, he's still dancing, but the song is playing at a slow, faded pace, matching Fry's exhausted dancing.
* Seymour is able to bark "Walking on Sunshine." There are recurring references to this song in connection with Fry. He sings it in "I, Roommate", "The 30% Iron Chef" and "War Is the H-Word", and a bagpipe version of it was played at his "funeral" in "The Sting".
* When Fry's family meets for New Years Day brunch, his mother is watching the Rose Bowl Game, held every January 1. The teams shown as playing are Wisconsin and Stanford, which were the teams playing in 2000's Rose Bowl. By the cheesehead hat on her head, it is likely Fry's mom is rooting for Wisconsin, who won 17-9.
* Bender refers to a gorilla that loves a kitty. This is a reference to Koko the gorilla.
* The Professor says that only dolomite can withstand the heat of lava. While this is a real mineral, the context ("the tough black mineral that won't cop out when there's heat all about") suggests he is referencing the 1975 film "Dolemite", with a possible nod also to Isaac Hayes' famous "Theme from "Shaft"".
* In the scene right before we see the cloning machine, the Professor's head appears as a large hologram, telling everyone that it is ready. The head appears with a loud, majestic trumpeting, referencing the scene in the television series "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" where a Magrethean official appears in a hologram, with a similar trumpeting, to the characters.
* Bender's Robo-dog is a reference to Sony's AIBO, a robotic dog released in 1999.

References

* [http://www.emmys.com/primetime/2003/awards/animated.php 55th Emmy Awards at emmys.com]
* [http://tv.yahoo.com/futurama/show/jurassic-bark/episode/10213 Yahoo.tv]