If you’re not familiar with Futurama, then you’ve sadly missed out on one of the best shows on TV. Happily, it’s not too late to discover it, particularly now that the seasons are converting to DVD sets.

Co-created by Matt Groening, Futurama was a project that he wanted to tackle for years, but was unable to until the Simpsons gave him enough clout at Fox to get a space-themed animated series underway. It then fought through five season’s worth of episodes, but ultimately was cancelled — not due to the show’s quality, but mostly to Fox, who claimed they didn’t “understand” the show and kept moving it around on the schedule, delaying new episodes for weeks. Don’t let the cancellation fool you. And if you hate the Simpsons (yes, there are those sorrowful souls out there who do), then don’t let the Matt Groening connection stop you from giving this series a chance. I have a friend who absolutely cannot stand The Simpsons, but she found Futurama to be much more enjoyable (possibly because of Futurama’s tendancy to have one main story per episode versus the splintered storytelling of Simpsons).

Before I start in on this DVD set, which covers the 13 episodes of Futurama’s first season, let me woo you with Six Mighty Advantages Futurama Had Over The Simpsons! Notice I didn’t say how Futurama is better (or worse), just some of the advantages that Futurama had going for it:

1. Animation Quality

The Simpsons started out its first couple seasons with jerky animation and coloring problems, until it evolved and finally upgraded into its uniform look it has today. However, Futurama started off from the very start with a highly polished look to the show — a blend of traditional 2D animation with a smattering of 3D models that were made to look more like cartoons than computer graphics. Up to that point, Futurama was the most expensive animated show ever produced, and the opening sequence alone took many weeks to knock off. It’s a great looking show!

2. Science Fiction Setting

By throwing the series into a wildly futuristic year, Futurama enjoyed the luxury of nearly complete freedom to set up its own world and rules. Not to mention that it wasn’t just confined to one city, but the characters could travel anywhere in the universe if the script called for it. Aliens, weird and cool technology, space battles, Star Trek parodies, you name it… sci-fi was a great choice for a comedy cartoon.

2.5 The Awesome Theme Song

Hands-down, it’s a cool ditty. And the sweet animation that accompanies it is a slick thrill ride through the future.

3. Futurama Caters to the Geeks

Now, Simpsons does throw a lot of obscure jokes to the hardcore geek crowd, but it has nothing on Futurama. Nothing. While accessible to the non-geek layman, many of Futurama’s best jokes were aimed strictly at the geek fanboy subset. There were jokes in binary, for pete’s sake (take a look at Bender’s door and translate the binary… it’s a great joke)! And tons of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them gags referenced a lot of geek pop culture (such as a portrait of a robotic “Commodore LXIV” on a wall).

4. Futurama Was Smart. S-M-R-T.

The show’s staff liked to boast that no other show had so many PhDs working on their writing team — and this is probably true. While Futurama took enormous liberties with the universe and technology, the science behind the jokes was surprisingly thoughtful. Sci-fi concepts like black holes, the limits of light speed, and time travel weren’t just blown off, they were referenced and then blown off with style! Not to mention the difficulties of keeping every rule straight in a world they created, when it came time to reference them again and again.

5. Futurama Had Ongoing Storylines

While most sitcoms and animated series keep storylines self-contained, Futurama surprisingly continued plots that showed tremendous foresight, such as Leela’s search for her parents, or Fry’s destiny in the future. Something that always puts me a bit in awe of the Futurama people is that they put in a specific quick visual in the pilot episode that would become very important in an episode… almost four years later. And finally…

6. Futurama Had Zoidberg

I love most all the Simpsons and Futurama characters, but none more than Dr. Zoidberg, the crustacian doctor of the Planet Express crew. His mumbly way of talking, the constant jokes about his loneliness, poverty, looks and hunger… this guy was the product of sheer genius on somebody’s part. He’s like the Three Stooges with an ink pouch.

So what’s the scoop with Futurama? It begins on New Year’s Eve 1999, as a pizza delivery boy named Fry gets a prank call to deliver a pizza to a cryogenics lab. He accidentally falls into a cryogenics tube and is frozen for a thousands years — during which time the earth’s technology is destroyed, then rebuilt in a sort of futuristic Jetsonsonic look. Fry stumbles out into this world, and meets up with a bossy yet sexy cyclops named Leela and a drinking, smoking, belching robot named Bender. Our three heroes land jobs at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery service (think FedEx), where they work with Fry’s great-great-(times 30)-great-nephew Professor Farnsworth (150 years old), the cute intern Amy, Dr. Zoidberg, and the Jamaican beaurocrat Hermes. In many, but not all episodes, the crew travels on a mission of some sort, fails miserably, gets into trouble, and barely gets out of it again. There’s a lot of running away from stuff.

Part of the real fun of Futurama is exploring the universe they set up in the year 3000. Owls have replaced rats as the main pest, vaccuum tubes transport people across town, robots come in a shocking variety of forms and have their own culture, and a giant angry green alien named Morbo is a newscaster on TV. It’s awesome.