David X Cohen, Co-Creator of Futurama
First, Last, Everything
Balancing Scientific Plausibility and Comedy
Jonathan asks about imagining year 3000 tech; David explains prioritizing comedy and character, and using winks to the audience about science.
This time, it’s the Emmy-award-winning writer David X Cohen. David started writing on Beavis and Butthead in the early 90s before joining The Simpsons, where he was responsible for many well-known episodes like Lisa the Vegetarian, The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show, and Homer3. Then, in 1999, with Simpsons creator Matt Groening, David co-developed Futurama, which recently dropped its 13th season on Hulu and Disney+.
But David’s history is not just in television. He worked in the robotics lab while attending Harvard, studied theoretical computer science, and has a deep history with technology all the way back to the early days of home computers. As you can expect there was a lot for us to talk about.
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First, Last, Everything is a podcast exploring people’s personal relationships with technology. In each episode, host Jonathan Reed gets to know a guest through three pieces of tech: their first inspiration, their last obsession, and the one that meant everything to them. From some software or a computer to a weird gadget or a first camera. Pretty much anything goes.
In addition, each episode features the ‘Something’ segment, a small dive into the past to talk about a piece of technology that you may not have heard of. Weird, ahead of its time, an abject failure or success, whatever it was, it was certainly… something.
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This episode’s linksDavid on Wikipedia
Futurama opening on YouTube
'Futurama - Welcome to the World of Tomorrow’ BTS on YouTube
Futurama References on The Infosphere:
- The Speed of Light
- The Prisoner of Benda and its theorem
- The Impossible Stream
- eyePhone
- Hedonismbot
- Roberto
- Enema-bot
- Acting Unit 0.8
- Head Jars
Shut Up and Take My Money on Know Your Meme
Victor Wembanyama on Wikipedia
‘How Hollywood writers triumphed over AI – and why it matters’ - The Guardian
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- David’s ‘First’ pick: Arcade Games: Playthroughs on YouTube - Berzerk, Space Guerrilla, Battle Zone, Qix, Gorf.
- David’s ‘Last’ pick: Waymo
- David’s ‘Everything’ pick: Apple II on Wikipedia
- Apple II Reference Manual PDF
- 'Something’: TwitterPeek on Museum of Failure
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Music: Will LaPorte
First, Last, Everything is a MacStories podcast.
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