Futurama was the name of the famous General Motors exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair that depicted a futuristic landscape.

Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth is named after the inventor Philo T. Farnsworth, one of the pioneers of television, whose invention was premiered at the 1939 New York World's Fair, along with the Futurama exhibit.

Fry's first name is Philip, a tribute to the late Phil Hartman. Hartman was originally cast to do the voice of Zapp Brannigan.

Some of the show's sound effects are from other science-fiction television series, including The Jetsons and Star Trek

The Christmas episode "A Tale of Two Santas" was originally slated to air in December of 2000, but was deemed too violent for the show's Sunday 7pm timeslot. However, the episode finally aired a year later on December 23, 2001 at 9:30PM (Eastern Standard Time).

Lines of an unknown language, similar to hieroglyphics can be seen in varying locations throughout the intro song. According to Matt Groening, the glyphs *do* mean something, and it's up to loyal viewers to figure them out.

At the beginning of the show, during the opening credits and theme song, there is always something different displayed in text at the bottom of the screen. At the very end of the theme song, there is always something different displayed on the screen before the ship crashes into it. This is reminiscent of Matt Groening's cult phenomenon of The Simpsons, as there are three distinctly varying elements in the intro music as well. (Bart's chalkboard writings, the method of the family sitting down on the couch and Lisa's saxophone solo as she leaves band practice.)

The hieroglyphics in the opening titles read: "Tasty Human Burgers". There are also two other examples of that alphabet (one just on the left a few frames after the ship passes through the R, and one during a quick pan to the right).

J is Matt Groening's favorite middle initial because of Bullwinkle J. Moose; hence the J in Philip J. Fry, Hubert J. Farnsworth, Cubert J. Farnsworth, Homer J. Simpson, Abraham J. Simpson, and Bart J. Simpson.

The producers changed the show's opening in which a Planet Express rocket crashes into a giant TV screen. This scene was removed after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A few months later the scene was put back into the show's opening. This did not apply to East Coast airings of the episodes between late Sept. 2001-early April 2002 or any reruns of the episodes of this era.

In "Space Pilot 3000" Fry walks up to a tube that transports people. The person in front of him says, "Radio City Mutant Hall," and zips up in the tube. When the show first aired the person said, "JFK Jr. Airport," but it was changed after John Kennedy Jr. (a.k.a. JFK Jr.)'s death.

The show was cancelled in May 2002. The last first-run episode of the show aired on 10 August 2003.

In the episode "Bendin' In The Wind", the cast is chased through the streets of San Francisco. During the chase, a green Volkswagen-esqe hovercar keeps appearing. This is a sly reference to Bullitt (1968) in which a green Volkswagen shows up several times during the famous car chase. Also, the Camper-van the characters drive loses a hubcap which re-appears in the next scene, just like Det. Lt. Bullitt's car which loses a total of six hub-caps in the car chase. See also: Goofs for the movie Bullitt (1968)

In "Fry and the Slurm Factory", we find out Bender's processor is a 6502, the same processor that powered the Apple II in 1978. The Commodore 64 used a 6502 processor, too.

Creator Matt Groening admits to naming Bender the robot after John Bender, a character in The Breakfast Club

In the episode "Parasites Lost" it is revealed that Leela's apartment number is 1I (Leela only has one eye). Also, in the show's pilot, she says that her officer code is 1B-DI ("one beady eye").

According to Matt Groening, viewers were able to decipher the alien language that is sometimes seen in the background the same night as the pilot episode aired. The only primer for the code in that episode was a sign that read "Drink Slurm". The sign appeared once with the word "Drink" written in the alien code and once in plain English. This resulted in the producers creating a second, more complex alien code to be seen in the background of later episodes.

In "A Tale of Two Santas", the conveyer belt has three speeds, slow, fast and Lucy, a reference to the super fast conveyer belt at the chocolate factory that Lucy worked at in I Love Lucy

In the episode "The Honking" Bender sees a computer code of a long string of ones and zeros written on a wall, which doesn't make any sense. He then sees it reflected in a mirror, and it translates into "666", which scares him. This is a reference to The Shining where the odd word "REDRUM" becomes "MURDER" when seen in a mirror.

Zapp Brannigan's portrait in his captain's quarters is based on the famous White House portrait of US President John F. Kennedy. They are both in the same distinctive pose, arms crossed against the chest and solemnly looking downward.

In episode "I, Roommate", Bender's apartment number is 00100100. This is 36 in binary, which is the ASCII code for '$'.

Writer/producer David X. Cohen is a Dungeons and Dragons player. References to the game have been included in the show, including a cameo by D&D creator E. Gary Gygax, and Al Gore referring to himself as a "12th level vice-president". At least two D&D monsters have made appearances as well: a Rust Monster at a veterinarian's office, and a beholder appearing as a guard in the bureaucratic building.

In the episode "A Bicyclops Built For Two" (2000), Leela dresses up like Peg Bundy, the character that Katey Sagal played in Married... with Children. She also refers to the other Cyclops as Al, in reference to Al Bundy.

Also in the episode "A Bicyclops Built For Two", Leela's hair is done in a direct imitation of Peg, from "Married With Children", and she greets her boyfriend, "Hey, Al..." just like Peg. Both Leela and Peg are played by Katey Sagal.

In the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" The "ungrateful gargoyle" that Professor Farnsworth is searching for is named Pazuzu, which is the name of a Mesopotamian demon who was considered the King of evil air spirits. It is the name of the demon who possessed Regan (Linda Blair) in the The Exorcist (1973).

In one episode, Fry screams out, "HOWARD STERN IS OVERRATED!" Billy West, the voice of Fry, was a regular on Howard Stern's radio show for many years.

The Wong's Mars ranch house is the same as the Benedict's house in Giant

In "Fry and the Slurm Factory," the Professor and Leela are playing a variant of Scrabble. On the Professor's tile tray, you can see F-U-U-T-A-M-R. On the board you can see the tiles arranged to say "one eye", "prop only", "donut", and "Matt area".

On the season 2 DVD, fans got a alien translator which could translate all of the wierd alien messages throughout the show.This included the message from Leela's parents.

In the episode "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", the Robot Devil spins a large wheel featuring the names of various robots. As it spins, the following names are visible: Flexo, Daisy Mae 128K, Crushinator, Roberto, Helper, Kwanzabot, Robot I-X, Clamps, Hedonismbot, Fatbot, Linctron, Destructor, Santa, Joey, Tinny Tim, Chain Smoker, Angleyne, Execu-tor, Preacherbot, Fembot, Hair Robot, Unit 2013, Donbot, Boxy, Lulubelle 7, Humorbot 5.0, Calculon, URL, Foreigner, iZac, Cartridge Unit, Barkerbot, Teenbot, Gearshift. Q.T. McWhiskers, Deep Blue, iHawk, Cylon, Patchcord Adams, Liubot, Stage Mom 7.0, Sinclair 2K, Vending Machine, Oily, Coolometer, Andrew, Monique, Rab-bot, Lisa, Executive Gamma, Keg Robot, Greeting Card, Eurotrash 80, Nannybot 1.0, Emotitron Jr., Ceiling Fan, Hookerbot, Bender, and Robot Devil. Coincidently, Fry has actually met or come in contact with a great deal of these robots, going against what Devil Robot said about Fry "definitely probably not knowing him".

In the episode "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", we find out Bender named his hands Grabby and Squeezy.

One of the more subtle running jokes in the show is that in the future, owls have replaced pigeons and rats as being pests. If you look carefully in many episodes, you can see owls pecking at food on the ground or coming out of mouse holes.

In the episode "A Bicyclops Built For Two" (2000), one of Al's brides-to-be is a Yithian, a creation of the American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. The Yithians, or members of the Great Race, are cone-shaped beings with four tentacle-like limbs, two of which end in claws while another ends in an oddly shaped head. They are time-travelling aliens interested primarily in knowledge. The Yithians are described in Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time".

In "Space Pilot 3000," Bender takes Fry to hide inside the Head Museum saying, "It's Free on Tuesdays." 31 December 2999 will, in fact, be a Tuesday.

In the "Space Pilot 3000" Episode, when Fry and Bender are on the run from Leela in the museum, Matt Groening's head can briefly be seen sitting on a shelf.

In the episode "A Leela of Their Own", Leela takes advice on Blurnsball from a descendant of Hank Aaron. He wears an Atlanta uniform, but instead of there being a tomahawk on it (like there would for an Braves jersey), it has a trident. This is a reference to the episode "The Deep South", where it is revealed that the city of Atlanta was moved to the middle of the ocean, where it sank to the bottom of the sea.

There were three alien languages. As of May 2004, the third has yet to be translated.

By the end of the series, Bender claims to be 40% zinc, 30% iron, 40% titanium, and 40% dolemite.

Over the course of the show, Bender's composition is revealed to be 30% iron, 40% dolomite, 40% titanium and 40% zinc, with a 0.04% nickel impurity. This is a result of the fact that the writers pretty much made it up as they went along and forgot to keep track of what they'd already stated about Bender's composition.

The show's creators said that after the show was cancelled it occurred to them that they should have done a parody of Martin Scorsese's films and called the episode "Gangs of New New York".

In the episode "Hell is Other Robots", Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer in The Simpsons, provides the voice of Beelzebot, the robot Devil. When Fry and Leela open the door to "Robot Hell", in the bottom right side of the screen there is a heart with an arrow through etched on the wall, reading "H.S 4 M.B", meaning Homer Simpson 4 Marge Bouvier, from The Simpsons.

Hermes and LaBarbra Conrad's home is based on the Huxtable family's house in The Cosby Show

Nibbler's shadow is visible under the table in all the episodes were Fry is in the cryogenic room.

In one episode it is said that they can translate the second alien language, but only into beta crypt 3, a language so complex that it is even less likely to understand, this is an inside joke, because the second alien language is in fact beta crypt 2 with symbols replacing the initial alphabet.

Matt Groening actually bought the rights to use the 30th Century Fox logo after Fox said they shouldn't use it. A couple months later, Fox said they loved it.

In the episode "A Head in the Polls", one of the heads on display in the Head Museum's Hall of Presidents is that of Jesse Ventura. His jar is labeled "Jesse 'The Head' Ventura".

In the episode "Future Stock", the real name of That Guy (according to the writers) is Steve Castle.

In "Time Keeps On Slipping", all of the Nuclear Mutants have names. There is Grotrian (named for a piano company) [misspelled in the DVD subtitles as "Grotreant"], Thorias (the Norse god Thor with a generic ending), Arachnion (because he's a spider), Armo (because he has five arms), and Lasero (because he shoots lasers).

In the episode "Roswell That Ends Well", the Conspiracy Nut takes two photographs. His second photo of the Planet Express ship comes out looking like the famous "Surgeon's Photograph" of the Loch Ness Monster.

As the opening credits cut to the final shot, just before the Planet Express Ship crashes, several characters are seen moving through one of the transport tubes. The very first guy to go through is reading a news paper, the headline reads, "Moon pie fight in Mars Bar."

In "Hell is Other Robots" the skit when Leela duels Robot devil in a fiddle contest is based on the song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by Charlie Daniels Band, in which the devil challenges a boy named Johnny to a fiddle contest and if Johnny won he would get a solid gold fiddle.

At the start of "Spanish Fry" the alien message on screen translates as: "Thanks for watching, Futurama slave army!"

Bender's first words where, "Bite my shiny metal ass."

Leela's full name is Turanga Leela. This is a reference to French composer Olivier Messiaen's "Turangalîla-Symphonie" (1948), an 80 minute work in ten movements for piano, ondes Martenot and orchestra. The name "Turangalîla" derives from two Sanscrit words which may be translated a number of ways, including "love song".

In Volume 4 DVD an Easter Egg can be found by clicking on the sandwiches in the fridge. It reveals a long alien message, the message reads: "This DVD includes a specially encoded Easter egg which you are now meticulously translating from an alien language because you have no life and are a compulsive nerdlinger, how sad. It's especially sad if you don't speak English and you have to translate the alien language into English and then into your own tongue and you come upon a word like nerdlinger which really isn't a word at all, but still aptly describes someone who would actually translate such a word twice and those of you who are reading this translation on a Futurama newsgroup aren't any better. We lurk on those newsgroups and we know what nerdlingers you guys are, too, of course, you're also probably our biggest fans, which is sad in its own way, but since you went to all this trouble to translate an Easter egg we do owe you something, so here's a secret about the show. The writers, producers, directors, and most of the actors who worked on the show are all nerdlingers too.

Continuity error: In "Hell is Other Robots", Bender gets a symbol welded on to his body. When he welds something on to the spaceship, the symbol disappears, but reappears in the next scene.

During the opening, old 1930's cartoons are played on a giant monitor and are different each time. In the episode "Roswell That Ends Well", the cartoon featured in the opening was played in the episode on a small TV.  Also when the title appears, a new message appears every time.

A joke in the first episode about "JFK Jr. Airport" was changed when the episode was re-run after his death to "Radio City Mutant Hall."

One episode had a scene where Fry pulls down his pants and moons a businesswoman named Mom. Her original dialogue was, "You call that an anus", but it only appeared in closed captioning and was redubbed with "You call that a pressed ham".

Cartoon Network has cencored the Professor's faveorite expletive, "Sweet zombie Jesus" on at least 2 occasions, removing the Jesus.