10 Best Futurama Guest Stars (Who Played Themselves)

With the significantly tough challenge of stepping out of The Simpsons' shadow ahead of it, Futurama had to find a way of putting itself on the cartoon map. It ultimately achieved this through futuristic storylines out of the reach of other shows, and a cast of characters outside the typical set up of an American family.

As early as its very first episode however, Futurama was helped by a couple of big name guest stars, in the form of Dick Clark and Leonard Nimoy. The show continued to bring impressive celebrities in throughout its run, but not so often that it became a detriment, or overshadowed the episodes themselves.

In its later years, The Simpsons has fallen into the trap of using big name celebrities as a means to boost ratings and bring in more viewers. Fortunately however, Futurama opted to do this, instead bringing in special guest stars for a joke or two and as a treat for its loyal fans.

Despite having a long, long list of guest stars, there are only a handful that actually came onto to the show to portray themselves. The likes of Sigourney Weaver and Sir Patrick Stewart were excellent, but voiced characters rather than their own head in a jar.

Still, the ones that did voice themselves were brilliant, and didn't mind having a joke at that their own expense in the process.

Season two's The Lesser of Two Evils is more well known for introducing Flexo -who, for a long time, was possibly the best one episode character the show could boast.

The episode did however, also featured the host of The Price is Right, Bob Barker, as the host of the Miss Universe pageant.

After the crew fail to deliver the tiara to be presented to the winner, Mr. Barker called them human garbage, and made it clear in no uncertain terms that there would be hell to pay if they didn't find it.

The animal rights activist even went as far as skinning them alive, which he'd have been fine with so long as no one wore the skin. We're still not sure how this would have threatened Bender, however, but it was still an entertaining cameo from an American TV legend.