10 Things You Learn Rewatching Futurama

As well as the general hilarious little references and jokes going on in the background, there’s the Alienese too: that language of symbols often seen on billboards or signs. You’ll see it even on a first watch - at least some of it - but it’s not until a rewatch that you’ll really understand it.

Alienese is a relatively simple language, made up of 26 symbols which each correspond to our own Latin alphabet. In the pilot, we see a poster labelled ‘Drink Slurm’, then another later which has the ‘Drink’ in Alienese.

Fans translated the entire alphabet very quickly, and Futurama did end up using a second, more complex Alienese language, though that too was figured out by fans.

There’s lots of apps and websites which translate Alienese available now, so if you’ve watched the show so much you know the scenes by heart, it might be worth using the Alienese to freshen up.

Some of the Alienese is just standard advertising, but most have a clever hidden joke, if you can be bothered translating. It even featured in The Simpsons, in their Lost parody, when an Alienese inscription read ‘Watch Futurama Thursdays At 10’.