10 TV Shows That Made Fun Of Their Fans
3. Futurama Calls Its Fans Huge Perverts
In a pretty bizarre Futurama episode called Neutopia where all the characters swap gender, the writers make a funny jab towards fans who sexualize the show's characters.
Towards the beginning of the episode, the Planet Express crew is brainstorming ways to pay their mortgage. Bender and the rest of the men suggest making a sexy Planet Express calendar with Amy and Leela, and then later on, Fry, Bender, Hermes, Zoidberg, the Professor, and Scruffy all pose as their female selves.
They're able to sell enough calendars to make the money, and Leela says, "Thank God most of our fans are huge perverts!" This is obviously a reference to the Futurama fans themselves, many of whom draw sexy fan art of the characters and who were probably thrilled to see Leela and Amy in skimpy outfits earlier on. After all, it doesn't really make sense that Planet Express itself has fans, so what else could Leela be referring to?
There's also an even clearer reference to the audience in the episode The Why of Fry when Big Brain says, "Detecting trace amounts of mental activity. Possibly a dead weasel or a cartoon viewer." These two lines are essentially calling fans dumb perverts, but it's obviously in a loving, jokey way.