Talk:List of recurring alien characters from Futurama

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Futurama Portal
This article is part of WikiProject Futurama, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the articles about Futurama on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
List This article has been rated as list-Class on the assessment scale.
Mid This article is on a subject of mid-importance for Futurama-related articles.
WikiProject Futurama tasks:

Contents

[edit] Requested move

[edit] Ugly title

This page has a very long ugly title. All the characters in the list are alien except for Seymour, who could easily be merged to Fry's page (he only played a role in one episode, and appeared as an almost unnoticable background prop in another). Laïka 21:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Note that the original discussion for naming this article after the split can be found here for anyone that is interested. I've always felt that Seymour shouldn't be counted as a recurring character but others are opposed to that idea, or have been in the past. I would Support the move and name change. Stardust8212 22:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I also Support the name change. "alien" beats "non-human, non-robot" for clarity anyday, and Seymour can get a paragraph on Fry's page. BryanEkers 16:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetical is wrong

There are many ways to organize an article like this one, but alphabetical would be the last one I'd use. Chronological introduction, for sure. Frequency of appearance, ok. Importance to the plotline or story arc development, absolutely. But alphabetical? That would make sense in some contexts, but I can't imagine using it in this one. It's particularly bad because the article was originally formatted to keep members of the same species together, which the alpha-ordering destroys, yet the formatting was not fixed. Maury 15:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It just makes sense to make a list alphabetical. When you look at the table of contents that is the easiest way to navigate and requires no explanation to readers. It is also the way all the other Futurama lists are organized see List of recurring robot characters from Futurama, List of recurring human characters from Futurama, List of Futurama products, List of planets in Futurama, List of Futurama animals and List of Futurama places. The decision to alphabetize was originally discussed here before this page was split from that one. I still prefer alphabetical order, this may not be a dictionary but you may notice that encyclopedias are also alphabetized. Stardust8212 16:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Well that last statement just isn't true. Look at the list of aircraft engines for instance. Or photographic methods. Or just about any science topic. Like I said, it makes sense in some contexts but not others, and given that the characters on this page were clearly intended to be grouped by "race", by making the alphabetical you end up with oddities like the Nibblonians being spread out all over the page. I really don't think that's what people would want to see. Maury 19:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
The point I was trying to make was that when looking something up in a regular encyclopedia you would have to start by looking it up alphabetically, that is how encyclopedias are organized (by which I mean paper encyclopedias and yes I know Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia), apparently it made a bit more sense in my head. As far as other organizational methods go I don't think a chronological list would work here since the show doesn't keep a consistent timeline and it seems odd to me to expect a person to know when a character was introduced in order to find information on them when it would be much easier to look them up by name especially considering that this show was produced and broadcast in different orders and there are already enough issues dealing with that in just the major articles (see Talk:List of Futurama episodes#THIS IS ALL WRONG!!!). As far as organizing by number of appearances most of these characters only appear two or three times and you'd play into your own issue with splitting up the nibblonians since Nibbler has made many more appearances than the other nibblonians and Lrrr has appeared more times than Ndnd. Also how do you figure the characters were "clearly intended to be grouped by race"? Before your edits the Nibblonians were already grouped together so the only ungrouped race is Lrrr and Ndnd. I guess I'm not against merging those two as "Omicronians" similar to what is in the Nibblonians section however I don't think making Ndnd a subsection of Lrrr is necessarily the way to go there. So...that's my thoughts on the subject. By the way, what order were you going for when you previously reorganized? It doesn't appear to be by alphabet, timeline, number of appearances or plot significance as far as I can tell. This is why I really have an issue with it, if the reason they are in a specific order is not inherently clear then it only makes things harder to find rather than easier. Stardust8212 20:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Gah. Sorry, I don't have the interest level to reply to a 2000+ char message. Maury 23:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, just wanted to reply to all your points, I guess I was a bit overly thorough... Stardust8212 00:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nibblonian Information

I've added a few minor sentences to the Nibblonian section. Life span, eating habits, pooping dark matter, etc.

I'm only just getting used to contributing here so any feedback on processes would be very welcome Fenton Bailey 15:48, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other

What about those parasitic worms that lived in Fry, should they get a mention?

[edit] Harold Zoid

Where's Harold? I think he's featured in Futurama prominently enough to deserve a mention, can't remember exactly how often he appears but he plays a very prominent role in "That's Lobstertainment!" and is a relative of a major character in the series. Feedback? --Marshmellis (talk) 06:32, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

He only appeared in that one episode so he is not a recurring character and does not belong on this list. Stardust8212 13:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Wasn't there once a list of one-time characters once? What happened to it? We should definitely make one. Other than Harold Zoid, there are quite a few characters who are left out of a list just because they only appeared once. These guys need love too! (Don't blame me for trying to be cute.) Immblueversion (talk) 15:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
List of secondary characters from Futurama was deleted. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of secondary characters from Futurama, if you want to recreate it you should go to Deletion Review first, though I doubt you'll have any luck in this case. Stardust8212 15:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Somebody forgot about...

[Kif Kroker]!

[edit] Somebody forgot about...

Kif Kroker! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.33.38.52 (talk) 08:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Should we add Nudar?

Nudar is the leader of those alien nudist scammers and the main antagonist of Bender's Big Score. I know that the only thing he appeared in was that movie, and he ended up dying in it, but could we add him anyway? He seems to be too important of a character to be left out. Also, since they're making four episodes out of this movie, you can say that he is a recurring character for being in four episodes. And in case you don't feel the same way I do, wasn't there a list of one-time characters from this show once? It's just been so long. Immblueversion (talk) 15:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Space Pope

I was looking through this page, when I saw this section for The Space Pope:

He is mentioned in "A Bicyclops Built for Two" when Bender rhetorically asks "Is the Space Pope reptilian?", a parody of "Is the Pope Italian?", an early 20th century joke that has fallen into disuse following the papacies of Polish-born John Paul II and German-born Benedict XVI.

This seems... well, wrong. Surely it's a reference to "Is the Pope a Catholic?"--FuegoFish (talk) 08:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hypnotoad

As for the sound of the Hypnotoad, it sounds almost identical to The Beam, an instrument created by Michael Steams, and used in the film Chronos. Can somebody look into this? http://youtube.com/watch?v=ANrzFt3rIkM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.255.41 (talk) 02:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Trim List?

I think this list needs to be trimmed down to characters that are actually recurring by which I mean characters that make more than one significant appearance. This does not include characters that were significant in one episode and just happened to also appear in another one where they just sort of flashed past. As of this writing the list consists of:

  1. Brain Slugs
  2. Brainspawn
  3. Elzar
  4. Glab
  5. Horrible Gelatinous Blob
  6. The Hyperchicken
  7. Hypnotoad
  8. Kif Kroker
  9. Lovey Bears
  10. Lrrr
  11. Morbo
  12. Ndnd
  13. Nibblonians
  14. The Space Pope

I would recommend removing Glab, Lovey Bears and The Space Pope. Both Glab and the Lovey Bears only make one significant appearance in the series and The Space Pope never has any significant appearances and is hardly on screen for more than a few seconds. A trim of this sort would bring this list into line with what has been done on the lists for humans and for robots. Are there any objections to this or is there anybody who thinks they could find sources for notability of any of these three? Stardust8212 23:39, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Since there has been no response or objections for two weeks I will go ahead with this. Stardust8212 23:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Garlic shampoo for brain slugs

Garlic is known to kill leeches. "Effect of Ale, Garlic, and Soured Cream on the Appetite of Leeches" by Anders Baerheim and Hogne Sandvik of the University of Bergen, Norway in about 1994. They did this study as leeches are used in surgery but sometimes won't bite.

"Two leeches placed on the forearm smeared with garlic started to wiggle and crawl without assuming the sucking position ... Their condition deteriorated. When placed on a bare arm they tried to initiate feeding but did not manage to coordinate the process. Both died 2.5 hours after the exposure to garlic. For ethical reasons the garlic arm was abandoned at this point."

The authors won an IgNoble prize for their paper, which is how I know about it! I don't read the British Medical Journal... :-)

Dyakson (talk) 10:46, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Omicronians

Would it make sense to make a level two heading for Omicronians and level three subheadings for Lrrr and Ndnd similar to the current headings for the Nibblonians? Seems like that would increase the usability of this list especially since the entry for Ndnd is so short and can't reasonably be expanded without duplicating most of what is already in the section on Lrrr. Thoughts? Stardust8212 12:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)