Movies - TV
How Donald Duck Inspired Futurama’s Darkest Running Joke
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
There are all manner of fantastical technologies on “Futurama” that often leave viewers wondering why anyone would create them, such as the coin-operated suicide booths.
While the idea of a suicide booth is rather dark, creator Matt Groening shared the surprising source of the machine’s inspiration: the 1937 Donald Duck short “Modern Inventions.”
In the commentary track for the first episode of “Futurama,” Groening explained, “Donald Duck went to a museum of the future and he did all these coin-op devices that injured him.”
Donald Duck is attacked by the bizarre automated contraptions and nightmarish helper robots, similar to what happens inside the suicide booths in “Futurama.”
Those who use the booths in the show can choose a “quick and painless” death or “slow and horrible,” which features chainsaws, electroshock, and melon ballers.
The booth’s automated voice is just as polite as the one Donald heard from the automated barber’s chair in “Modern Inventions,” one of the various machines that attacked him.