‘Futurama’ Fans Discover How A Tragedy Changed A Classic Joke — For the Better
‘Futurama’ Fans Discover How A Tragedy Changed A Classic Joke — For the Better
In 2011, Comedy Central wisely changed an innocuous joke with newly improper implications
Found this interesting. I never saw the updated version, but I am guessing I probably wouldn't have noticed the change. Just a random article I came across thinking you might enjoy. Or not. If I die, tell my wife hello.
Here's the single sentence you're looking for out of this several-paragraph long AI generated article:
They changed Bender's career chip to read "chainsaw juggler" instead of "prime minister of Norway" because of a terrorist attack on the actual prime minister of Norway, which works better because Bender had his dismembered arm.
Thank you very much.
Doing the lord's work.
Cracked.com is still around?
It’s a shell of a shell. They fired all the creative talent to cut down on costs.
It shows. They did this same article a decade ago.
Meh… I like it random. Although if chainsaw juggler is an acceptable substitute :-)
I feel like chainsaw juggler is a better joke because it implies how bender came to be in possession of a severed arm. Like "why does he have a severed... oh... lol"
It definitely wins the one line backstory contest.
Don’t get me wrong, both are great jokes.
I suppose I like the other because it’s the opposite. I don’t view it as random throw away, I think it implies that Bender has a lot of weird stuff going on… stuff that’s maybe better to not know about.
He is only one spine short of a Mouseketeers reunion after all ;-) 
I think the original joke was funnier. It was unexpected. The new joke felt a bit lazy.
It seems a pretty farfetched connection since the terrorist attack had nothing to do with politicians or severed limbs, the only connection is that a bad violent thing happened in Norway.
But probably still good to take out references to violence against specific political figures regardless, and the new joke is better imo
It’s eminently understandable why, with coverage of the terror attacks that killed 77 people dominating TV news at the time, Comedy Central executives in 2011 decided that reruns of the Futurama episode didn’t need to include the implication of the Prime Minister of Norway’s dismemberment when the terrorist who perpetrated the attacks targeted the actual Prime Minister with a car bomb
It makes sense at the time and that is the lense you need to look at the problem through. Depending on how close the air date of the rerun was to the attack I don't blame them as people may see it in poor taste despite the joke being there before the attack.
No doubt after the 11th sep or the London tube bombarding if a show rerun aired making light of those events an uproar could happen.
Crack kills... After Hours, and I'll never forgive then
The joke doesn't feel any different at all. Both uncensored and censored jokes are random for the sake of being random and still get completely overshadowed by multiple jokes from the same episode that are better.
I always thought it was just the arm Bender had around at the time, and since severed arms go bad...
I have only seen this episode on DVD, and didn’t know they changed it.
I don’t like that they change anything for streaming, either to remove jokes that didn’t age well or for attempts to upscale or whatever. It reminds me of when they were inserting product placement ads in the background of sitcoms a few years back.
But there's absolutely nothing linking any then-or-since Norwegian Prime minister to the 22 July attack? I say this as a Norwegian - not only is the original joke simply not offensive in any way, it is hard to try to envision any way it might be. How hard would one have to try to find something objectionable about this?
Shit article, original joke was funnier.