Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s eery ability to predict the future, I went lurking around YouTube to see if I could find similar pronouncements from one of the other greats of science fiction, Isaac Asimov. I failed in that task, but discovered something that ties Asimov directly into Futurama.
There’s a couple of very cool things here:
• Isaac Asimov, dictating the original three laws of robotics. That can’t be anything but cool.
• This isn’t intended to poke fun at anybody’s accent, human or alien. Heck, it’s Isaac Asimov! I’m tempted to declare that “rowbut” is the official standard pronunciation — I mean, who’s better qualified to state how it should be pronounced?
• It makes me wonder: Is Zoidberg a deliberate Asimov homage — Futurama’s quite well known for dropping science in-jokes into scripts wherever possible — or just coincidental?