The Matt Groening Grand Unified Theory

The new season of Futurama confirms its connection to Disenchantment, which opens up a whole host of possible repercussions.

Since the show’s debut in 2018, there has been a fan theory claiming that Disenchantment—the animated fantasy series featuring the story of Princess Bean, her friends, and her adventures in the kingdom of Dreamland—shares the same universe as Futurama, the animated sci-fi series featuring the story of 20th century delivery boy Phillip J. Fry and his adventures in the 30th century after accidentally getting frozen in a cryogenic chamber. Both shows are created and executive produced by Matt Groening (who also created and executive produces The Simpsons) and both series feature a number of shared voice actors, but a recent Futurama episode further strengthens the ties between these two shows, causing a number of eerie parallels between them to suddenly make a lot more sense.

The Theory

The story begins in July 2010 with the airing of “The Late Phillip J. Fry,” an episode of Futurama dealing with the intricacies and complications of time travel. In the episode, Professor Farnsworth invents a time machine that can only move forward in time. However, when testing it with Fry and Bender by travelling one minute into the future, the elderly Professor accidentally falls over while pulling the handle, and when they stop the machine, they discover that they have travelled to the year 10,000. Trapped in the far future with a time machine that can only go forward, they resolve to travel further into the future until they find a civilization that has invented a backwards time machine that they could use. However, they cannot find it, and they eventually find themselves on a dead Earth. Surprisingly at peace with the situation, they resolve to grab a beer and watch the universe end. After witnessing the heat death of the universe, they are shocked to discover a new Big Bang resulting in a new universe identical to the old one, allowing them to travel forward to their original year … after a second trip around the timeline (the Professor falls over again). A favorite among fans—and Matt Groening himself (Fitzpatrick)—the episode won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards in 2011 (“Outstanding”).

Fast forward to August 2018, where Futurama has been off the air since 2013 (its second cancellation), and Groening and company have created Disenchantment, their third animated series, for Netflix. In the final episode of the first season, “Dreamland Falls,” the demon Luci uses a crystal ball to “rewind” time fifteen years to investigate the poisoning of King Zøg’s first wife, Queen Dagmar. And, as scenes of the past flicker in and out in the room, a familiar vehicle briefly blips into view…

The Professor’s forward-only time machine, with Professor Farnsworth, Fry, and Bender in tow.

As one could expect, the fan community blew up, with many people connecting the two shows as part of a shared universe. Writer Alex Leadbeater, of Screen Rant, hypothesized that the scene places “Disenchantment at some point in Futurama’s past,” while Matt Miller, of Esquire, references a speculation that the series takes place sometime between Fry’s “present” day of 2000 and Futurama’s initial year of 3000 (as shown from this clip from the pilot episode, there was a feudal period between the fall of our civilization and the rise of the future one):

And, finally, fast forward to August 2023, where Futurama has been renewed by Hulu and is halfway through its first batch of new episodes, and Netflix drops the fifth and final season of Disenchantment. In the Futurama episode “I Know What You Did Next Xmas,” the Professor pulls his time machine out of the mothballs, adjusts it so that it can now go backwards in time, and travels back to the year 2801 in an attempt to make some adjustments to the murderous Robot Santa, thus allowing him to save his current holiday season of 3023. Afterwards, he accidentally shifts the time machine backwards further into the past and, rather than shift it back into forward, he opts to circle around the timeline again to get to his correct time. And, as we enter the previous version of the universe from the end and travel backwards to 3023, we pass by this:

It's the same crystal ball room in Zøg’s castle, with Disenchantment’s Bean, Elfo, and Luci hanging out.

Now, I’m having difficulty reading the date gauge as it spins wildly back to 3023, but according to Comic Book Resources writer Brandon Zachary it appears that the display registers that this crossover occurs sometime in the 6000s. If this is true, this means that Disenchantment takes place at some point in the 60th century … a time period far, far away from Futurama’s “world of tomorrow.” And, considering the history of Earth—past and future—that we learned of in “The Late Phillip J. Fry,” the world of Disenchantment fits right in.

“Is It Just Me, or is the World Ending More Often These Days?”

Now, before continuing, an aside for context—while lacking hard evidence, there are some who speculate that multiple civilizations could potentially have risen, thrived, and fallen on this planet in its distant past. This theory, dubbed the Silurian Hypothesis, speculates that “human beings might not be the first intelligent life forms to have evolved on this planet and that if there really were precursors some 100 millions years ago, virtually all signs of them would have been lost by now” (Westmaas). Considering the fact that our planet is 4.5 billion years old (“How”), the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago (“When”), homo sapiens have been around for only the last 300,000 years (“Homo sapiens”), and modern civilization began roughly 6,000 years ago (“Key”), that leaves an enormous span of time for the Earth to be fallow.

(Also, consider that the Earth could potentially be here at least another five billion years, at which point it will be destroyed when our sun becomes a red giant and incinerates it [Tillman]. Plenty of time for another species or civilization to evolve and take over).

And as for the ruins that these civilizations would leave behind, it would be a lot less than you think. Now, I’m no scientist, but I’ve watched a lot of the History Channel’s 2008-2010 series Life After People, a series that played with the thought experiment that, should humanity disappear today, how long would it take for our great works to crumble. Based on argument made by this series, the majority of our civilization’s accomplishments would be reclaimed by nature rather fast, geologically speaking, with a few exceptions:

Look, I’m not here to try and say that this really happened. All I’m trying to do here is to establish the concept that our Earth could potentially host multiple civilizations during its existence and, as this is a common theme for both science fiction and fantasy genres, acknowledge how it would easily fit into a continuity shared by both television shows.

Brave New, New World

Picture, if you will, a global catastrophe hitting the Earth of the 30th century (or, to preclude any outside interference by any of the alien races on Futurama, a galactic catastrophe). Society collapses, leaving only a handful of survivors. Over time—say, several hundred years—buildings will decay and collapse due to wind and rain, urban areas and our technology will be reclaimed by nature, and wildlife will reassert itself across the planet. Any remaining technologies not destroyed by time would be rediscovered as artifacts and used to rebuild, which could explain Steamland. Speaking of which, over time, new nations and civilizations will arise to replace the old ones. And, over the next 30,000 years, things will continue to evolve and change.

The continuation of evolution would be of particular note here, especially considering the sheer number of alien species and human variants who would have been marooned on Earth after the great disaster. In fact, it might explain a number of the fantasy creatures shown on Disenchantment.

For example, the salamander-like citizens of Dankmire (prominently featured in the Disenchantment episode “Swamp and Circumstance”) could have evolved from Amphibiosan survivors … especially if they included Amphibiosan / human hybrids like Kif and Amy’s children (from the Futurama episode “Children of a Lesser Bog”).

And Tess the Giant, from the Disenchantment episode “Love’s Tender Rampage,” could have been the descendant of Amazonians, from the classic Futurama episode “Amazon Women in the Mood.”

And the mermaids—who first appeared in the Disenchantment episode “The Very Thing”—could have spawned from ancient survivors of the lost city of Atlanta, from the Futurama episode “The Deep South.”

It is also worth mentioning that even the sci-fi world of Futurama hosts a shockingly wide array of fantasy creatures of its own, including zombies (from the Futurama original film Bender’s Big Score), gargoyles (from the episode “Teenage Mutant Leela’s Hurdles”), dark wizards (from “Crimes of the Hot”), Bigfoot (from “Spanish Fry”), unicorns (from “Leela and the Genestalk”), and vampires (from “Meanwhile”). This is, after all, a world where even the Tooth Fairy is head of the F.B.I.

A far future setting for Disenchantment would also explain the character of Satan. Shown wearing (or, at the very least, disguised) as a handsome demon wearing flashy suits that are suspiciously out of place in a supposedly medieval setting, Slick Nick describes himself as having fought “God, God’s brother, the Lutherans, and thousands of years of unauthorized use of my image on cheap Halloween masks, biker’s butt tattoos, and cans of overly salted deviled ham.” He also casually references things such as cilantro, dating apps, band aids, and gummy bears, so unless he is also a cyclical being that can transcend the universal timeline, I say this is further proof of a future setting.

Finally, for those of you who question the interplay between Futurama’s science and Disenchantment’s magic, remember Hermes’ statement from the end of “Rage Against the Vaccine”: “Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science.”

And, really, would the world of Disenchantment being from the 60th century any weirder than the the ruling giraffes from the year 1,000,000 1/2; the pink-skinned, super-intelligent creatures from the year 5,000,000; or the rampaging machines of the year 10,000,000?

Works Cited

Fitzpatrick, Kevin. “Comic-Con 2010: Futurama Goes to the Future?” Internet Archive. Internet Archive. 24 Jul. 2010. <https://web.archive.org/web/20100727102526/http://www.ugo.com/tv/comic-con-2010-futurama>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

“Homo sapiens.” Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. N.p. 22 Jan. 2021. <https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-sapiens>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

“How Old is Earth?” American Museum of Natural History. N.p. n.d. <https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/the-world-before-darwin/how-old-is-earth#:~:text=Today%2C%20we%20know%20from%20radiometric,have%20been%20taken%20more%20seriously.>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

“Key Components of Civilization.” National Geographic. National Geographic Society. n.d. <https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/key-components-civilization/>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

Leadbeater, Alex. “Disenchantment Easter Egg Confirms Netflix Show Exists in the Futurama Universe.” Screen Rant. screenrant.com. 18 Aug. 2018. <https://screenrant.com/disenchantment-netflix-show-futurama-universe-crossover/>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

Miller, Matt. “This Fan Theory Claims Disenchantment and Futurama Take Place in the Same Universe.” Esquire. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. 24 Aug. 2018. <https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a22822437/futurama-disenchantment-same-universe/>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

“Outstanding Animated Program – 2011.” Emmys.com. Television Academy. n.d. <https://www.emmys.com/awards/nominees-winners/2011/outstanding-animated-program>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

Tillman, Nola Taylor. “Red Giant Stars: Facts, Definition & the Future of the Sun.” Space.com. Future US, Inc. 29 July 2023. <https://www.space.com/22471-red-giant-stars.html#:~:text=In%20approximately%20five%20billion%20years,to%20the%20red%20giant%20sun.>. Accessed 8 Sept. 2023.

Westmaas, Reuben. “An Advanced Civilization Could Have Ruled Earth Millions of Years Ago, Says the Silurian Hypothesis.” Discovery. Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. 1 Aug. 2019. <https://www.discovery.com/exploration/Advanced-Civilization-Silurian-Hypothesis>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

“When Did Dinosaurs Become Extinct?” U.S. Geological Survey. N.p. n.d. <https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/when-did-dinosaurs-become-extinct#:~:text=Dinosaurs%20went%20extinct%20about%2065,for%20about%20165%20million%20years.>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

Zachary, Brandon. “Futurama Teases How It Shares a World with Another Series.” Comic Book Resources. Comic Book Resources. 5 Sept. 2023. <https://www.cbr.com/futurama-season8-teases-sharing-world-with-disenchantment/>. Accessed 7 Sept. 2023.

Images and video courtesy of the Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Television, Hulu, Netflix, the Curiosity Company, and the ULULU Company. YouTube videos courtesy of the OzChomp and HISTORY channels.