How Matt Groening’s Childhood Fear of Robots Led to the Creation of ‘Futurama’

NFT jokes aside, Futurama is still very much beloved by its dedicated fans. The show, which simply refuses to stay dead, is returning for at least two more seasons on Hulu, and is now the subject of a fancy new coffee-table book, for those art lovers with disposable incomes who enjoy the antics of Dr. Zoidberg more than the fashions of Tom Ford and/or the gloopy clocks of Salvador Dali.   

The Art of Futurama includes early concept art and sketches, as well as interviews with the creatives behind the show. It also boasts an introduction from creator Matt Groening, who revealed that childhood trauma played a role in Futurama’s origin. 

No, not the trauma of saying goodbye to your fossilized canine best friend forever. 

Groening’s intro begins with a lengthy description of how he was terrified of robots as a child, thanks to movies like The Phantom Creeps, which features an 8-foot tall killer robot with a face that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger on quaaludes.

Groening recalled that his brother routinely exploited his fears, and even made him afraid of The Wizard of Oz by telling him that it stars a “heartless robot” who “carries a big axe,” which is technically accurate. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, Groening’s brother once lured him into the family basement with the promise of custard, then jumped out wearing a robot costume made of cardboard boxes, causing ‘lil Matt Groening to wet his pants.

So why did Groening later create a cartoon series that’s chock-full of robots? Isn’t that a little like Indiana Jones becoming a snake handler? “My fear of robots eventually turned into a love of all things futuristic,” Groening explained. As a teenager, he became addicted to science-fiction novels by authors like Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut and Arthur C. Clark.

Even though Groening eventually came to love sci-fi, and take inspiration from his favorite books, TV shows and movies for Futurama, it’s not hard to see the remnants of that childhood terror in the show. Sure, Bender is lovable and (mostly) harmless, but robo-anxiety is a recurring theme. Even some Bender storylines were pretty creepy, like in the werewolf movie parody “The Honking.”

I mean, this is a show in which there’s a literal Robot Devil. And even Santa Claus is an unstoppable bloodthirsty killing machine in robot form.

But perhaps the clearest manifestation of Groening’s old phobia was in the Season One episode "Fear of a Bot Planet," which found Fry and Leela being targeted by an entire planet of human-hating robot separatists.

Come to think of it, Fry and Leela’s plan to infiltrate Chapek 9 by dressing up as robots is not unlike how the Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion and Heartless Killer Robot Tin Man disguise themselves to enter the Wicked Witch’s castle during the climax of The Wizard of Oz, which Groening was so scared of as a kid.

Another win for deeply rooted prepubescent emotional scars.