Ashes launched into space, a mysterious death still unresolved, and a reunion between Batman and Robin. Over the course of two decades, "Futurama" has had its fair share of celebrity guests. Unfortunately, not all of those beloved guest stars are still with us today.
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00:00Ashes launched into space, a mysterious death still unresolved, and a reunion between Batman
00:06and Robin.
00:07Over the course of two decades, Futurama has had its fair share of celebrity guests.
00:11Unfortunately, not all of those beloved guest stars are still with us today.
00:16Bea Arthur was an icon of both theater and television.
00:19On stage, she won a Tony for playing Vera Charles in the 1966 musical Mame, a role she
00:25reprised for the 1974 film adaptation.
00:28On the small screen, her all-in-the-family character Maude Finley was instantly popular
00:32enough to get her her own spinoff series, and playing Dorothy Spornack on The Golden
00:36Girls further cemented her legacy as one of the all-time comedic acting greats.
00:41In the Futurama episode, Amazon Women in the Mood, Arthur was the voice of the Finputer,
00:47an artificial intelligence that rules over the Amazons.
00:50Finputer sentences Fry, Cliff, and Zap to, quote, "...death by snusnu," with snusnu being
00:57how Amazons refer to sex.
00:59Bender discovers that the Finputer is actually a Fimbot pretending to be an all-powerful
01:04being who had escaped a similar situation from her own planet.
01:07I came here from a faraway planet, a planet ruled by a chauvinistic manputer that was
01:14really a manbot.
01:16On April 25, 2009, Arthur died from lung cancer at the age of 86.
01:21The lights of Broadway went dark in her honor three days after her death.
01:25In her will, Arthur bequeathed $300,000 to the Ali Forney Center, which offers housing
01:30and other services to homeless LGBTQ plus youth in New York City.
01:35The center's Be Arthur residence officially opened in 2015.
01:40Comedian Jan Hooks was one of the repertory cast members of Saturday Night Live from 1986
01:45through 1991.
01:47Already connected to Matt Groening's Fox cartoons as the original voice of Apu's wife Manjula
01:52on The Simpsons, she guest-starred on Futurama as the Fimbot Angeline in the episode,
01:57"'Bendless Love."
01:58Hi, Angeline.
01:59Whatcha up to?
02:00Makin' hangers.
02:01Guidance counselor said I had a knack for it.
02:05Angeline is the ex-wife of Bender's goateed doppelganger, Flexo.
02:11After Bender meets Angeline doing scab work during a strike, he impersonates Flexo to
02:15try to figure out her true feelings, only for this ridiculous plot to end up reigniting
02:20her love for her ex.
02:22Though Hooks continued to take in frequent acting work up until her death in 2014, it
02:26became harder for her due to health problems.
02:29While she survived leukemia in 2009, a throat tumor in 2014 proved unresponsive to chemotherapy.
02:36Given the choice between a total laryngectomy and hospice care, she chose the latter, dying
02:42at the age of 57 on October 9th, 2014.
02:46The Simpsons and SNL both paid tribute to her in the week following her death.
02:50The 2008 Futurama movie The Beast with a Billion Backs was one of the final acting
02:55roles for Brittany Murphy, who previously starred in such films as Clueless, Girl Interrupted,
03:008 Mile, and Sin City, as well as the animated series King of the Hill.
03:05In The Beast with a Billion Backs, she voiced Colleen O'Hallohan, a polyamorous police officer
03:11who dates Fry before ultimately becoming the one true love of the interdimensional tentacle
03:16monster Yeevo.
03:17For you and Yeevo!
03:18That's right, Fry.
03:19Thank you for introducing us.
03:21Yeevo has taught me what a narrow-minded prude I was before.
03:25The circumstances of Murphy's death by cardiac arrest on December 20th, 2009 remain a subject
03:31of controversy to this day.
03:33The coroner's autopsy report said that her death was the result of a combination of pneumonia,
03:37iron deficiency, and drug intoxication.
03:40Although both her mother, Sharon Murphy, and her husband, Simon Monjack, denied that she
03:45used drugs.
03:46Monjack died under the same circumstances in the same house on May 23rd, 2010.
03:52Sharon came to believe both deaths were due to toxic mold in the building.
03:56Brittany Murphy's father claimed that his daughter was deliberately poisoned with heavy
04:00metals, which Sharon denied.
04:02The controversy was covered in the HBO Max docuseries What Happened, Brittany Murphy?
04:07which many critics found exploitative.
04:10Depending on your age, you probably knew Estelle Harris best as either George Costanza's mother
04:15on Seinfeld or as the voice of Mrs. Potato Head in the Toy Story movies.
04:20In the Futurama episode Near Death Wish, she played Velma Farnsworth, the 210-year-old
04:26mother of Professor Farnsworth.
04:28Velma and her husband Ned live in the virtual reality matrix on the space retirement home
04:32known as the Near Death Star.
04:35When Fry reawakens Velma and Ned on a visit, the Professor is not happy about it, but the
04:40Farnsworths are eventually able to reconcile their differences.
04:44Oh, Mama, Daddy!
04:49Harris lived a long and happy life, dying of natural causes on April 2nd, 2022, just
04:55weeks before what would have been her 94th birthday.
04:59The honor of being the first of many guest stars in Futurama went to none other than
05:03Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy.
05:05The Star Trek actor, director, and writer was the first 20th century celebrity that
05:10Fry met as a head-in-a-jar in the show's pilot episode, Space Pilot 3000.
05:14It's a life of quiet dignity.
05:17Fading time!
05:22Nimoy's head was later granted a full body by an evil alien Trekkie in the episode Where
05:27No Fan Has Gone Before, which included the full main cast of the original Star Trek.
05:32Nimoy was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a form of lung disease
05:37linked to smoking, in January 2014.
05:40The actor had quit smoking 30 years earlier, and spent his final year urging others to
05:45quit.
05:46He went into a coma on February 25th, 2015, and died of COPD complications two days later
05:52at the age of 83.
05:53Loving tributes poured out from his Star Trek co-stars, and the many people inspired by
05:57his work, ranging from astronaut Buzz Aldrin to President Barack Obama.
06:02Nichelle Nichols, whose role as Uhura broke major ground for black women on television,
06:08made two guest appearances on Futurama.
06:10One of these was alongside Leonard Nimoy in the aforementioned Star Trek parody episode.
06:15The other was in a segment of Anthology of Interest 1, where she was part of Al Gore's
06:19team of vice-presidential action rangers dedicated to protecting the space-time continuum.
06:24Something's wrong.
06:25Murder isn't working and that's all we're good at.
06:28Following a stroke in 2015 and a diagnosis of dementia in 2018, Nichols retired from
06:34acting and went on one last tour of the fan convention circuit.
06:38Her living conditions in her final years were the subject of controversy, with multiple
06:42legal battles fought over her conservatorship.
06:44She was 89 years old when she died of heart failure on July 30th, 2022.
06:50After a lifetime of inspiring generations of astronauts both through her acting and
06:54her volunteer work with NASA, Nichols' ashes were sent into outer space alongside those
06:59of fellow Star Trek actor Majel Barrett Roddenberry and effects artist Douglas Trumbull.
07:04Renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking was a huge fan of Matt Groening's cartoons.
07:10On BBC's The Culture Show, he even called The Simpsons, quote, the best thing on American
07:15television.
07:16He played himself in five episodes of The Simpsons and in two episodes of Futurama,
07:20plus a movie and video game.
07:22The first of his Futurama appearances was as part of the Vice Presidential Action Rangers
07:27in Anthology of Interest 1.
07:29Hey, Stephen Hawking, aren't you that physicist that invented gravity?
07:33Sure.
07:34Why not?
07:35He returned as a head-in-a-jar in the Beast with a Billion Backs movie and in the video
07:39game-themed Future Challenge 3000 segment of Reincarnation.
07:43He even recorded dialogue for the Futurama Worlds of Tomorrow mobile game released in
07:472017, a year before his death.
07:50Hawking died peacefully in his home on March 14, 2018, at the age of 76.
07:55He lived much longer than anyone expected, considering the fact that he was diagnosed
07:59with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at the young age of 21, and was told at the time
08:04he had only two years to live.
08:06The disease gradually paralyzed his body, but he was able to communicate using a computer
08:11voice program.
08:12In the 55 years between his diagnosis and his death, he expanded our understanding of
08:17black holes and quantum mechanics.
08:20All of the vice-presidential Action Rangers in Anthology of Interest 1, aside from former
08:25Vice President Al Gore himself, are no longer with us today.
08:29In addition to Nichelle Nichols and Stephen Hawking, this includes Gary Gygax, the co-creator
08:34of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
08:37In his guest appearance in Futurama, he's comedically depicted as allowing the rules
08:41of his game to dictate his life, always needing to roll dice before every decision.
08:46Greetings!
08:47It's a pleasure to meet you."
08:49Gygax died at the age of 69 on March 4, 2008.
08:54His health had been on the decline since 2004, when he had two strokes and entered semi-retirement.
08:59His wife Gail confirmed he had also suffered an abdominal aneurysm before his death.
09:04When he died, the Futurama crew was busy at work on the direct-to-DVD movie Bender's Game,
09:10which was about the characters playing D&D and getting sucked into a fantasy world.
09:14Fittingly, the film included a post-credits dedication to Gygax, featuring a clip of him
09:19from Anthology of Interest 1.
09:22Henry Louis Hank Aaron, a baseball player for the Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers,
09:27had the unusual distinction of voicing two separate guest characters on Futurama.
09:31In the episode, A Leela of Her Own, he played both himself as a head in a jar and his great-great-etc
09:37grandson, Hank Aaron XXIV.
09:40Where Hank Aaron is considered one of the greatest baseball players of all time, his
09:44descendant is the worst Blurns ball player ever, at least until Leela ends up taking
09:49that dishonorable title from him.
09:51This time, keep your eye off the ball.
09:54You mean keep your eye on the ball.
09:56Hey lady, which one of us is in the Hall of Fame?
09:58Psst, you're holding the bat upside down.
10:01The real Aaron died in his sleep of natural causes at the age of 86 on January 22, 2021.
10:07Upon his death, flags were ordered to half-mast in his memory in Georgia, where he spent much
10:12of his adult life.
10:14TV and radio personality Dick Clark introduced countless rock and roll artists to the wider
10:18American public by hosting American Bandstand from 1956 to 1989.
10:24Beginning in 1973, he also started hosting Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve.
10:29For many years, Rockin' Eve was the most-watched New Year's broadcast on American television,
10:34becoming a staple of the holiday across the country.
10:36The Futurama premiere episode, Space Pilot 3000, envisioned Clark continuing to host
10:41the annual broadcast for over a millennium, eventually as a head in a jar.
10:46Hello, I'm Dick Clark's head.
10:48Welcome to a special year 3000 edition of New Year's Rockin' Eve.
10:52In the real world, Clark had to give up most of his hosting duties following a stroke in
10:562004.
10:57Regis Philbin took over that year, while in subsequent years Clark made brief appearances
11:01on the broadcast but ceded the main hosting duties to Ryan Seacrest.
11:06Clark died of a heart attack at the age of 82 on April 18, 2012, a day after undergoing
11:11routine prostate surgery.
11:13Clark's name is still attached to the Seacrest-hosted New Year's Rockin' Eve.
11:18Best known for starring in the delightfully campy live-action Batman series from 1966
11:23to 1968, Adam West had such a larger-than-life presence that it only makes sense he'd end
11:28up playing himself in multiple cartoons.
11:31He frightened Bart and Lisa with his dancing in The Simpsons, believed himself to be Catman
11:35and the Fairly Odd Parents, and was mayor of Quahog and Family Guy.
11:39One of his final voice acting roles was in the Futurama episode, Lila and the Jeans Dock,
11:45where West's head in a jar was attached to a bat body as part of one of Mom's experiments.
11:49Robin actor Burt Ward was also subject to experiments in the same episode, allowing
11:54the two friends and co-stars to reunite one last time.
11:57Well, back to being the subject of gruesome genetic experiments, old chum.
12:05West died from leukemia at the age of 88 on June 9, 2017.
12:10Artist Leon Ivey Jr., better known by his stage name Coolio, had the most frequently
12:15recurring role of any Futurama guest star on this list.
12:18The rapper, best known for his hit song, Gangsta's Paradise, was the voice of Kwanzaa Bot, one
12:23of three December holiday representatives in the series alongside Robot Santa and the
12:28Hanukkah Zombie.
12:29I gotta hand out the traditional Kwanzaa Bot.
12:34I've been giving these out for 647 years.
12:38First introduced in the episode, A Tale of Two Santas, Kwanzaa Bot helped save Earth
12:42in Bender's Big Score and had a segment in the Futurama holiday spectacular.
12:47Coolio died on September 28, 2022, due to suffering cardiac arrest at a friend's house.
12:53He was only 59 years old at the time of his death.
12:56An autopsy later revealed that his heart attack was caused by an accidental overdose
13:00of fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine.
13:03Coolio recorded one more guest appearance for the Hulu revival of Futurama before his
13:07death, and the episode was dedicated to his memory.
13:11Producer David X. Cohen told TMZ,
13:13"...Coolio was one of my favorite guests.
13:15He was always totally upbeat and genuinely enjoyed coming in to record as his character,
13:20Kwanzaa Bot."
13:21If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, help is available.
13:26Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact
13:31SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, 1-800-662-4357.