Recap / Futurama S 4 E 7 Jurassic Bark

You may start crying.

Not affilliated with Futurama Brass Knuckle Co.

Fry goes to a museum exhibit about Old New York City life and discovers that his dog, Seymour, has been fossilized and can be revived via 31st century technology, but Bender grows jealous and tries to sabotage the reunion.

A fan favorite, the episode is notorious for its incredibly tragic ending which earned the showrunners a considerable amount of hate mail (yes, really) from devastated fans.

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"Jurassic Bark" contains examples of:

• Analogy Backfire: Subverted.
  Fry: Well, it's not right to make my dead pet an exhibit. That's like digging up Lassie and putting her in the Louvre.
  Amy: Lassie is on display in the Louvre.
  Fry: I know, I was deliberately describing a similar situation.
• Angrish: On his third attempt to explain that only dolomite has a chance of surviving the lava, Farnsworth is reduced to "PROFESSOR! LAVA! HOT!"
• Bait-and-Switch: As a storm rages over the building, the Professor announces that in order to fuel the Clone-O-Mat, he requires the sheer power of nature itself. He is referring to the power... of molten lava.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: When Fry gets Seymour back, he's so happy he steals Farnsworth's.
  Fry: Good news, everyone!
• Brick Joke: Bender practices his magic act at the beginning of the episode. Fry says, "That's why they call you Bender the Magnificent." Bender says, "No, it isn't." Towards the end, Bender retrieves Seymour's body from the lava and says, "And that is why they call me Bender the Magnificent."
• Call-Forward: Fry's boss in the flashback tells him "You're a delivery boy this millennium and you'll be a delivery boy next millennium."
• Conspiracy Theorist: Fry's father is still a nutcase, this time convinced the Y2K bug would kill his family the minute they set foot out-doors, and that Seymour was one of its agents. He later blames illness brought on by bad baloney as the Y2K bug as well.
• Convection, Schmonvection: The entire Planet Express team manages to show no ill effects from being in a small room exposed to open lava. Several even linger directly by the lava pit.
• Crossover: When searching for Fry, Seymour passes by a miniature golf course. There's a big sign on the gate reading, "Because someone inconsiderate created an unsanitary condition, the windmill green is closed until further notice". This is a reference to The Simpsons episode "Natural Born Kissers", in which Homer and Marge are caught copulating inside the windmill where they conceived Bart.
• Death by Newbery Medal: Seymour dies waiting for Fry in front of the pizza shop where they lived.
• Description Cut: A heartbreaking one at the end. Fry says of Seymour, "I'll never forget him, but he forgot me a long, long time ago." The final scene is Seymour waiting for Fry to come home, not knowing that he never will.
• Downer Ending: Fry humbly decides that it would be selfish of him to bring his dog back to life just to satisfy his own happiness, and assumed that Seymour probably moved on after his disappearance anyway. As the last flashback proves, Seymour literally spent the rest of his life waiting outside Panucci's for Fry to come back. The episode ends on the Foregone Conclusion that neither ever found out the truth. Bender's Big Score would eventually retcon the ending (Fry went back to his own time and was reunited with Seymour) just to relieve some of the depression it caused fans.
• Dr. Fakenstein: The Professor is parodying Frankenstein when trying to resurrect Seymour.
• Dramatic Irony: See Downer Ending above. Seymour didn't forget Fry, and neither one will ever know what really became of the other.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Bender doesn't understand how Fry could love an "inferior being" like a dog, so he assumes Fry is only pretending to love Seymour to make him jealous. Eventually, Bender realizes he does understand how people can love inferior beings, because he loves Fry.
• Failed a Spot Check: Fry's parents came to Applied Cryogenics to retrieve Seymour and think he still hasn't found Fry, despite their cryogenically frozen son being right in their view.
• Fanservice: Leela and Amy wrestling in revealing outfits for no discernible reason. (Leela claims, "We need to practice hand to hand combat in case an enemy knocks the laser gun out of our hands and they slide way across the room.")
  • Shortly afterward, Leela declares that Bender has been down in the lava too long and she is going in after him. She starts to tear off her skimpy outfit (revealing some underboob) but is stopped by Professor Farnsworth who angrily reminds her that lava is hot. The DVD Commentary says they pushed it as far as they could.
• Flashback B-Plot: The episode has Fry discovering a fossil of Seymour, while also showing the story of how Fry met him.
• Foreshadowing: Unlike the times it was shown in the past, when the scene of Fry falling into the cryo-chamber is played in this episode, two shadows are cast from beneath the table instead of one, as Fry manages to change the past in "The Why of Fry".
• Fossil Revival: The Professor attempts to do this to Seymour.
• Future Imperfect: The museum guide has historical details of the 20th century all wrong, same as Leela's book "Dances of the Ancient Bronx".
• Green-Eyed Monster: Throughout the episode, Bender becomes increasingly jealous over Fry focusing on his dog coming back instead of helping Bender with his magician act, culminating in Bender throwing Seymour's body into the lava pit.
• Henpecked Husband: Apparently, one of the scientists at the cryo lab where Fry was frozen had a wife that nagged him to the point that he froze her while she was in mid-rant and holding a rolling pin.
• Huge Holographic Head: The Professor's in one scene.
• Hulk Speak: Farnsworth is reduced to this when trying to warn his human friends not to dive into magma to save Seymour.
  Farnsworth: PROFESSOR! LAVA! HOT!
• I Will Wait for You: The ending revealed that Seymour waited for Fry to come back to Panucci's until the day he died. Connie Francis' cover of the song plays over the scene.
• Ignored Expert: Much to the Professor's increasing annoyance.
  The Professor: I'm the Professor! Why won't anyone listen to me?!
• It's All About Me: Bender's self-absorption is provoked by his jealousy of Seymour taking up all of Fry's attention, thinking it's to somehow mess with him. When Fry angrily says that bringing Seymour doesn't have anything to do with Bender, he snaps back that that's impossible.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Bender does rescue Seymour's corpse, though. Albeit, after throwing it into the lava in the first place.
  • Mr. Panucci was largely an abrasive jerk, but during the final montage he's seen offering Seymour a slice of pizza as he waits for Fry. He also pats the dog on the head before leaving the pizzeria for what's implied to be the final time.
• Jerkass: Bender is at his near-worst in this one.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: The tour guide at Panucci's claims she's an expert on the place thanks to a twenty-minute "fun-gineering" talk and a Harlequin romance book. Fry still waves these off as "fancy degrees".
• Large Ham: The Professor's on a roll this episode.
• Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Only for Bender, and only because he's made of dolomite. His eyes still melt afterward. Note that the lava is still partly transparent, behaves like water, and that Bender's hat floats on it without immediately catching fire.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Subverted. Lava can do anything.
• Mascot: Seymour became this for the pizzeria Fry worked at.
• Meaningful Background Event: Blink and you'll miss it, but when Fry tosses the pizza on the desk at the cryogenics lab in the flashback, you can see Nibbler's eyestalk poking out of the trash.
• Missed Him by That Much: A flashback showed that Seymour tried to show Fry's parents that their son was in a cryogenic tube, but they thought he was crazy and took him away, not noticing Fry in the tube.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Upon seeing how broken up Fry was after he threw the fossilized Seymour into the lava, Bender goes in to retrieve him.
• No OSHA Compliance: Seymour's time as Panucci's mascot shows that Panucci's commitment to a clean work environment is basically nonexistent. He rubs Seymour down with a load of dough that he then uses for pizza, and lets Seymour swim (and apparently poop) in the sauce and meatballs.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Fry is too busy prepping for Seymour's return to notice Leela and Amy in a girl-on-girl wrestling match in skimpy tights.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Fry at the end decides not to revive Seymour, thinking he lived a full and happy life without him. He didn't.
• Only Sane Man: Surprisingly, Professor Farnsworth takes this role after Bender throws Seymour into the lava; angrily reminding everyone who tries to jump into the lava (namely, Fry, Bender and Leela) that lava is hot.
• Percussive Maintenance: The Professor starts trying to fix the mighty Clone-O-Mat with a hammer.
• Pet the Dog: Mr. Panucci, previously seen only as the boss who yelled at Fry, gets to show some kindness (and grossness), being kind to Seymour in the flashbacks.
• Retcon: Seymour's fate is retconned in Bender's Big Score (the first of the four Futurama movies), revealing that Seymour didn't wait the rest of his life for Fry because an alternate version of Fry picked up where ours left off. He does, however, spend the last two years of his life waiting as said version of Fry journeyed to the North Pole, though they are given a brief reunion before Bender arrives to assassinate Fry, flash-fossilizing Seymour in the process.
• Revision: The flashbacks revisit the opening of the pilot, with a few seconds more of Seymour trying to stop Fry.
• Sad-Times Montage/Time-Passes Montage: The closing scene.
• Saw a Woman in Half: Bender does this on Zoidberg.
• Shout-Out:
  • The title is an obvious reference to Jurassic Park.
  • The resurrection of Seymour spoofs Frankenstein.
  • Seymour's story as a whole is similar to the real life dog, Hachikō.
  • Dolomite is a reference to the film Dolemite. Dolomite is also a real mineral with a variety of industrial and ornamental uses, though it probably can't survive a lava bath.
• Signs of Disrepair: During the Time-Passes Montage, the "U" in "Panucci's Pizza" falls off, leaving it as "Pan cci's Pizza".
• Stage Magician: Bender tries this, only for Zoidberg to ruin it for him.
• Suspiciously Apropos Music: No, not "I Will Wait For You" — "Walking on Sunshine" is far more subtle.
  I used to think maybe you loved me
  Now I know that it's true
  And I don't want to spend my whole life
  Just in waiting for you.
• Tuckerization: Dr. Ben Beeler is named for series writer Ken Keeler.
• Undying Loyalty: Seymour. He's a dog, so it kind of comes with the territory, but it really shines in the end as he waits for years on end for Fry to come back to him.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Fry was understandably enraged by Bender throwing Seymour into the lava pit, even calling him a monster.

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If it takes forever,
I will wait for you
For a thousand summers,
I will wait for you
Till you're back beside me,
Till I'm holding you.
Till I hear you sigh,
Here, in my arms...

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