Space Pilot 3000

"Space Pilot 3000"
Futurama episode
Promotional artwork for the episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 1
Directed by	Rich Moore Gregg Vanzo
Written by	Matt Groening David X. Cohen
Production code	1ACV01
Original air date	March 28, 1999
Opening caption	"In Color"
Opening cartoon	"Little Buck Cheeser" by MGM (1937)
Guest appearance(s)
Dick Clark as himself Leonard Nimoy as himself
Season 1 episodes
March 1999 – June 1999 "Space Pilot 3000" "The Series Has Landed" "I, Roommate" "Love's Labours Lost in Space" "Fear of a Bot Planet" "A Fishful of Dollars" "My Three Suns" "A Big Piece of Garbage" "Hell Is Other Robots" "A Flight to Remember" "Mars University" "When Aliens Attack" "Fry and the Slurm Factory"
List of Futurama episodes

"Space Pilot 3000" is the pilot episode of Futurama. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 28, 1999. It is also the first episode to be set in the 30th century as the third season and beyond are set in the 31st century. The episode focuses on the cryogenic freezing of the series protagonist, Philip J. Fry, and the events when he awakens 1,000 years in the future. Series regulars are introduced and the futuristic setting, inspired by a variety of classic science fiction series from The Jetsons to Star Trek, is revealed. It also sets the stage for many of the events to follow in the series, foreshadowing plot points from the third and fourth seasons.

The episode was written by David X. Cohen and Matt Groening, and directed by Rich Moore and Gregg Vanzo. Dick Clark and Leonard Nimoy guest starred as themselves. The episode generally received good reviews with many reviewers noting that while the episode started slow the series merited further viewing.

On December 31, 1999, a pizza delivery boy named Philip J. Fry delivers a pizza to "Applied Cryogenics" in New York City only to discover that the order was actually a prank call. Dejected and demoralized, he stops in the deserted lab to eat the pizza while outside the whole world is getting ready to celebrate the beginning of New Year. At midnight, Fry falls into an open cryonic tube and is frozen as it immediately activates. He is defrosted on Tuesday, December 31, 2999, in what is now New New York City. He is taken to a fate assignment officer named Leela, a purple-haired cyclops. To his misfortune, Fry is assigned the computer-determined permanent career of delivery boy, and flees into the city when Leela tries to implant Fry's career chip designating his job.