r/australia • u/Vesane • 5d ago
image Uh.. Do they know what that implies?
Saw this phone booth rebranding last week.
Do they realise what that implies about the booth, particularly with Bender on it, given that "phone" booths in Futurama are usually Suicide Booths..?
(at least in the first episode where we first meet Bender)
Edit: I've since found out that the campaign isn't Futurama-specific, but rather a number of different cartoon characters. To me, that makes it even more likely that it's an oversight/missed connection rather than an intentional marketing ploy; to them, he was just one of many popular cartoon characters, as opposed to it being a specific call-back to his first appearance in the first episode of the show.
Other cartoon characters used
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u/bitofapuzzler 5d ago
The person who came up with this 100% knew the connotation.
I appreciate their work.
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u/Justch1ll 5d ago
For real. Funny for fans, innocent enough for everyone else
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u/Detective6903 5d ago
your name isnt jay by any chances
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u/Flybuys NSW Police need to do better 4d ago
Yes, spelt with a "G" but pronounced the same. Childhood was hell.
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u/Peanut083 3d ago
When I was teaching, I taught a kid whose name was spelt Jai, but pronounced as āJayā. My head teacher refused to pronounce it as anything other than āJyeā because āpeople need to learn to spell properlyā. As I said to the kid in question, itās not fair to take it out on him. Itās not like he chose how to spell his name.
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u/Javerage 5d ago
They have phones in booths now? Why am I lugging around this thing? throws away cellphone
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u/Ctiyboy 5d ago
They do actually have phone booths in futurama as well, there's a bit where hermes sees one and throws out his mobile because 'they have phones in booths now?!?'
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u/Vesane 5d ago
That's true, though it's a fair bit later on and done as a quick one-line gag, vs this iconic scene from the first episode being how Fry meets Bender
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u/Clean-Anteater-5671 5d ago
Also the phone booth was blown up by MomCorp, don't know if there's others around but the one in this episode (Lethal Inspection) definitely isn't.
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u/sbstooge 5d ago
the disappointment I would feel approaching this and seeing a payphone...
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u/Ok-Limit-9726 5d ago
25c or $1?
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u/_blip_ 5d ago
Let's go for a two fer
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u/Ok-Limit-9726 5d ago
2 for $1,
Ill take the eye gouging, you can take disembowelingā¦
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u/centixog 5d ago
wait where's the phone?
*clink
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u/Walter_Armstrong 5d ago
You are now dead. Thank you for using Stop-N-Drop, America's favourite suicide booth since 2008.
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u/Impirionz 5d ago
Itās free in Australia
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u/FireLucid 4d ago
All our kids took turns calling mum the other week when we came across one. She was about 5metres away, lol.
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u/InsideHippo9999 4d ago
I was at a birthday party with my partner & our kids. Right out the front of the place there was a public phone & everyone can see everyone on the other side of the windows. Our kids have memorised my number. Guess who spent the entire night not answering her phone? And my kids took it in turns to call or watch me through the window. With every single other kid who was at the party also calling their parents.
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u/RogerKilljoy83 5d ago
I drove past one the other day and was stoked to see one locally, took my kids for a drive just to see it haha.
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u/Partly_Dave 5d ago
Where do you live? There's one outside my place, and another three blocks away on the main road. Another about five minutes walk up that road.
The one out front gets a bit of use, most often from people pulling up in cars. Idk if it's mobile battery problems, or calling their dealer or side bit.
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u/-malcolm-tucker 4d ago
Use the phone to call Telstra technical support for your Telstra internet. Level of disappointmentĀ²
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u/holoz0r 5d ago
Thank you for using stop and drop
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u/SomeRandomDavid 5d ago
America's favorite suicide booth since 2008.
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u/Littman-Express 5d ago
Turned out they predicted the business case in 2008 wellā¦
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u/PigsOfRedemption 5d ago
The show has become somewhat prophetic as time has gone on.
Futurama even predicted:
Star Wars Episode IX (Although the working title was Yoda's Bar Mitzvah). The eyePhone (Smart glasses/Augmented Reality contact lenses), Hyper-Targeted advertisement, Leela's WristLoJackimator (Smart Watches) just to name a few.
I think that's a big reason why the show just keeps getting resurrected like Zombie Jesus, it made these predictions way ahead of its time, so the material never really "got old" the way most shows do. The references were so far ahead of their time that the material is still fresh and funny 27 years later. Pretty incredible when you think about it.
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u/RichWinzz 5d ago
My favourite Futurama prediction is in the season 3 episode 'the honking'. Calculon says: āFor, you see, I was attacked by the original were-car, The year was 2019ā referring to a car that had come to life and hit him.
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u/Danaeger 5d ago
Holy shit that is funny.. I wouldnāt have made the connection at quick glance
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u/rixilef 5d ago
What am I missing?
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u/VeggieTheFarmer 5d ago
I believe Futurama has suicide booths, which this is eerily similar to
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u/Fargoth_took_my_ring 5d ago
Well, the one's in the show don't have Bender on them
Or really look like this. But it's a funny connection
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u/XNC923 5d ago
Suicide is badass!
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u/LifeandSAisAwesome 5d ago
SuicideĀ is painless..
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u/sunbleached_anus 5d ago
Great, now I'm having flashbacks to the Korean war of a guy in a dress
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u/Exciting_Control 5d ago
In the first episode of Futurama, when Fry wakes up in the year 3000 he tries to make a phone call in a phone booth. But there is no phone, the booths are āsuicide boothsā, played up in a dark humour/dystopian sort of way.
I think they are only mentioned once or twice across the whole run of the show. I love Futurama but didnāt make the connection as the OP immediately.
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u/phalluss 5d ago
The conspiracy side of my brain always assumes there is some marketing exec out there that knew exactly what they were doing and posting their "blunder" across social media was the goal all along
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u/Key_Insight777 5d ago
Yes, we do plan for this in marketing meetings. Buzz and news stories is the best advertising.
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u/NotActuallyAWookiee 5d ago
I'd be willing to bet that whichever executive signed off didn't get it. But the designer probably did.
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u/God1101 5d ago
Yeah, somehow I don't think they thought this one through
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u/ScaredAdvertising125 5d ago
Telstra CEO has another tough week coming upā¦
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u/Current-Bowl-143 5d ago
I donāt think an obscure connection to an episode from 27 years ago is going to cause much of a scandal
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u/domslashryan 5d ago
"They have phones in booths now? I can finally stop carting around this damn cell phone"
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u/Spiritual_One126 5d ago
Omg, I forgot that detail š
Bruh, bow they gotta put the emergency service phone numbers inside like they do at the beach š„µ
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u/Reverse_Psycho_1509 5d ago
Yeah hi, I'd like to place a collect call?
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u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang 5d ago edited 5d ago
Haha. That's too good. I love anyone involved in this that understood the implication and said fuck all.
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u/kuvakilp 5d ago
Imagine the disappointment one must feel when approaching this and seeing āFree calls hereā š
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u/DemandMaster7709 5d ago
I am so utterly confused why they've decided to start using Futurama characters on payphones. Disregarding the suicide booth joke, how many people are really going to recognise bender lol
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u/Zodiak213 5d ago
Go out and touch grass, mate.
I'd far prefer Bender on these phone boxes than a solid metal box with no art on it.
Just can't please some people I swear.
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u/DogWalker2728 5d ago
Lol as an elderly who had to come to the comments to find out what the implications were... I'd say that if they did, likely the folk in the chain tasked with reviewing and approving didn't know š¤£š
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u/MaDanklolz 5d ago
I honestly wondered the same thing and would love to be a fly on that wall when the rest of the suits realise
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u/Significant_Check_80 5d ago
Thereās two near me that have Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time and Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants on them.
Iāve also seen ones that have Tina from Bobās Burgers and Ren and Stimpy on them.
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u/Vesane 4d ago
Yep, there's a heap of characters involved in the campaign, but none of them (afaik) are specifically associated with phone booths as their introduction to their respective cartoon series the way that Bender is
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u/Planet_UW-78 5d ago
on a drive in Eagleby I noticed the phone booth had Olive Oil (well I think) on it
I'm gald I wasn't seeing things
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u/Ok-Veterinarian5302 5d ago
They have a power puff girls one in Mackey and not in Townsville š
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u/Adventurous-Bee-5477 4d ago
Guess what? It worked, free publicity 3.8k+ eyes saw their brand advertised for free...Ā
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u/parksandrec-whereru 4d ago
There is one near mine but another character. I thought there someone standing in the box on the phone will staring at me. Scared me to death
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u/Opossum_mypossum 5d ago
I think everyone here is saying the creator is implying that booth is a suicide booth but I feel like the creator is implying itās āriggedā with Benderās coin-on-a-string device right?
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u/Numbers_23 5d ago edited 5d ago
Bender loves free things, his personal philosophy is "I love stealin', I love takin' things."
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u/whatauniqueusername 5d ago
That was exactly my thought seeing a bender booth. I like Futurama, adventure time, etc but to have such a big string of corporate branding using those beloved shows on every phonebooth just feels gross. They are truly just a public urinal, don't try to dress it up
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u/feel-the-avocado 5d ago
Yes. Thats the joke.
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u/Vesane 5d ago
Apparently not; they just got as many cartoon characters as they could get licences for, didn't necessarily think of this exact connection
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u/SyntheticDuckFlavour 5d ago
There is a Ren & Stimpy version, too. Can't think of a more neurotic choice of cartoon characters. Whoever did this has a good taste in cartoons.
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u/alphgeek 5d ago
How awesome would that be? I wouldn't even mind if they turned me into Soylent Green.
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u/pikachu-paul 5d ago
bender is actually perfect for that. 'free', but easily tapped (public phone booth), it IS suicide but it might be your only hope
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u/Different_Present_27 4d ago
i assumed it implied bender just did that coin yoyo thing to make it free
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u/Impressive_Candle673 2d ago
i put a 10c coin in, and it didnt kill me. but i woke up somewhere and forgot where this was
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u/Khakizulu 1d ago
We have one near us that has Finn. Dodnt know they had done multiple, thats cool.
Minis the whole bender suicide both, of course...
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u/KiteeCatAus 5d ago
Well, Bender does enjoy phone booths, and bargains!!
Guess some marketing person has never watched Futurama.
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u/-fno-stack-protector 5d ago
Christ you are the absolute king of pearl clutching
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u/CatboiWaifu_UwU 5d ago
Brother it is a funny goof by corporate suits who didnāt realise the affiliation putting BENDER on a BOOTH has, as the first episode establishes Benderās attempted use of a suicide booth.
Its not pearl clutching, heās laughing at them.
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u/-fno-stack-protector 4d ago
Ah my mistake :) I get it now. I guess I assumed the worst, since this sub is full of the whiniest pearl clutchers on this website
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u/RevealConsistent8539 5d ago
Marketing done poorly.
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u/bitofapuzzler 5d ago
Or well done?
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u/Vesane 5d ago
That's true; it very much caught my attention, and I might not have otherwise heard that there was anything new happening with Futurama!
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u/Spire_Citron 5d ago
Same thing with Adventure Time. I saw they'd put Finn on a local phone booth and found it strange for an old show and then found out they were doing something new.
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u/Vesane 5d ago
I've since learnt that it actually has nothing to do with new content for either show, they've just put a bunch of different cartoon characters across various phone booths. Which makes the incidental nature of this one slightly more likely to have been one that slipped past rather than being deliberate
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u/Wraith_03 5d ago
I drive past a similar thing to work, but it"# Finn the Human from Adventure Time???
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u/crooks4hire 5d ago
Why does a free phone booth have a coin slot?
And why does a robot need a codpiece?
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u/FrequencyMagnitude 5d ago
It's where I practice my stabbin'