Currently reading Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov, and stumbled upon the passage that describes the Visi-Sonor. As i read along i made the connection between that and Futurama’s Holophonor! Had to go on the futurama wiki on fandom to check it had been noticed by others before. So cool to find out new details in Futurama even after all these years.
Some quotes that align the pair so well,
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Ebling Mis “Near as I can make it, no one on the Foundation can make it talk right”
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Ebling Mis “More often than not, good players are idiots otherwise.”
I suppose this is slightly reversed in the Futurama episode, where Fry can only play when he’s not an idiot?
- Magnifico speaking about his Visi-Sonor piece "It is but a poor makeshift I have created, but my minds poverty precludes more. I call it, “The Memory of Heaven.” "
Much the same as how Fry gets his inspriation.



I had read the Foundation series before watching Futurama and I noticed right away! Its in the episode called “The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings” and “Parasites Lost” (both top tier hilarious episodes!).
In “Parasites Lost”, Leela even makes a comment really similar to one in Foundation and Empire (the one where you meet a certain very important character) about how only a few people in the universe can play it, and even they aren’t very good at it.
Funny, I’m also reading foundation right now and had the same realization. Generally I am noticing how much Foundation influenced other sci-fi, like Trantor being the inspiration for coruscant in star wars.
Oh yeah, i had that same thought about Trantor. The books Are really great so far, i picked up this 4 in 1 book from the local vinnies/thrift store. Only problem with reading them like this is, i can tell i’ll get confused between these four, and which
events occured in which book.Haha same, I just treat it as one long book with several acts. Yeah loving it, I like how Asimov doesn’t dwell on overbearing descriptions of battles or the like but has a very calm way to tell the story. Unlike Stanislav Lem, in Solaris I had to skip several passages that were just unreadable to me, especially in the descriptions of the forms the ocean build, after like three paragraphs I was like ‘alright soa little like stalagmites, thanks’ and skipped ahead until he came back to the story. I love his books nonetheless, if you haven’t read them already I highly recommend them.
Cool, stalagmites but different got it! 😂 I’ll look him up. I’ve heard the name, author and book, never given them a proper look though.
May I suggest using The Infosphere instead of the Fandom wiki? It’s not as mobile-friendly but also isn’t riddled with ads
You mean they’re trying to learn stuff?
Ooh cool! Will check out. I just went to the first to return in search. Actually second link, i went to wikipedia first.
Funny… I just caught up with this season of Foundation and I still missed it 😅
Very cool! Didn’t know that was based on anything but this adds.




