The Fairly Oddparents

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The Fairly Oddparents is a cartoon show, first aired in March 2001.

This show, set in the fictional town of Dimsdale, is about wishes made by Timmy Turner (Tara Strong) that come true. The wishes are granted by his fairly oddparents (a play on "fairy godmother" and "godparents") that disguise themselves as goldfish in his fishbowl.

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Characters

Timmy Turner

Timmy Turner is a grade-schooler who makes wishes from his fairly oddparents, Cosmo and Wanda. The voice actor Tara Strong is the voice of this character.

Jorgen Von Strangle

Jorgen Von Strangle is the head of Fairy World and commander in chief of all fairies. He is married to the tooth fairy and hates Timmy Turner. He is voiced by Rodger Bumpass.

Crimson Chin

The Chin is a superhero appearing in comics and televised entertainment enjoyed by FOP character Timmy Turner. In this respect, the Crimson Chin, like Captain Proton or Reptar, can be thought of as a meta-fiction character, in that they are fictional within the fiction franchises for which they were designed. He is voiced by Jay Leno.

Mr. & Mrs. Turner

Mr. (Daran Norris) and Mrs. (Susan Blakeslee) Turner are the somewhat stereotypical dimwitted comic suburban parents of their only child, Timmy. One episode established that they had hoped for a baby girl while Mrs. Turner was expecting, and had bought a large quantity of pink stuff, which explains why Timmy wears a pink hat.

Cosmo and Wanda

Cosmo and Wanda, also voiced respectively by Norris and Blakeslee, are Timmy's fairy godparents. Describing themselves (with tongues in cheek) in one episode as being "two halves of a whole idiot," their ability to help Timmy is limited by Da Rules, some of which are enumerated on nickelbob's fanpage.

Vicky

Vicky - icky preceded by "V" (Grey DeLisle) - is a teenage girl who works as a babysitter, and is apparently the only babysitter the Turners know about. A meanie who presents a nice face to Timmy's parents, she enjoys annoying and terrorizing Timmy.

Denzel Crocker

Denzel Crocker (Carlos Alazraqui), is the schoolteacher of the class Timmy is in. In an episode that dealt with causal loops (The Secret Origin Of Denzel Crocker), it is established that early in Crocker's life he obtained knowledge of the existence of fairy godparents, which cost him professionally when he made public his findings on the matter; however this is due to a time travel accident on Timmy's part. Crocker is a meanie who exhibits behavior consistent with megalomania, delusions, and bipolar disorder; however, he is not really delusional, because he knows that fairy godparents, at least in his experience, actually exist, and the torture this knowledge inflicts on him is further aggravated by the fact that he will never be able to prove it.

Chester McBadbat

Chester (Malcolm in the Middle's Frankie Muñiz, subsequently, The Weekenders' Jason Marsden) is a friend of Timmy, a street-savvy schemer and opportunist.

A. J. Ibrahim

A.J. (Haneef Muhammad; subsequently, Rocket Power's second Sammy voice, Gary LeRoi Gray) is another friend of Timmy, a very intelligent autodidact.

Other characters

Links

Predestination paradox

(Redirected from Causal loop)

A predestination paradox, also called a causal loop, is a paradox of time travel that is often used as a convention in science fiction. Since it is impossible to experiment with time travel, a number of explanations have been given in various works of literature and film for various circumstances that arise. The idea is that when one travels back in time, one may influence events while in the past. These interactions have a direct effect, usually bad for purposes of the plot, on the future and the time traveller. The famous example is of a person going back and killing his own grandfather before his parent is born, forcing himself to not exist (the grandfather paradox). In many cases, the causal loop has been used as a means in and of itself to provide a plot, and sometimes time travel is not even directly involved.

Suppose a man travels back in time and impregnates his great-great grandmother. The grandmother would thus give birth to one of the man's great grandparents, who would then give birth to his grandmother or father, who would then be able to give birth to one of the man's parents, and finally to the man himself. As a result, the man's very existence would be pre-determined by his time traveling adventure, and therein lies the paradox.

The classic example is shown in the movie Back to the Future. In it, Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox), travels back from the year 1985 to 1955, and prevents his parents from falling in love. This has the effect of causing himself to not exist. By the end of the movie, of course, he gets them back together and is able to save himself. The next two sequels deal with variations on the theme. Movies in the Terminator franchise also deal with predestination paradoxes, as do a few episodes of the Fairly OddParents cartoon series (namely The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker and Father Time, wherein respectively, the show's main character causes his later teacher's findings on fairy godparents to become public, and sees how his parents met for the first time).

The Predestination paradox is very closely related to the Grandfather paradox. Please see that page for a more detailed analysis of possible genetic paradoxes posed by time travel.



Futurama (animated series)

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Futurama was an animated American cartoon series (1999-2003), created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons), set 1000 years in the future in New New York City. Set in the year 3000, it was introduced on the Fox Network (with a gag end credit of "Thirtieth-century Fox").

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Setting

The world of Futurama is a fairly grim version of the future. Unlike past cartoons like The Jetsons, Futurama portrays a much less idealistic view. While the Jetsons showed an efficient, clean, happy future, Futurama's version of the year 3000 shows humans still dealing with many of the same basic problems of the 20th Century, albeit with a different spin.

Race issues in the year 3000 are now centered around Human / Alien relations, with problems such as Alien immigration plaguing Earth. Although Earth is now populated by super-intelligent robots, their intelligence has made them lazy and surly, and often unwilling to assist their human creators. Earth's government (now united under a single President of Earth) remains corrupt, and apparently very US-centric (the flag of Earth, for example is a modified Flag of the United States). Inter-planetary relations are poor, with constant wars and invasions, often poorly planned and fought for stupid reasons.

Depsite this, Futurama's world also showcases numerous technological advantages that have been developed by the year 3000. Along with robots, space ships, and floating buildings, the show also introduced many memorable inventions such as the "Smell-o-scope" and the "What if Machine" as well as less inspiring inventions, such as coin-operated "Suicide Booths" and horribly inefficient "transport tubes."

Much of the shows humor comes from the way characters make passing references to significant historical events of the past thousand years. Between 1999 and 3000:

Most celebrities from the 20th century, 19th century, and earlier are alive and well in Futurama's world, thanks to cloning, head preservation, DNA splicing, or various other forms of regeneration. Most commonly they are sentient living heads in jars. There are two jarred heads of Grover Cleveland, presumably for some reason related to his being the both the 22nd and the 24th President of the United States. The head of Richard Nixon was elected President of Earth; his 31st century term of office was no improvement on his 20th century one.

Characters

Characters on the show include:

Planet Express

Planet Express is the name of the delivery company held by Professor Farnsworth to fund his "research" and "inventions."

Officially, the ship is manned by Leela as Captian, Bender as Cook, Fry as Delivery Boy, and Amy as needed. Hermes Conrad runs the administrative end of the business; Dr. Zoidberg is the company's physician. Nearly every mission, or delivery, that the Professor comes up with is very dangerous. Furthermore, the crew probably has somewhere around a 50% delivery success rate.

Production

Actors lending their voices to the series include Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and Tress MacNeille.

Actual celebrities who have lent their voice to the show include Billy Crystal, Beck, Al Gore, Sigourney Weaver, Lucy Liu, and the full cast of Star Trek (excluding the late DeForest Kelley).

In 2001, during the show's third season, it was quietly announced that Fox Television was canceling production of the series. While Futurama is currently in its fifth season, there were actually only four production seasons. Due to numerous preemptions and other schedule shuffles, Fox had enough new episodes backlogged for another full year of shows. These delays account for the difference in Fox's broadcast season number and production season number (Note: the production season forms the basis for the DVD and video sets). The fate of new Futurama episodes remains somewhat uncertain, but Fox has been showing episodes sporadically as of 2003 (its fifth broadcast season). Cartoon Network is currently showing old episodes in syndication.

In response to the events of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks against the United States the Fox Television Network and Futurama creator Matt Groening for a short time removed the scene in the show's opening in which the Planet Express ship crashes into a giant television screen. It was felt that this scene would be upsetting and be disturbing to many viewers who had witnessed the head on collision of two airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York on live television and another airplane into The Pentagon in Alexandria, Virginia. Within a month or so after the attacks the scene was reinserted back into the opening.

In Britain the series was picked up by Sky One shortly after its US premiere, and Channel 4 later acquired terrestrial broadcast rights.

In the USA (DVD Region 1), The first season of Futurama was released on DVD on March 25, 2003, and the second season DVD was released on August 12, 2003.

In Europe (DVD Region 2), The first and second seasons were both released in 2002, the third season was released on June 2, 2003, and the fourth (and final) on November 24th 2003.

Unique Development Studios has released a Futurama video game.

The 72nd and last episode, called "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" was aired on the 10th of August, 2003. With this episode, the 5th television season (fourth production season) and the whole series ended.

Contrary to popular belief, Danny Elfman did not compose the theme music of Futurama - instead, it was written by Chris Tyng.

Speculation

It seems possible that some of the characters and settings found in Futurama episodes are loosely based on Douglas Adams' books and radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For example, the pessimistic, depressed, super-intelligent robot Marvin the Paranoid Android is similar to the pessimistic, suicide-prone (in the first episode), hard-drinking robot Bender. The cheerful, attractive, intelligent Trillian parallels the good-natured, attractive, competent Leela. Fry, the displaced, somewhat bumbling liability and last surviving 20th centurian closely resembles Arthur Dent, the displaced, confused, liability and last surviving 20th centurian, and earthling. The strongest connection are the mutually cocky, showish, shortsighted, womanizing, ships Captians Zapp Brannigan in Futurama and Zaphod Beeblebrox in HGG. Even the names are similar (ZB).

Professor Farnsworth once declared himself dead as a tax dodge. Hotblack Desiato, a rock singer did the exact same thing in HHGG.

The writing style is not a wide departure either; both series use a sharply ironic and character based humor. Futurama however, being only produced for television, is more mass consumable; its jokes are less involved or as serious.

Season details

External links



Computer animation

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Computer animation is the art of creating moving images via the use of computers. It is a subfield of computer graphics and animation. Increasingly it is created by means of 3D computer graphics, though 2D computer graphics are still widely used. Sometimes the target of the animation is the computer itself, sometimes the target is another medium, such as film.

To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer screen then quickly replaced by a new image that is similar to the previous image, but shifted slightly. This technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with television and motion pictures.

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A Simple Example

Example animation
Computer animation
example

The screen is blanked to a background color, such as black. Then a filled red circle is drawn in the center of the screen. Next the screen is blanked, but the red circle is drawn slightly to the right of its original position. This process is repeated, each time moving the circle a bit to the right. If this process is repeated fast enough the red circle will appear to move smoothly to the right. This basic procedure is used for all moving pictures in films and television.

Explanation

To trick the eye and brain into thinking they are seeing a smoothly moving object the pictures must be drawn at about 24 frames per second (FPS), or faster (a frame is one complete image). With rates above 70 FPS, no improvement in realism or smoothness is perceivable due to the way the eye and brain process images. At rates below 24 FPS, most people can detect jerkiness associated with the drawing of new images which detracts from the illusion of realistic movement. Conventional hand-drawn cartoon animation often uses 12 FPS in order to save on the number of drawings needed, but this is usually accepted because of the stylized nature of cartoons. Because it produces more realistic imagery computer animation demands higher frame rates to reinforce this realism.

The reason no jerkiness is seen at higher speeds is due to “persistence of vision.” From moment to moment, the eye and brain working together actually store whatever you look at for a fraction of a second, and automatically "smooth out" minor jumps. Movie film seen in a theater runs at 24 FPS, which is sufficient to create this illusion of continuous movement.

Technical Details

When an image is rendered to the screen, it is normally rendered to something called a back buffer. There the computer can draw the image, making any necessary changes to it before it is done. While the computer is doing this, the screen is showing the contents of what is called the primary or active buffer.

When the image is completed, the computer tells the screen to draw from the back buffer. This can be done in one of two ways: the contents of the back buffer can be copied to the primary buffer (or active buffer—the buffer which is currently being shown) or the computer can switch where it is drawing from and make the back buffer the new primary buffer. In this case, the primary buffer becomes the back buffer. This process is usually called "flipping" because the computer is flipping its use of primary and back buffers.

This switching should be carried out when it is imperceptible to the user. Therefore it needs to take place during what is called the "v-sync" or vertical retrace. The v-sync, in CRTs, takes place when the electron guns reach the bottom right of the screen and need to reposition themselves at the top left of the screen. This happens very quickly and the image the guns had just projected remain on the screen as they are moving back to their starting position. While the guns are repositioning themselves, the computer has enough time to flip buffers and the new image will be rendered on the screen on the next pass of the guns. The new image will continued to be displayed until the buffers are flipped once more.

When the computer fails to wait for the v-sync, a condition called sprite breakup or image breakup is perceptible. This is highly undesirable and should always be avoided when possible to maintain the illusion of movement.

Detailed Examples and Pseudocode

In 2D computer animation, moving objects are often referred to as “sprites.” A sprite is an image that has a location associated with it. The location of the sprite is changed slightly each fame then displayed to make the sprite appear to move. The following pseudo code makes a sprite move from left to right: 

 Int x, y;

 X = 0;
 Y = SCREEN_HEIGHT / 2;

 While ( x < SCREEN_WIDTH )
	 DrawBackGround();
	 DrawSpriteAtXY(X, Y);  // draw on top of the background

    X=X+5;  // move to the left
 End_while

Modern (2001) computer animation uses sophisticated mathematics to manipulate complex three dimensional polygons, apply “textures”, lighting and other effects to the polygons and finally rendering the complete image.

Let's step through the rendering of a simple image of a room with flat wood walls with a grey pyramid in the center of the room. The pyramid will have a spotlight shining on it. Each wall, the floor and the ceiling is a simple polygon, in this case, a rectangle. Each corner of the rectangles is defined by three values referred to as X, Y and Z. X is how far left and right the point is. Y is how far up and down the point is, and Z is far in and out of the screen the point is. The wall nearest us would be defined by four points: (in the order x, y, z). Below is a representaion of how the wall is defined. 

 (0, 10, 0)                        (10, 10, 0)





 (0,0,0)                           (10, 0, 0)

The far wall would be: 

(0, 10, 20)                        (10, 10, 20)



Special pages

From Wiktionary, the free encyclopedia.

Special pages for all users



Grandfather paradox

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The grandfather paradox is a paradox of time travel. Suppose you traveled back in time and killed your biological grandfather before he met your grandmother. Then you would never have been conceived, so you could not have traveled back in time after all. Now did you travel back or not?

This paradox has been called the "Pogo Paradox" in the Star Trek universe, named for Walt Kelly's Pogo's saying "We have met the enemy and he is us."

The grandfather paradox has been used to argue that backwards time travel must be impossible. However, other resolutions have also been advanced.

Parallel universes resolution

There could be "parallel universes" (see Everett many-worlds interpretation) and when you travel back in time and kill your grandfather, you do so in a parallel universe in which you will never be conceived as a result. However, your existence is not erased from your original universe. Alfred Bester's short story "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" uses this premise. It is also used in James P. Hogan's novel "Thrice Upon a Time".

Relative timelines resolution

It could be that the universe does not have an absolute timeline. Each particle has its own timeline. This is similar to the theory of relativity, except that it deals with a particle's history, rather than its velocity.

Physical forces affect physical particles. If your body's physical particles go back in time, you will be able to kill your grandfather (no physical forces will mystically stop you) and nothing will physically happen to you as a result because there are no physical forces that can "figure out" what happened.

Your younger self does not need to be born in order to fulfill a destiny of going back in time because there is no written-in-stone absolute timeline that needs to be followed.

If you were able to find and observe the younger versions of the particles that make you up, they too would follow physical laws and hence wouldn't form into a younger version of you (because one of your parents wouldn't be there to form you).

This theory is similar to the parallel universes theory, except that it happens within one universe.

Restricted action resolution

Another resolution holds that, if one was to travel back in time, the laws of nature would simply forbid them from doing anything that could later result in their time travel not occurring. This theory might lead to concerns about the existence of free will (in this model, free will may be an illusion). This theory also assumes that causality must be constant: i.e. that nothing can occur in the absence of cause, whereas some theories hold that an event may remain constant even if its initial cause was subsequently eliminated. It is also possible that the time travellers intended action might be completed, but never successfully enough to result in cancellation - see Novikov self-consistency principle. 








(0, 0, 20)                         (10, 0, 20)

The pyramid is made up of five polygons: the rectangular base, and four triangular sides. To draw this image the computer uses math to calculate how to project this image, defined by three dimensional data, onto a two dimensional computer screen.

First we must also define where our view point is, that is, from what vantage point will the scene be drawn. Our view point is inside the room a bit above the floor, directly in front of the pyramid. First the computer will calculate which polygons are visible. The near wall will not be displayed at all, as it is behind our view point. The far side of the pyramid will also not be drawn as it is hidden by the front of the pyramid.

Next each point is perspective projected onto the screen. The portions of the walls ‘farthest’ from the view point will appear to be shorter than the nearer areas due to perspective. To make the walls look like wood, a wood pattern, called a texture, will be drawn on them. To accomplish this, a technique called “texture mapping” is often used. A small drawing of wood that can be repeatedly drawn in a matching tiled pattern (like wallpaper) is stretched and drawn onto the walls' final shape. The pyramid is solid grey so sp its surfaces can just be rendered as grey. But we also have a spotlight. Where its light falls we lighten colors, where objects blocks the light we darken colors.

Next we render the complete scene on the computer screen. If the numbers describing the position of the pyramid were changed and this process repeated, the pyramid would appear to move.

This short article has only introduced the most basic elements of modern computer animation.

Notable Movies and TV Shows

CGI short films have been produced as independent animation since the 1970s, though the popularity of computer animation (especially in the field of special effects) skyrocketed during the animation boom of the 1990s.

Below is a selected list of films and television shows that employ computer animation.

See also: Motion capture

External Links