Man with Newspaper

A background face in the crowded future of New New York, the Man with Newspaper exists for a single beat: standing somewhere in frame, absorbed in his paper, oblivious to whatever chaos Fry, Leela, or Bender are causing around him. He wants nothing except to finish the article.

Futurama fills its edges with tiny throwaway jokes, and Billy West's ability to drop a mutter or a startled reaction into a nothing role is part of the show's density. The Man with Newspaper is proof that even a blink-and-miss-it gag can carry the show's deadpan sense of a lived-in, absurd world.