When the makers of "Futurama" were first constructing the series, they dropped in a prominent background detail that they knew nitpickers and lay-linguists would adore. One can see on billboards, in store windows, and even painted on the sides of buildings, an oblique alien language constructed of curved symbols and dots. The "Alienese" might have been dismissed as a mere design flourish, but the letters were too neatly written and too consistent across the series to be dismissed. It took very little time for "Futurama" fans to crack the code and find that all those alien signs could be translated. It seems that the Alien Language, nicknamed AL1 by fans, was a simple letter-replacement cipher. The cipher became so well known that handy translators can now be found online.

"Futurama" co-creator David X. Cohen was a little disappointed that AL1 was unlocked so quickly. He was, of course, careful to...