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1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Futurama offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Futurama at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
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6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Futurama wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
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8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Futurama site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Futurama, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Futurama, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
{{Infobox Television| show_name = Futurama| image = | caption = The opening Intertitle for
Futurama| genre = Situation comedy
Comic science fiction| creator = [Matt Groening| voices = [Billy WestKatey SagalJohn DiMaggioPhil LaMarr
Lauren TomMaurice LaMarcheTress MacNeilleDavid Herman
Frank WelkerTom Kenny| composer = Christopher Tyng| country = | language = [English language| num_seasons = 4 (production)5 (broadcast)| num_episodes = 72 | list_episodes = List of Futurama episodes| executive_producer =
Matt GroeningDavid X. Cohen
Ken Keeler (1999–2003)
[Comedy Central (2008)], 1999, [2003 (original run)]-winning animated television series
United States sitcom created by Matt Groening, who also created
The Simpsons, and developed by Groening and
David X. Cohen for the
Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a former
New York-style pizza delivery boy,
Philip J. Fry, after he is accidentally
Cryonics at midnight,
January 1st,
2000, and is revived one thousand years in the future.
In the United States, the series aired from
March 28,
1999 to August 10, 2003 on FOX, although its timeslot was regularly interrupted and pre-empted by sports events, and eventually went out of production. However, Comedy Central has entered into an agreement with 20th Century Fox Television to syndicate the existing episodes and air the new movies as new episodes in an episodic format as of February 2008. At Comic-Con 2007 it was announced that
Futurama will return on November 27th as a full-length DVD release called
Futurama: Bender's Big Score, which will be followed by three additional films:
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs,
Bender's Game, and
The Wild Green Yonder. After their release, each film will be divided into four episodes and air on
Comedy Central.
The name "Futurama" comes from a pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Designed by
Norman Bel Geddes, the Futurama (New York World's Fair) depicted what he imagined the world to look like in 1959.
Cast and characters
Futurama is essentially a workplace
sitcom whose plot typically revolves around the activities and adventures of the employees of the Planet Express delivery company.Cook, Lucius (
April 26, 2004). Hey Sexy Mama, Wanna Kill All Humans?: Looking Backwards at Futurama, The Greatest SF Show You've Never Seen.
Locus Online. Retrieved on January 27,
2007. Episodes will invariably feature the central trio of Fry, Leela and Bender, and storylines centered on the other main characters are common.
- Philip J. Fry (Billy West) — Philip J. Fry was a pizza delivery boy who was cryonics frozen just after midnight on the early morning of New Year's Day, January 1, 2000, reawakening on New Year's Eve, 2999. He gets a job at Planet Express, a company owned by his closest living relative, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, where he works as a delivery boy. He is — through actions he takes in the episode Roswell That Ends Well — his own grandfather.
- Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal) — Leela is the competent, cyclops captain of the Planet Express Ship. Abandoned at birth, she grew up in the List of Futurama places#Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium believing herself to be an extraterrestrial life from an unknown race. She later learns that she is a List of recurring non-robot characters from Futurama#Sewer mutants.
- Bender (Futurama) (John DiMaggio) — Bender is a profanity, Alcoholism, cigar-Tobacco smoking, kleptomaniacal, Misanthropy, egocentrism, ill-tempered Robots in Futurama originally programmed to bend girders for suicide booths. He is Fry's best friend and roommate. He is the ship's chef (though his cooking is terrible) and primarily assists in delivering cargo from ship to planet.
- Hubert J. Farnsworth a.k.a. The Professor (Billy West) — Born April 9, 2841, Professor Hubert Farnsworth is Fry's distant nephew. Farnsworth founded Planet Express to fund his mad scientist-esque experiments and inventions. He clones himself to create a successor, Cubert Farnsworth.
- Doctor John D. Zoidberg (Billy West) — Zoidberg is a lobster-like alien from the planet Decapod 10, and is the neurotic and self-conscious staff doctor of Planet Express. His knowledge of human anatomy and physiology is woefully inadequate. He is penniless and usually eats the garbage that he finds in a Dumpster (term) outside Planet Express headquarters, or anything else he can scrounge.
- Amy Wong (Lauren Tom) — Amy is an incredibly rich, spoiled, blunt and extremely accident-prone intern at Planet Express. She is an engineering student at Mars University and heiress to the western hemisphere of Mars. Born on Mars, she is ethnically Han Chinese, prone to frequently cursing in Cantonese (linguistics), and using 31st century slang. Her parents are List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Leo and Inez Wong. Although initially portrayed as somewhat promiscuous, she eventually developed a relationship with Kif Kroker.
- Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) — Hermes is the Jamaican accountant of Planet Express. A bureaucrat and proud of it, he is a stickler for regulation. Hermes is also a former champion in Olympic Limbo, a sport derived from the Limbo (dance) and similar to the track event of hurdling. He has a wife, List of recurring human characters from Futurama#LaBarbara Conrad, and a 12-year old son, List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Dwight Conrad. he also enjoys smoking cigars that are not filled with tobacco...
See also: List of recurring robot characters from Futurama, List of recurring human characters from Futurama, List of recurring alien characters from Futurama and List of Futurama animals
Setting
Futurama is set at the beginning of the 31st century, in a time filled with technological wonders. Various devices and architecture are similar to the
Populuxe design. Global warming, inflexible
bureaucracy, and substance abuse are a few of the subjects given a 31st century exaggeration in a world where the problems have become both more extreme and more common. In a jab at segregation, for example, the show depicts the human prejudice against
mutation as being so great that the latter have been forced to live underground in the sewers. The characters' home on Earth is the city of
List of Futurama places#New New York, built over the ruins of present-day New York City, referred to as "Old New York".
Numerous technological advances have been made by the 31st century. The ability to keep heads alive in jars was invented by
Ron Popeil (who has a guest cameo in "
A Big Piece of Garbage"), and has resulted in many political figures and celebrities being active; this became the writers' excuse to feature and poke fun at celebrities in the show. Curiously, several of the preserved heads shown are those of people who were already dead well before the advent of this technology, the most prominent example of this anomaly being
Richard Nixon, who died in 1994. The Internet, while being fully immersive and encompassing all senses and seeming to feature its own digital world (similar to Tron (film) or The Matrix series), is slow and consists mostly of pornography, pop-up ads, and "filthy"
chat rooms, though some of it is edited to include educational material ostensibly for youth. Television is a primary form of entertainment, though it is of a much HDTV. Robots powered by either alcohol or mineral oil are commonplace, and most have free will and emotions. Wheel is obsolete, having been forgotten and replaced by hovering vehicles and transportation tubes; these are reminiscent of old-style
pneumatic tubes. At one point Fry builds a carriage employing wheels, albeit malformed and none of the other characters recognize the wheels - although Leela suggests that they would work better if they were round.
Futurama's setting is a backdrop, and the writers are not above committing continuity (fiction)#continuity errors if they serve to further the gags. For example, while Space Pilot 3000 implies that the previous Planet Express crew was killed by a space wasp the later episode "
The Sting (Futurama)" is based on the crew being killed by space bees instead.Patric Verrone (2003), DVD commentary for "The Sting (Futurama)",
Futurama. Original airdate
June 1,
2003. No. 12, Season 4. 20th Century Fox. The world of tomorrow is used to highlight and lampoon issues of today and to parody the science fiction genre.
Society and culture
Earth is depicted as being multicultural to the extent that there are a wide range of human, robot and extraterrestrial beings shown in the series who interact with the primary characters. In some ways the future is depicted as being more socially advanced than Fry's, and thus the audience's, reality. Other times, the future is shown to have many of the same types of problems, challenges, mistakes and prejudices of the past. Robots make up the largest "minority" in the series. They are often treated like second-class citizens, while a few are depicted as wealthy members of the upper-class. Most robots are self-aware and granted freedom and free-will. However at times of crisis robots may have their free-will removed (having their “patriotism circuits” activated) and forced to serve humans, or to serve in the military in times of war. Many robots live in apartments specially constructed for robots, with rooms the size of a typical coat closet and closets the size of typical rooms. Sewer Mutants are mutated humans who live in the sewers by law. They hold urban legend status and are regarded as fictional by some members of the public.
Religion is still a prominent part of society although the dominant religions have shifted. A merger between the
major religious groups of the 20th century has resulted in the First Amalgamated Church, while
Vodou is now mainstream. New religions include
Oprah Winfrey, Robotology, and the banned religion of
Trekkie. Religious figures in the series include List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Father Changstein-El-Gamal, List of recurring robot characters from Futurama#Reverend Preacherbot, the Robot Devil (or Beelzebot) and passing references to
List of Futurama animals#The Space Pope. While very few episodes focus exclusively on the religious changes in the
Futurama universe they do cover a wide variety of subjects including predestination, prayer, the nature of salvation, and religious conversion.
Earth has a Earth Government (Futurama), headed by the President of Earth (from season 2 onwards being
List of recurring human characters from Futurama). Earth's capital is Washington, D.C. and the flag of Earth is similar in design to the
flag of the United States, with planet Earth displayed in place of the fifty stars.
The
Democratic Order Of Planets (
D.O.O.P.) is the fictional organization in the
Futurama universe which has been compared to both the United Nations and to the United Federation of Planets of the
Star Trek universe. Numerous other galaxy have been colonized or have made contact by the year 3000. Mars has been terraforming, and is home to Mars University.
Linguistics
.There are two alternative alphabets that appear often in the background, usually in the forms of
graffiti, advertisements, or warning labels. Nearly all messages using alternative scripts translate directly into English. The first alphabet is comprised of abstract characters and is referred to as Alienese, a simple substitution cipher from the
Latin alphabet. The second alphabet uses a more complex modulo addition code, where the "next letter is given by the summation of all previous letters plus the current letter." They often provide additional jokes for fans dedicated enough to decode the messages . Aside from these alphabets, most of the displayed wording on the show uses the Latin alphabet.
Several English expressions have evolved since the present day. For example, the word
Christmas has been replaced with
Xmas and the word
wikt:ask with its archaic form of
aks. According to David X. Cohen it is a running joke in the series that the French language is
extinct language in the
Futurama universe, much like
Latin is in the present. In the French dubbing of the show, German language is used as the extinct language instead.
Hallmarks
Opening sequence
Much like the
The Simpsons opening sequence with its
Chalkboard gag,
Sax solo gag and couch gags,
Futurama has a distinctive opening sequence featuring minor gags. As the show begins, the word "Futurama" is displayed across the screen along with a humorous subtitle (such as "As seen on TV", "Bender’s Humor by Microsoft Joke™" or "You Can't Prove It Won't Happen".) Later, after flying through downtown
New New York and past various minor characters, the Planet Express Ship crashes into a large screen showing a short clip from a classic cartoon. These have included clips from
Looney Tunes shorts, cartoons produced by
Max Fleischer, and even a short section of
The Simpsons from a Tracy Ullman episode.
The
Futurama theme song was written by
Christopher Tyng, and is based on the song "Psyché Rock" by Pierre Henry. Tyng discusses the instrumentation for the Futurama theme in the Season 2 DVD commentary for "The Problem With Popplers."
Recurring jokes and catch phrases
, the first time that Fox has ever allowed a TV show to change the name of the logo in the end or any part of a TV show.Several recurring jokes are used throughout the series. The Professor always announces a dangerous mission or bad news with the phrase "Good news, everyone!" or a slight variation of the line. Bender will often tell someone to "Bite my shiny metal ass" or a variation depending on the current situation. The catchphrase itself is heavily parodied in the episode "
War is the H-Word". Whenever
List of recurring non-robot characters from Futurama#Scruffy the janitor is shown, none of the other Planet Express employees seem to know who he is, despite his claims of being a long-time employee and his repeated appearances in the show. The word
underpants is almost always used in lieu of the word
underwear due to Ken Keeler's belief it is 20%
Inherently funny word. Amy falls down or slips often throughout the series, and the same
soundbite of her scream is used each time. Whenever it is referenced, the state of New Jersey is regarded as a terrible place, and in the episode "I, Roommate", Fry rejects an apparently perfect apartment when it is revealed that it is "technically in New Jersey." The series has
owls replacing
rats and
pigeons as the
vermin plaguing New New York. The 20th Century Fox logo at the end of each broadcast is altered to read "30th Century Fox", as it is set in the 31st century. The producers stated that they created the logo themselves when Fox refused to produce a new logo for them, but later were compensated for the amount paid because Fox decided that they liked it.Audio commentary 23 minutes in The logo was referenced in the episode "That's Lobstertainment!", when a Los Angeles tour guide points out the movie studio in the shape of the logo; the studio's spotlights are used to blind pilots so FOX cameramen can film the resulting crashes.
Humor
Although the series utilized a wide range of styles of humor, including
self-deprecation,
black comedy,
off-color humor, slapstick, and surreal humor, its primary source of comedy was its Satire depiction of everyday life in the future, and its parody comparisons of which to the present. Matt Groening notes that from the show's conception, his goal was to take what was on the surface a goofy comedy and show that underneath were "legitimate literary science fiction concepts".Keller, Joel (January 31,
2007). Matt Groening talks about Futurama's comeback. TV Squad. Retrieved
February 1, 2007. The series contrasted "low culture" and "high culture" comedy; for example, Bender's
catchphrase is the insult "Bite my shiny metal arse", while his most terrifying nightmare is a vision of an
Arabic alphabet#Numerals 2, a joke referencing the
binary numeral system.
The series developed a
Cult television partially due to the large number of in-jokes, most of which were aimed at "nerds". In
Audio commentary on the DVD releases, David X. Cohen points out and sometimes explains his "nerdiest joke." These jokes included
mathematical jokes, such as "Loews Cineplex Entertainment \aleph_0-plex" (aleph number-plex) movie theater, as well as various forms of
science humor. For example, Professor Farnsworth complains that judges of a
Photo finish "
changed the outcome by measuring it", a reference to the Observer effect#Use in science in
quantum mechanics. Over its run, the series passed references to
quantum chromodynamics (the appearance of Strong interaction brand glue),
computer science and
electronics (two large books in a closet labeled P = NP problem respectively), and
genetics (a mention of Bender's "RNA"). The show often featured subtle references to classic
science fiction, most often
Star Trek - many soundbites are used in the series as
homage - but also others, such as the reference to the origin of the word
robot made in the existence of a robot-dominated planet named Karel Čapek 9.
Production
Matt Groening began thinking of
Futurama in the mid-1990s. In 1997, he enlisted the help of David Cohen, then a
Simpsons writer and producer, to assist in developing the show. The two then spent time researching science fiction books, television shows, and films of the past. By the time they pitched the series to Fox in April 1998, Groening and Cohen had composed many characters and story lines. During that first meeting, Fox ordered thirteen episodes. Shortly after, however, Groening and Fox executives argued over whether the network would have any creative input into the show. With
The Simpsons the network has no input. Groening explains, "When they tried to give me notes on Futurama, I just said: 'No, we're going to do this just the way we did Simpsons.' And they said, 'Well, we don't do business that way anymore.' And I said, 'Oh, well, that's the only way I do business.'" After negotiations, he got the same independence with
Futurama.
Production process
It takes six to nine months to make an episode of
Futurama. This long production time means many episodes are worked on simultaneously.
Each episode begins with the writers discussing the story in a group. Then a single staff writer writes an outline and then a script. Once the first draft is finished, the writers and executive producers get together with the actors to do a table read. After this script reading, the writers rewrite the script as a group before eventually sending it to animation. At this point the voice recording is also started and the script is out of the writers' hands.
The animation in
Futurama is done by
Rough Draft Studios, which Groening insisted be used. Rough Draft receives the completed script and the first thing they do is
storyboard it into over 100 drawings. Then they create a pencil-drawn animatic with 1000 frames. From there, Rough Draft's sister studio in Korea puts together the 30,000-frame finished episode. The show is also sometimes animated overseas by
Tokyo Movie Shinsha.
C.G.I
In addition to traditional cartoon drawing, Rough Draft Studios often uses
Computer-generated imagery for the fast or complex shots such as during the movement of spaceships, explosions, nebulae, and snow scenes among others. Most of the opening credits are rendered in CGI. The CGI is rendered at 24
fps (opposed to hand-drawn at 12 fps) and the lack of artifacts makes the animation appear very smooth and fluid. CGI characters look slightly different due to spatially "cheating" hand-drawn characters by drawing slightly out of proportion or off-perspective features to emphasize traits of the face or body, improving legibility of an expression.
PowerAnimator is used to draw the comic-like CGI.
Broadcast
When it came to deciding when the show would air Groening and Cohen wanted
Futurama to be shown at 8:30 Sunday nights, following
The Simpsons. The network disagreed, opting instead to show two episodes in the Sunday night lineup before moving the show to its regular time slot on Tuesday. Beginning its second broadcast season
Futurama was again placed in the 8:30 Sunday spot, but by mid-season the show was moved again. This time
Futurama began airing in the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot, its third position in under a year's time.Due to the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot the show was often preempted by sports and usually had a later than average season premiere. It also allowed the writers and animators to get ahead of the broadcast schedule so that episodes intended for one season were not aired until the following season. By the beginning of the fourth broadcast season all the episodes to be aired that season had already been completed and writers were working at least a year in advance.
Ratings
When
Futurama debuted in the Fox Sunday night line-up at 8:30 p.m. between
The Simpsons and
The X-Files on March 28,
1999 it managed 19 million viewers, tying for 11th overall in that week's
Nielsen Ratings. The following week, airing at the same time,
Futurama drew 14.2 million viewers. The show was then moved to Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m.
Futurama's first episode airing on Tuesday drew 8.85 million viewers. Though its ratings were well below
The Simpsons, Futurama's first season rated higher than competing animated series:
King of the Hill,
Family Guy,
Dilbert (TV series),
South Park and
The PJs.
When
Futurama was effectively canceled in 2003, it had averaged 6.4 million viewers for the first half of its fourth broadcast season.
Show status
FOX executives reportedly did not like the show and by the fourth season,
Futurama was being aired erratically. Its time slot was regularly pre-empted by sports events, making it difficult to predict when new episodes would air. FOX also had not aired several episodes that had been produced for seasons three and four. Although
Futurama was never officially canceled, midway through the production of the fourth season, Fox decided to let it go out of production and told the writers and animators to look for new jobs. Fox's decision to stop buying episodes of
Futurama led Rough Draft Studios, the animation producers, to fire its animators.
Futurama was not included in Fox's fall 2003 lineup.
In January 2003, Cartoon Network began airing
Futurama episodes as the centerpiece to the expansion of their
Adult Swim cartoon block. In October 2005, Comedy Central picked up the exclusive cable syndication rights to air
Futurama's 72-episode run at the start of 2008, following the expiration of Cartoon Network's contract. It was cited as the largest and most expensive acquisition in the network's history.
Future and DVD movies
After the successful revival of the
Family Guy series,
Futurama co-creator Matt Groening approached 20th Century Fox Television to produce a Direct-to-video
Futurama movie. On
April 26,
2006, Groening noted in an interview that co-creator David X. Cohen and numerous writers from the original series would be returning to work on the movies. On
June 22,
2006, Comedy Central announced that at least 13 new episodes were to be produced. Comedy Central also confirmed that
Billy West, Katey Sagal, and
John DiMaggio would return for the new episodes, with a 2008 debut planned.
The first movie,
Futurama: Bender's Big Score, is written by
Ken Keeler and Cohen, and will include return appearances by the
Nibblonians, Seymour, Barbados Slim,
List of recurring alien characters from Futurama#Morbo, List of recurring robot characters from Futurama#Robot Santa,
Godfellas,
List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Al Gore, and Zapp Brannigan. In an appearance on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Al Gore confirmed that he would appear as his disembodied head. Cohen has said that Gore would be involved in a storyline which will "show what really determined the outcome of the 2000 Presidential election".
In February 2007, Groening clarified speculation as to whether
Futurama had been revived in episodic or feature-film form, saying " crew is writing them as movies and then we're going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes." According to Rich Moore the titles of the other three movies are
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs,
Futurama: Bender's Game, and
Futurama: The Wild Green Yonder.Vo, Alex (July 30 2007). Comic-Con Premieres New Futurama Footage; Plus, We Interview Futurama's Rich Moore.
Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on
August 1 2007A 5-minute trailer was shown at the 2007 Comic-Con International convention in San Diego on July
28, 2007, to an audience of more than 4,000. All original voice actors still take part in the series, and it will be in widescreen format when released on DVD. After the trailer was shown the panel, including Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, and Matt Groening, answered questions from the audience. It was revealed that they are working on 4 DVDs which will later be split into 16 episodes that will air on Comedy Central.
Futurama: Bender's Big Score will be released on DVD November 27th, 2007. It has been animated in widescreen and will be released on both normal and High-definition video DVD.
References to Futurama in popular culture
Futurama is referenced numerous times in Groening's first series
The Simpsons.
Squeaky Voiced Teen is once seen attempting suicide, jumping off a cliff screaming "Why did they cancel
Futurama?". Bender has also had numerous cameos, the most notable in Future-Drama.Bender has speaking lines in the episode Fry has also appeared in
The Simpsons, during a couch gag.
In
An Inconvenient Truth,
Al Gore uses a scene from the episode "Crimes Of The Hot" during his initial explanation of global warming. The
Futurama cast and crew also made an animated faux-trailer for the movie titled
A Terrifying Message From Al Gore featuring Gore and Bender. Al Gore is a recurring guest star in Futurama, and he has said that Futurama is his favorite show.
In an episode of
The PJs, Fry's face can be seen on a milk carton as a missing person, referencing Fry's disappearance by being cryonically frozen. This was an act of reciprocation for an advertisement of
The PJs etched into a manhole cover in the
Futurama episode "
I Second That Emotion (Futurama)". "They reciprocated, actually, by putting Fry on the side of a milk carton in
The PJs as a lost person."
The Planet Express Ship appears in the
Dark Horse Comics miniseries
Outer Orbit, and the theme from
Futurama was heard in the background of a scene on the moon in
The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Also, in
Alan Moore's "Top 10 (comic book)" (issue 11), a discolored Fry, Leela, and Bender can be seen in the background of one of the frames.
During the premiere skit in
Family Guy's
Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, a reporter on the red carpet asks Stewie Griffin if Fox has any plans to bring back
Futurama.
Family Guy and
Futurama were both animated series on Fox which were canceled and subsequently aired on
Adult Swim; at the time of release
Family Guy was scheduled to return but
Futurama was not. In the
Star Wars based sixth season premiere episode of
Family Guy, "Blue Harvest (Family Guy)", Bender appears in the background of the bar scene.
In the novella
The Kingdom of Fife by Irvine Welsh,
Futurama is refered to twice.
needed
Awards
{| style="width: 100%"! style="text-align: left" |
Wins! style="text-align: left" colspan="2" |
Nominations|-| style="vertical-align: top; width: 33%; font-size: x-small" |
Annie Awards:
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Television Production
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Male Performer in an Animated Television Production
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television Production
- 2001 — Ron Weiner for episode "Luck of the Fryrish" 29th Annual Annie Award Nominees and Winners
- Outstanding Directing in an Animated Television Production
- 2003 — Rich Moore for episode "Roswell That Ends Well"
Emmy Awards:
- Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation
- 2000 — Bari Kumar (color stylist) for episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two"
- 2001 — Rodney Clouden (storyboard artist) for episode "Parasites Lost"
- Outstanding Animated Program
- 2002 — "Roswell That Ends Well"
Environmental Media Awards:
Writers Guild of America Award:
| style="vertical-align: top; width: 34%; font-size: x-small" |
Annie Awards:
- Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Program
- 1999 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television Production
- 1999 — Ken Keeler for episode "The Series Has Landed"
- Outstanding Achievement in a Primetime or Late Night Animated Television Program
- 2000 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Television Production
- Outstanding Achievement in a Primetime or Late Night Animated Television Production
- 2001 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Production
- 2003 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Music in an Animated Television Production
- Outstanding Writing in an Animated Television Production
| style="vertical-align: top; width: 33%; font-size: x-small" |
Emmy Awards:
- Outstanding Animated Program
- Outstanding Music and Lyrics
- 2004 — The song "I Want My Hands Back" for episode "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings"
Nebula Award:
Writers Guild of America Award:
- Animation
- 2004 — Patric Verrone for episode "The Sting"
|}
DVD releases
Full season releases
{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2" | DVD Name !! rowspan="2" | Ep # !! colspan="3" | Release dates !! rowspan="2" | Additional Features|-!
DVD region code!!
DVD region code !!
DVD region code|-|align="center"| List of Futurama episodes#Season 1: 1999 ||align="center" |13 ||
March 25 2003 ]
2002 ] 2002 ] ||align="center" |19 || August 12
2003 ] 2002 ]
2003 ] ||align="center" |22||
March 9 2004 ]
2003 [2003 ] ||align="center" |18|| August 24 2004 ]
2003 [2003 || This four disc boxset includes the 18 episodes from production season 4. Bonus features include commentary on every episode, deleted scenes from 16 episodes, storyboard, character art and "How To Draw" galleries, animatics, 3-D Models, pencil tests, easter eggs.|}
Note: The box sets in Region 2 and 4 are marketed as "Season" rather than "Volume".
Note: Each of the box sets represent one of the four production seasons of the series. However, Fox spread out the series over 5 television seasons, often airing the series out of production order. Of note: after the production of Futurama was originally canceled, Fox aired the 16 previously unaired episodes, all from production seasons three and four, as a "season 5", running sporadically between November 2002 and August 2003. The box sets restore the episodes to production order.
Compilation release
{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2" | DVD Name !! rowspan="2" | Ep # !! colspan="3" | Release dates !! rowspan="2" | Additional Features|-! Region 1 !! Region 2 !! Region 4|-|align="center" |Monster
Robot
Maniac
Fun
Collection ||align="center" |4||August 23
2005 ] 2005 ] 2005 ]", "
Anthology of Interest I", "
Roswell That Ends Well" and
The Sting (Futurama). New bonus features include an animatic for "Hell Is Other Robots" with commentary, special introductions and an Easter Egg (Virtual).|}
Movie releases
{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2" | DVD Name !! colspan="3" | Release dates !! rowspan="2" | Additional Features|-! Region 1 !! Region 2 !! Region 4|-|align="center" |
Futurama: Bender's Big Score ||
November 27 2007 ] || TBA || Contains an all new feature length
direct-to-video movie. Bonus features include complete commentary, full-length episode of
Everybody Loves Hypno-Toad, Futurama math lecture, and promo for
An Inconvenient Truth starring Bender and Al Gore. Futurama: Bender's Big Score.
FoxStore.com. Retrieved on
August 6 2007.|}
Futurama in other media
Comic books
First started in November 2000,
Futurama Comics is a comic book series published by
Bongo Comics based in the
Futurama universe. While originally published only in the US, a UK and Australian version of the series is also available.Press release (
2002-09-25) Do you want Fry with that?
Titan Publishing. Retrieved from gotfuturama on
2007-03-04 Other than a different running order and presentation, the stories are the same in all versions.
Much like the TV series, each comic has a caption at the top of the cover. For example: "Made In The USA! (Printed in Canada)". Some of the UK and Australian comics have different captions on the top of their comics (for example, the Australian version of #20 says "A 21st Century Comic Book" across the cover, while the US version does not have a caption on that issue). All series contain a letters page, artwork from readers and previews of other Bongo Comics coming up.
The
Futurama comics may not be canon (fiction)
per se, and while they do draw from the
Futurama universe, the events portrayed within them do not necessarily have any effect upon the continuity of the show.
Toys, games and figurines
While relatively uncommon, several action and tin figurines of various characters and items from the show have been made and are being sold by various hobby/online stores. When the show was initially licensed plans were made with
Rocket USA to produce wind-up, walking tin figurines of both Bender and Nibbler with packaging artwork done by the original artists for the series. The Bender toys included a cigar and bottle of "Olde Fortran Malt Liquor" and featured moving eyes, antenna and a functioning compartment door; it received an "A" rating from Sci Fi Weekly. A can of Slurm cola actually contains a deck of cards featuring the Planet Express crew as the face cards. A two deck pack of cards was also released.
I-Men released two packs of 2.5 inch high figures: Fry and Calculon; Zoidberg and Morbo; Professor Farnsworth and URL; Robot Devil and Bender; Leela and Roberto. Each figure comes with a corresponding collectable coin that can also double as a figure stand.
The collectible releases include a set of bendable action figures, including Lieutenant Kif Kroker, Turanga Leela, and Bender. There have also been a few figures released by Moore Action Collectibles, including Fry, Turanga Leela, Bender, and the Planet Express Ship. Lastly, in late 2006, Rocket USA brought out a limited edition 'super' heavyweight die cast Bender. Another special edition Bender figure was released at the San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) in 2006. The figure was called "Glorious Golden Bender". Bobble bender exists.
Toynami has recently announced new
Futurama figures. First wave released in summer 2007. The first series of the Toynami figues will be separated into 3 "waves". Each figure will also come with pieces to assemble the Robot Devil. A video game was produced and promoted in DVD sets.
Video game
On September 15
2000,
Unique Development Studios acquired the license to develop a Futurama video game for the next generation consoles and handheld systems.
Fox Interactive signed on to publish the game.
Sierra Entertainment later became the game's publisher, and it was released on
August 14,
2003. Versions are available for the
PlayStation 2 and Xbox, both of which use
cel-shaded animation technology, however, the game was subsequently canceled on the
Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance in North America and Europe.
References
External links
- Futurama opening gags at Flickr
- Futurama title captions at The Infosphere.
- Futurama Revival at Simpsons Zip
- The Planet Express Employee Lounge Futurama message board.
{{Infobox Television| show_name = Futurama| image = | caption = The opening
Intertitle for
Futurama| genre =
Situation comedy Comic science fiction| creator = [Matt Groening| voices = [Billy WestKatey Sagal
John DiMaggioPhil LaMarrLauren TomMaurice LaMarche
Tress MacNeilleDavid HermanFrank Welker
Tom Kenny| composer = Christopher Tyng| country = | language = [English language| num_seasons = 4 (production)5 (broadcast)| num_episodes = 72 | list_episodes = List of Futurama episodes| executive_producer = Matt GroeningDavid X. CohenKen Keeler (1999–2003)
[Comedy Central (2008)], 1999, [2003 (original run)]-winning
animated television series United States sitcom created by Matt Groening, who also created
The Simpsons, and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the
Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a former New York-style pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, after he is accidentally Cryonics at midnight, January 1st,
2000, and is revived one thousand years in the future.
In the United States, the series aired from March 28, 1999 to August 10,
2003 on FOX, although its timeslot was regularly interrupted and pre-empted by sports events, and eventually went out of production. However, Comedy Central has entered into an agreement with 20th Century Fox Television to syndicate the existing episodes and air the new movies as new episodes in an episodic format as of February 2008. At Comic-Con 2007 it was announced that
Futurama will return on November 27th as a full-length DVD release called
Futurama: Bender's Big Score, which will be followed by three additional films:
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs,
Bender's Game, and
The Wild Green Yonder. After their release, each film will be divided into four episodes and air on
Comedy Central.
The name "Futurama" comes from a pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Designed by
Norman Bel Geddes, the
Futurama (New York World's Fair) depicted what he imagined the world to look like in 1959.
Cast and characters
Futurama is essentially a workplace
sitcom whose plot typically revolves around the activities and adventures of the employees of the Planet Express delivery company.Cook, Lucius (
April 26, 2004). Hey Sexy Mama, Wanna Kill All Humans?: Looking Backwards at Futurama, The Greatest SF Show You've Never Seen.
Locus Online. Retrieved on
January 27,
2007. Episodes will invariably feature the central trio of Fry, Leela and Bender, and storylines centered on the other main characters are common.
- Philip J. Fry (Billy West) — Philip J. Fry was a pizza delivery boy who was cryonics frozen just after midnight on the early morning of New Year's Day, January 1, 2000, reawakening on New Year's Eve, 2999. He gets a job at Planet Express, a company owned by his closest living relative, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, where he works as a delivery boy. He is — through actions he takes in the episode Roswell That Ends Well — his own grandfather.
- Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal) — Leela is the competent, cyclops captain of the Planet Express Ship. Abandoned at birth, she grew up in the List of Futurama places#Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium believing herself to be an extraterrestrial life from an unknown race. She later learns that she is a List of recurring non-robot characters from Futurama#Sewer mutants.
- Bender (Futurama) (John DiMaggio) — Bender is a profanity, Alcoholism, cigar-Tobacco smoking, kleptomaniacal, Misanthropy, egocentrism, ill-tempered Robots in Futurama originally programmed to bend girders for suicide booths. He is Fry's best friend and roommate. He is the ship's chef (though his cooking is terrible) and primarily assists in delivering cargo from ship to planet.
- Hubert J. Farnsworth a.k.a. The Professor (Billy West) — Born April 9, 2841, Professor Hubert Farnsworth is Fry's distant nephew. Farnsworth founded Planet Express to fund his mad scientist-esque experiments and inventions. He clones himself to create a successor, Cubert Farnsworth.
- Doctor John D. Zoidberg (Billy West) — Zoidberg is a lobster-like alien from the planet Decapod 10, and is the neurotic and self-conscious staff doctor of Planet Express. His knowledge of human anatomy and physiology is woefully inadequate. He is penniless and usually eats the garbage that he finds in a Dumpster (term) outside Planet Express headquarters, or anything else he can scrounge.
- Amy Wong (Lauren Tom) — Amy is an incredibly rich, spoiled, blunt and extremely accident-prone intern at Planet Express. She is an engineering student at Mars University and heiress to the western hemisphere of Mars. Born on Mars, she is ethnically Han Chinese, prone to frequently cursing in Cantonese (linguistics), and using 31st century slang. Her parents are List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Leo and Inez Wong. Although initially portrayed as somewhat promiscuous, she eventually developed a relationship with Kif Kroker.
- Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) — Hermes is the Jamaican accountant of Planet Express. A bureaucrat and proud of it, he is a stickler for regulation. Hermes is also a former champion in Olympic Limbo, a sport derived from the Limbo (dance) and similar to the track event of hurdling. He has a wife, List of recurring human characters from Futurama#LaBarbara Conrad, and a 12-year old son, List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Dwight Conrad. he also enjoys smoking cigars that are not filled with tobacco...
See also: List of recurring robot characters from Futurama, List of recurring human characters from Futurama, List of recurring alien characters from Futurama and List of Futurama animals
Setting
Futurama is set at the beginning of the 31st century, in a time filled with technological wonders. Various devices and architecture are similar to the Populuxe design. Global warming, inflexible bureaucracy, and substance abuse are a few of the subjects given a 31st century exaggeration in a world where the problems have become both more extreme and more common. In a jab at segregation, for example, the show depicts the human prejudice against mutation as being so great that the latter have been forced to live underground in the sewers. The characters' home on Earth is the city of
List of Futurama places#New New York, built over the ruins of present-day New York City, referred to as "Old New York".
Numerous technological advances have been made by the 31st century. The ability to keep heads alive in jars was invented by Ron Popeil (who has a guest cameo in "
A Big Piece of Garbage"), and has resulted in many political figures and celebrities being active; this became the writers' excuse to feature and poke fun at celebrities in the show. Curiously, several of the preserved heads shown are those of people who were already dead well before the advent of this technology, the most prominent example of this anomaly being Richard Nixon, who died in 1994. The Internet, while being fully immersive and encompassing all senses and seeming to feature its own digital world (similar to
Tron (film) or The Matrix series), is slow and consists mostly of
pornography, pop-up ads, and "filthy"
chat rooms, though some of it is edited to include educational material ostensibly for youth. Television is a primary form of entertainment, though it is of a much HDTV. Robots powered by either alcohol or mineral oil are commonplace, and most have free will and emotions. Wheel is obsolete, having been forgotten and replaced by hovering vehicles and transportation tubes; these are reminiscent of old-style pneumatic tubes. At one point Fry builds a carriage employing wheels, albeit malformed and none of the other characters recognize the wheels - although Leela suggests that they would work better if they were round.
Futurama's setting is a backdrop, and the writers are not above committing
continuity (fiction)#continuity errors if they serve to further the gags. For example, while Space Pilot 3000 implies that the previous Planet Express crew was killed by a space wasp the later episode "
The Sting (Futurama)" is based on the crew being killed by space bees instead.
Patric Verrone (2003), DVD commentary for "
The Sting (Futurama)",
Futurama. Original airdate
June 1, 2003. No. 12, Season 4. 20th Century Fox. The world of tomorrow is used to highlight and lampoon issues of today and to parody the science fiction genre.
Society and culture
Earth is depicted as being multicultural to the extent that there are a wide range of human, robot and extraterrestrial beings shown in the series who interact with the primary characters. In some ways the future is depicted as being more socially advanced than Fry's, and thus the audience's, reality. Other times, the future is shown to have many of the same types of problems, challenges, mistakes and prejudices of the past. Robots make up the largest "minority" in the series. They are often treated like second-class citizens, while a few are depicted as wealthy members of the upper-class. Most robots are self-aware and granted freedom and free-will. However at times of crisis robots may have their free-will removed (having their “patriotism circuits” activated) and forced to serve humans, or to serve in the military in times of war. Many robots live in apartments specially constructed for robots, with rooms the size of a typical coat closet and closets the size of typical rooms. Sewer Mutants are mutated humans who live in the sewers by law. They hold urban legend status and are regarded as fictional by some members of the public.
Religion is still a prominent part of society although the dominant religions have shifted. A merger between the
major religious groups of the 20th century has resulted in the First Amalgamated Church, while Vodou is now mainstream. New religions include
Oprah Winfrey,
Robotology, and the banned religion of Trekkie. Religious figures in the series include
List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Father Changstein-El-Gamal,
List of recurring robot characters from Futurama#Reverend Preacherbot, the
Robot Devil (or Beelzebot) and passing references to List of Futurama animals#The Space Pope. While very few episodes focus exclusively on the religious changes in the
Futurama universe they do cover a wide variety of subjects including predestination, prayer, the nature of salvation, and religious conversion.
Earth has a
Earth Government (Futurama), headed by the President of Earth (from season 2 onwards being
List of recurring human characters from Futurama). Earth's capital is Washington, D.C. and the flag of Earth is similar in design to the
flag of the United States, with planet Earth displayed in place of the fifty stars.
The
Democratic Order Of Planets (D.O.O.P.) is the fictional organization in the
Futurama universe which has been compared to both the United Nations and to the United Federation of Planets of the
Star Trek universe. Numerous other galaxy have been colonized or have made contact by the year 3000. Mars has been
terraforming, and is home to Mars University.
Linguistics
.There are two alternative alphabets that appear often in the background, usually in the forms of
graffiti, advertisements, or warning labels. Nearly all messages using alternative scripts translate directly into English. The first alphabet is comprised of abstract characters and is referred to as Alienese, a simple
substitution cipher from the Latin alphabet. The second alphabet uses a more complex
modulo addition code, where the "next letter is given by the summation of all previous letters plus the current letter." They often provide additional jokes for fans dedicated enough to decode the messages . Aside from these alphabets, most of the displayed wording on the show uses the Latin alphabet.
Several English expressions have evolved since the present day. For example, the word
Christmas has been replaced with
Xmas and the word
wikt:ask with its archaic form of
aks. According to David X. Cohen it is a running joke in the series that the
French language is extinct language in the
Futurama universe, much like
Latin is in the present. In the French dubbing of the show,
German language is used as the extinct language instead.
Hallmarks
Opening sequence
Much like the
The Simpsons opening sequence with its Chalkboard gag, Sax solo gag and
couch gags,
Futurama has a distinctive opening sequence featuring minor gags. As the show begins, the word "Futurama" is displayed across the screen along with a humorous subtitle (such as "As seen on TV", "Bender’s Humor by
Microsoft Joke™" or "You Can't Prove It Won't Happen".) Later, after flying through downtown
New New York and past various minor characters, the Planet Express Ship crashes into a large screen showing a short clip from a classic cartoon. These have included clips from
Looney Tunes shorts, cartoons produced by Max Fleischer, and even a short section of
The Simpsons from a Tracy Ullman episode.
The
Futurama theme song was written by
Christopher Tyng, and is based on the song "Psyché Rock" by Pierre Henry. Tyng discusses the instrumentation for the Futurama theme in the Season 2 DVD commentary for "The Problem With Popplers."
Recurring jokes and catch phrases
, the first time that Fox has ever allowed a TV show to change the name of the logo in the end or any part of a TV show.Several recurring jokes are used throughout the series. The Professor always announces a dangerous mission or bad news with the phrase "Good news, everyone!" or a slight variation of the line. Bender will often tell someone to "Bite my shiny metal ass" or a variation depending on the current situation. The catchphrase itself is heavily parodied in the episode "
War is the H-Word". Whenever List of recurring non-robot characters from Futurama#Scruffy the janitor is shown, none of the other Planet Express employees seem to know who he is, despite his claims of being a long-time employee and his repeated appearances in the show. The word
underpants is almost always used in lieu of the word
underwear due to Ken Keeler's belief it is 20% Inherently funny word. Amy falls down or slips often throughout the series, and the same
soundbite of her scream is used each time. Whenever it is referenced, the state of
New Jersey is regarded as a terrible place, and in the episode "I, Roommate", Fry rejects an apparently perfect apartment when it is revealed that it is "technically in New Jersey." The series has owls replacing
rats and
pigeons as the vermin plaguing New New York. The 20th Century Fox logo at the end of each broadcast is altered to read "30th Century Fox", as it is set in the 31st century. The producers stated that they created the logo themselves when Fox refused to produce a new logo for them, but later were compensated for the amount paid because Fox decided that they liked it.Audio commentary 23 minutes in The logo was referenced in the episode "That's Lobstertainment!", when a Los Angeles tour guide points out the movie studio in the shape of the logo; the studio's spotlights are used to blind pilots so FOX cameramen can film the resulting crashes.
Humor
Although the series utilized a wide range of styles of humor, including
self-deprecation, black comedy, off-color humor,
slapstick, and surreal humor, its primary source of comedy was its
Satire depiction of everyday life in the future, and its
parody comparisons of which to the present. Matt Groening notes that from the show's conception, his goal was to take what was on the surface a goofy comedy and show that underneath were "legitimate literary science fiction concepts".Keller, Joel (
January 31, 2007). Matt Groening talks about Futurama's comeback.
TV Squad. Retrieved February 1, 2007. The series contrasted "low culture" and "
high culture" comedy; for example, Bender's
catchphrase is the insult "Bite my shiny metal
arse", while his most terrifying nightmare is a vision of an Arabic alphabet#Numerals
2, a joke referencing the
binary numeral system.
The series developed a
Cult television partially due to the large number of
in-jokes, most of which were aimed at "
nerds". In
Audio commentary on the
DVD releases, David X. Cohen points out and sometimes explains his "nerdiest joke." These jokes included mathematical jokes, such as "Loews Cineplex Entertainment \aleph_0-plex" (aleph number-plex) movie theater, as well as various forms of
science humor. For example, Professor Farnsworth complains that judges of a Photo finish "
changed the outcome by measuring it", a reference to the Observer effect#Use in science in
quantum mechanics. Over its run, the series passed references to
quantum chromodynamics (the appearance of
Strong interaction brand glue), computer science and
electronics (two large books in a closet labeled P = NP problem respectively), and
genetics (a mention of Bender's "RNA"). The show often featured subtle references to classic science fiction, most often
Star Trek - many soundbites are used in the series as homage - but also others, such as the reference to the origin of the word
robot made in the existence of a robot-dominated planet named Karel Čapek 9.
Production
Matt Groening began thinking of
Futurama in the mid-1990s. In 1997, he enlisted the help of David Cohen, then a
Simpsons writer and producer, to assist in developing the show. The two then spent time researching science fiction books, television shows, and films of the past. By the time they pitched the series to Fox in April 1998, Groening and Cohen had composed many characters and story lines. During that first meeting, Fox ordered thirteen episodes. Shortly after, however, Groening and Fox executives argued over whether the network would have any creative input into the show. With
The Simpsons the network has no input. Groening explains, "When they tried to give me notes on Futurama, I just said: 'No, we're going to do this just the way we did Simpsons.' And they said, 'Well, we don't do business that way anymore.' And I said, 'Oh, well, that's the only way I do business.'" After negotiations, he got the same independence with
Futurama.
Production process
It takes six to nine months to make an episode of
Futurama. This long production time means many episodes are worked on simultaneously.
Each episode begins with the writers discussing the story in a group. Then a single staff writer writes an outline and then a script. Once the first draft is finished, the writers and executive producers get together with the actors to do a table read. After this script reading, the writers rewrite the script as a group before eventually sending it to animation. At this point the voice recording is also started and the script is out of the writers' hands.
The animation in
Futurama is done by
Rough Draft Studios, which Groening insisted be used. Rough Draft receives the completed script and the first thing they do is storyboard it into over 100 drawings. Then they create a pencil-drawn animatic with 1000 frames. From there, Rough Draft's sister studio in Korea puts together the 30,000-frame finished episode. The show is also sometimes animated overseas by
Tokyo Movie Shinsha.
C.G.I
In addition to traditional cartoon drawing, Rough Draft Studios often uses
Computer-generated imagery for the fast or complex shots such as during the movement of spaceships, explosions, nebulae, and snow scenes among others. Most of the opening credits are rendered in CGI. The CGI is rendered at 24
fps (opposed to hand-drawn at 12 fps) and the lack of artifacts makes the animation appear very smooth and fluid. CGI characters look slightly different due to spatially "cheating" hand-drawn characters by drawing slightly out of proportion or off-perspective features to emphasize traits of the face or body, improving legibility of an expression. PowerAnimator is used to draw the comic-like CGI.
Broadcast
When it came to deciding when the show would air Groening and Cohen wanted
Futurama to be shown at 8:30 Sunday nights, following
The Simpsons. The network disagreed, opting instead to show two episodes in the Sunday night lineup before moving the show to its regular time slot on Tuesday. Beginning its second broadcast season
Futurama was again placed in the 8:30 Sunday spot, but by mid-season the show was moved again. This time
Futurama began airing in the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot, its third position in under a year's time.Due to the 7 p.m. Sunday timeslot the show was often preempted by sports and usually had a later than average season premiere. It also allowed the writers and animators to get ahead of the broadcast schedule so that episodes intended for one season were not aired until the following season. By the beginning of the fourth broadcast season all the episodes to be aired that season had already been completed and writers were working at least a year in advance.
Ratings
When
Futurama debuted in the Fox Sunday night line-up at 8:30 p.m. between
The Simpsons and
The X-Files on March 28, 1999 it managed 19 million viewers, tying for 11th overall in that week's Nielsen Ratings. The following week, airing at the same time,
Futurama drew 14.2 million viewers. The show was then moved to Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m.
Futurama's first episode airing on Tuesday drew 8.85 million viewers. Though its ratings were well below
The Simpsons, Futurama's first season rated higher than competing animated series:
King of the Hill,
Family Guy,
Dilbert (TV series),
South Park and
The PJs.
When
Futurama was effectively canceled in 2003, it had averaged 6.4 million viewers for the first half of its fourth broadcast season.
Show status
FOX executives reportedly did not like the show and by the fourth season,
Futurama was being aired erratically. Its time slot was regularly pre-empted by sports events, making it difficult to predict when new episodes would air. FOX also had not aired several episodes that had been produced for seasons three and four. Although
Futurama was never officially canceled, midway through the production of the fourth season, Fox decided to let it go out of production and told the writers and animators to look for new jobs. Fox's decision to stop buying episodes of
Futurama led Rough Draft Studios, the animation producers, to fire its animators.
Futurama was not included in Fox's fall 2003 lineup.
In January 2003, Cartoon Network began airing
Futurama episodes as the centerpiece to the expansion of their
Adult Swim cartoon block. In October 2005,
Comedy Central picked up the exclusive cable syndication rights to air
Futurama's 72-episode run at the start of 2008, following the expiration of Cartoon Network's contract. It was cited as the largest and most expensive acquisition in the network's history.
Future and DVD movies
After the successful revival of the
Family Guy series,
Futurama co-creator Matt Groening approached
20th Century Fox Television to produce a Direct-to-video
Futurama movie. On April 26, 2006, Groening noted in an interview that co-creator David X. Cohen and numerous writers from the original series would be returning to work on the movies. On June 22, 2006, Comedy Central announced that at least 13 new episodes were to be produced. Comedy Central also confirmed that
Billy West,
Katey Sagal, and John DiMaggio would return for the new episodes, with a 2008 debut planned.
The first movie,
Futurama: Bender's Big Score, is written by Ken Keeler and Cohen, and will include return appearances by the Nibblonians, Seymour, Barbados Slim,
List of recurring alien characters from Futurama#Morbo,
List of recurring robot characters from Futurama#Robot Santa,
Godfellas, List of recurring human characters from Futurama#Al Gore, and Zapp Brannigan. In an appearance on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Al Gore confirmed that he would appear as his disembodied head. Cohen has said that Gore would be involved in a storyline which will "show what really determined the outcome of the 2000 Presidential election".
In February 2007, Groening clarified speculation as to whether
Futurama had been revived in episodic or feature-film form, saying " crew is writing them as movies and then we're going to chop them up, reconfigure them, write new material and try to make them work as separate episodes." According to
Rich Moore the titles of the other three movies are
Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs,
Futurama: Bender's Game, and
Futurama: The Wild Green Yonder.Vo, Alex (
July 30 2007). Comic-Con Premieres New Futurama Footage; Plus, We Interview Futurama's Rich Moore.
Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on
August 1 2007
A 5-minute trailer was shown at the 2007 Comic-Con International convention in San Diego on July
28, 2007, to an audience of more than 4,000. All original voice actors still take part in the series, and it will be in widescreen format when released on DVD. After the trailer was shown the panel, including Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, and Matt Groening, answered questions from the audience. It was revealed that they are working on 4 DVDs which will later be split into 16 episodes that will air on
Comedy Central.
Futurama: Bender's Big Score will be released on DVD November 27th, 2007. It has been animated in widescreen and will be released on both normal and High-definition video DVD.
References to Futurama in popular culture
Futurama is referenced numerous times in Groening's first series
The Simpsons.
Squeaky Voiced Teen is once seen attempting suicide, jumping off a cliff screaming "Why did they cancel
Futurama?". Bender has also had numerous cameos, the most notable in Future-Drama.Bender has speaking lines in the episode Fry has also appeared in
The Simpsons, during a
couch gag.
In
An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore uses a scene from the episode "
Crimes Of The Hot" during his initial explanation of global warming. The
Futurama cast and crew also made an animated faux-trailer for the movie titled
A Terrifying Message From Al Gore featuring Gore and Bender. Al Gore is a recurring guest star in Futurama, and he has said that Futurama is his favorite show.
In an episode of
The PJs, Fry's face can be seen on a
milk carton as a missing person, referencing Fry's disappearance by being cryonically frozen. This was an act of reciprocation for an advertisement of
The PJs etched into a manhole cover in the
Futurama episode "I Second That Emotion (Futurama)". "They reciprocated, actually, by putting Fry on the side of a milk carton in
The PJs as a lost person."
The Planet Express Ship appears in the
Dark Horse Comics miniseries
Outer Orbit, and the theme from
Futurama was heard in the background of a scene on the moon in
The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Also, in Alan Moore's "Top 10 (comic book)" (issue 11), a discolored Fry, Leela, and Bender can be seen in the background of one of the frames.
During the premiere skit in
Family Guy's
Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, a reporter on the red carpet asks Stewie Griffin if Fox has any plans to bring back
Futurama.
Family Guy and
Futurama were both animated series on Fox which were canceled and subsequently aired on Adult Swim; at the time of release
Family Guy was scheduled to return but
Futurama was not. In the
Star Wars based sixth season premiere episode of
Family Guy, "
Blue Harvest (Family Guy)", Bender appears in the background of the bar scene.
In the novella
The Kingdom of Fife by Irvine Welsh,
Futurama is refered to twice.
needed
Awards
{| style="width: 100%"! style="text-align: left" |
Wins! style="text-align: left" colspan="2" |
Nominations|-| style="vertical-align: top; width: 33%; font-size: x-small" |
Annie Awards:
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Television Production
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Voice Acting by a Male Performer in an Animated Television Production
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television Production
- 2001 — Ron Weiner for episode "Luck of the Fryrish" 29th Annual Annie Award Nominees and Winners
- Outstanding Directing in an Animated Television Production
- 2003 — Rich Moore for episode "Roswell That Ends Well"
Emmy Awards:
- Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation
- Outstanding Animated Program
- 2002 — "Roswell That Ends Well"
Environmental Media Awards:
- Comedy — TV Episodic
- 2000 — "The Problem with Popplers"
Writers Guild of America Award:
| style="vertical-align: top; width: 34%; font-size: x-small" |
Annie Awards:
- Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Program
- 1999 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television Production
- Outstanding Achievement in a Primetime or Late Night Animated Television Program
- 2000 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an Animated Television Production
- 2000 — Susie Dietter for episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two".
- Outstanding Achievement in a Primetime or Late Night Animated Television Production
- 2001 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Television Production
- 2003 — Futurama. The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television
- Outstanding Music in an Animated Television Production
- 2004 — Ken Keeler for episode "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings"
- Outstanding Writing in an Animated Television Production
- 2004 — Patric Verrone for episode "The Sting (Futurama)".
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Emmy Awards:
- Outstanding Animated Program
- Outstanding Music and Lyrics
- 2004 — The song "I Want My Hands Back" for episode "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings"
Nebula Award:
- Best Script
- 2004 — David A. Goodman for episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before"
Writers Guild of America Award:
- Animation
- 2004 — Patric Verrone for episode "The Sting"
|}
DVD releases
Full season releases
{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2" | DVD Name !! rowspan="2" | Ep # !! colspan="3" | Release dates !! rowspan="2" | Additional Features|-! DVD region code!!
DVD region code !!
DVD region code|-|align="center"|
List of Futurama episodes#Season 1: 1999 ||align="center" |13 ||
March 25 2003 ]
2002 ] 2002 ] ||align="center" |19 ||
August 12 2003 ]
2002 ] 2003 ] ||align="center" |22||
March 9 2004 ] 2003 [2003 ] ||align="center" |18|| August 24 2004 ]
2003 [2003 || This four disc boxset includes the 18 episodes from production season 4. Bonus features include commentary on every episode, deleted scenes from 16 episodes, storyboard, character art and "How To Draw" galleries, animatics, 3-D Models, pencil tests, easter eggs.|}
Note: The box sets in Region 2 and 4 are marketed as "Season" rather than "Volume".
Note: Each of the box sets represent one of the four production seasons of the series. However, Fox spread out the series over 5 television seasons, often airing the series out of production order. Of note: after the production of Futurama was originally canceled, Fox aired the 16 previously unaired episodes, all from production seasons three and four, as a "season 5", running sporadically between November 2002 and August 2003. The box sets restore the episodes to production order.
Compilation release
{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2" | DVD Name !! rowspan="2" | Ep # !! colspan="3" | Release dates !! rowspan="2" | Additional Features|-! Region 1 !! Region 2 !! Region 4|-|align="center" |Monster
Robot
Maniac
Fun
Collection ||align="center" |4||August 23 2005 ] 2005 ]
2005 ]", "Anthology of Interest I", "
Roswell That Ends Well" and The Sting (Futurama). New bonus features include an animatic for "Hell Is Other Robots" with commentary, special introductions and an Easter Egg (Virtual).|}
Movie releases
{| class="wikitable"|-!rowspan="2" | DVD Name !! colspan="3" | Release dates !! rowspan="2" | Additional Features|-! Region 1 !! Region 2 !! Region 4|-|align="center" |Futurama: Bender's Big Score ||
November 27 2007 ] || TBA || Contains an all new feature length direct-to-video movie. Bonus features include complete commentary, full-length episode of
Everybody Loves Hypno-Toad, Futurama math lecture, and promo for
An Inconvenient Truth starring Bender and Al Gore. Futurama: Bender's Big Score.
FoxStore.com. Retrieved on August 6
2007.|}
Futurama in other media
Comic books
First started in November 2000,
Futurama Comics is a comic book series published by Bongo Comics based in the
Futurama universe. While originally published only in the US, a UK and Australian version of the series is also available.Press release (2002-09-25) Do you want Fry with that?
Titan Publishing. Retrieved from gotfuturama on
2007-03-04 Other than a different running order and presentation, the stories are the same in all versions.
Much like the TV series, each comic has a caption at the top of the cover. For example: "Made In The USA! (Printed in Canada)". Some of the UK and Australian comics have different captions on the top of their comics (for example, the Australian version of #20 says "A 21st Century Comic Book" across the cover, while the US version does not have a caption on that issue). All series contain a letters page, artwork from readers and previews of other Bongo Comics coming up.
The
Futurama comics may not be
canon (fiction) per se, and while they do draw from the
Futurama universe, the events portrayed within them do not necessarily have any effect upon the continuity of the show.
Toys, games and figurines
While relatively uncommon, several action and tin figurines of various characters and items from the show have been made and are being sold by various hobby/online stores. When the show was initially licensed plans were made with Rocket USA to produce wind-up, walking tin figurines of both Bender and Nibbler with packaging artwork done by the original artists for the series. The Bender toys included a cigar and bottle of "Olde Fortran Malt Liquor" and featured moving eyes, antenna and a functioning compartment door; it received an "A" rating from Sci Fi Weekly. A can of Slurm cola actually contains a deck of cards featuring the Planet Express crew as the face cards. A two deck pack of cards was also released.
I-Men released two packs of 2.5 inch high figures: Fry and Calculon; Zoidberg and Morbo; Professor Farnsworth and URL; Robot Devil and Bender; Leela and Roberto. Each figure comes with a corresponding collectable coin that can also double as a figure stand.
The collectible releases include a set of bendable action figures, including Lieutenant
Kif Kroker, Turanga Leela, and Bender. There have also been a few figures released by Moore Action Collectibles, including Fry, Turanga Leela, Bender, and the Planet Express Ship. Lastly, in late 2006, Rocket USA brought out a limited edition 'super' heavyweight die cast Bender. Another special edition Bender figure was released at the San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) in 2006. The figure was called "Glorious Golden Bender". Bobble bender exists.
Toynami has recently announced new
Futurama figures. First wave released in summer 2007. The first series of the Toynami figues will be separated into 3 "waves". Each figure will also come with pieces to assemble the Robot Devil. A video game was produced and promoted in DVD sets.
Video game
On September 15 2000,
Unique Development Studios acquired the license to develop a Futurama video game for the next generation consoles and handheld systems. Fox Interactive signed on to publish the game. Sierra Entertainment later became the game's publisher, and it was released on
August 14, 2003. Versions are available for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, both of which use cel-shaded animation technology, however, the game was subsequently canceled on the Nintendo GameCube and
Game Boy Advance in North America and Europe.
References
External links
- Futurama opening gags at Flickr
- Futurama title captions at The Infosphere.
- Futurama Revival at Simpsons Zip
- The Planet Express Employee Lounge Futurama message board.
Futurama ltd + Futurama signs Ltd - Corporate Identity Specialists
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Futurama - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Futurama is an Emmy Award-winning animated American sitcom created by Matt Groening, and developed by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox network.
Bender (Futurama) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bender, full name Bender Bending Rodríguez, designated Bending Unit 22, is a fictional robot character in the animated television series Futurama.
Amazon.co.uk: Futurama: Season 1: Futurama: DVD
Amazon.co.uk: Futurama: Season 1: Futurama: DVD ... Availability: In stock. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.
Amazon.co.uk: Futurama: Season 2: Futurama: DVD
Amazon.co.uk: Futurama: Season 2: Futurama: DVD ... Availability: In stock. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.
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