Futurama

:For the exhibit/ride, see Futurama (New York World's Fair).

Production

Futurama takes its name from a General Motors exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair which depicted future technologies. Also demonstrated at that World's Fair was Philo Farnsworth's vacuum tube television; Professor Farnsworth is named after him.

Related Topics:
Exhibit - Philo Farnsworth - Vacuum tube - Television

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Actors lending their voices to the series include Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, and Tress MacNeille. Phil Hartman was cast as a voice actor on the series, but died before production began. Some believe Billy West performs the character of Zapp Brannigan in a Hartman-ish voice as a tribute to him (hence why Zapp looks so much like Hartman's Simpsons character, Troy McClure), but the DVD commentary reveals that West's version of Zapp's voice is actually unchanged from the way he did it originally in auditions. The character Philip J. Fry's first name was originally going to be Curtis. It was changed to Philip as a way to remember Hartman.

Related Topics:
Billy West - Katey Sagal - John DiMaggio - Maurice LaMarche - Lauren Tom - Phil LaMarr - Tress MacNeille - Phil Hartman - Troy McClure

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Celebrities who have lent their voices to the show include Dick Clark, Beck, Donovan, Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, Sigourney Weaver, Lucy Liu, Pamela Anderson, and the cast of Star Trek. (The episode featuring the Star Trek cast, "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", does not include DeForest Kelley, by that time deceased, or James Doohan, whose character was replaced by 'Welshy' in a parody of the Brady Bunch Variety Hour, where Jan was played by a different actress.)

Related Topics:
Dick Clark - Beck - Donovan - Al Gore - Stephen Hawking - Sigourney Weaver - Lucy Liu - Pamela Anderson - Star Trek - DeForest Kelley - James Doohan - Brady Bunch

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The theme and incidental music for the show were composed by Christopher Tyng. The original theme song for the show was to be the 1960s electronic music recording "Psyche Rock" by Pierre Henry, but the inability to license the track for the show led Tyng to compose a theme strongly reminiscent of it. Three remixes of the theme song were produced and used as the main theme in three different episodes. This show is also one of the few animated series to use fully orchestrated original music in almost every episode.

Related Topics:
Composed - Christopher Tyng - Electronic music - Pierre Henry - Remixes

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Many of the spacecraft and backgrounds appearing in Futurama were made using 3D computer graphics. The scenes were first painted by hand and then implemented in 3D. This way, camera movements provided a perfect geometry of the environment and characters (for example, at the beginning of the series when the camera flies around the Planet Express building).

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In response to the events of the September 11, 2001 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 disturbing to many viewers who had witnessed the head-on collision of an airplane into the World Trade Center in New York on live television. Within a month or so after the attacks, the scene was reinserted back into the opening.

Related Topics:
September 11, 2001 attacks - United States - Fox Television Network - Matt Groening - Planet Express - World Trade Center - New York

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In 2001, during the show's third season, it was quietly announced that Fox Television was cancelling production of the series. Writing for The Onion A.V. Club, Keith Phipps observes that

Related Topics:
2001 - Fox Television - The Onion A.V. Club

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:Futurama premiered in 1999 to hype and anticipation that seemed fitting for the first new series created by Matt Groening since The Simpsons. But even before the show reached the air, Groening was describing his Futurama-related dealings with the Fox network as the worst experience of his adult life. What happened next couldn't have made him feel much better. While Futurama struggled to connect to its audience, Fox first moved it to a new time slot, then constantly preempted it for sports broadcasts In other words, Futurama contains something for everyone—except, it seems, grumpy Fox executives. http://www.theonionavclub.com/review.php?review_id=6377

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While Futurama ended after its fifth broadcast 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 72nd and final episode, called "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", aired in the USA on August 10, 2003. With this episode, the fifth television season (fourth production season) and the whole series ended. The episode was not a true series finale however, and though many plot issues were resolved in the last season, the final episode was in no way a clear "conclusion" to the series—the last line of dialogue, aptly enough, was "Don't stop playing, Fry... I want to see how it ends". At the title screen of this episode, though, the words "See You On Some Other Channel" were shown.

Related Topics:
Episodes - USA - August 10 - 2003 - Series finale

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Several television stations are currently airing the series in syndication. In the United States, Futurama can be seen on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, usually playing adjacent to another (once) cancelled series, Family Guy. In Britain, the series was picked up by Sky One shortly after its US premiere, and Channel 4 later acquired terrestrial broadcast rights.

Related Topics:
Syndication - Cartoon Network's - Adult Swim - Family Guy - Britain - Sky One - US - Channel 4

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Since Futurama's cancellation, Matt Groening's The Simpsons series has made several references to Futurama:

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• "": Bender can be seen answering calls on FOX during a fundraising telethon.
• "Fraudcast News": a person jumps off a cliff, screaming "Why did they cancel Futurama?".
• "Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade": Bender appears in a dream of Bart's.
• "My Big Fat Geek Wedding": Matt Groening appears as himself (animated) and was introduced at a convention as the creator of the hit show Futurama. He then signs Bender dolls and draws a sketch of Fry for Milhouse.
• "Future-Drama": Bart and Lisa explore their teenage years with the help of Professor Frink. During this sequence, Homer and Bart drive through a "tunnel" where they shift dimensions temporarily. When they exit, Bender is in the car with them, and he says, "All right! You guys are my new best friends!" Homer then says, "You wish, loser!" and throws him out of the back of the hover-car, breaking him.

Similarly, Futurama references The Simpsons. In an early episode of Futurama, the crew are sent to destroy a huge ball of garbage in space by placing a bomb on it. Bender finds a Bart Simpson doll which says "Eat my shorts" when its string is pulled. Bender eats the shorts, then says "mmmm... shorts" imitating the popular mannerism used by Homer.

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There is also a reference to Futurama in the Family Guy Movie. Stewie, when walking down the red carpet to the premier is stopped by various reporters, the last one from an Entertainment Weekly reporter asking "Stewie, do you know if Fox has any plans to bring back Futurama?"

Related Topics:
Family Guy Movie - Red carpet - Entertainment Weekly

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Even though there were no official words on the revival of the show, there have been rumors of it since the news broke that Family Guy was being revived. On May 22 2005, the Can't Get Enough Futurama web site carried the following unofficial post, attributed to Billy West's discussion board:

Related Topics:
Family Guy - May 22

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:Well, I spoke to David X. Cohen and he said that they did have talks with the top guys at FOX and they were extremely impressed with the sales of the Futurama DVDs. The idea was to make a Futurama movie right to DVD and then a 2nd and a 3rd

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As of July 18 2005, Billy West seems to have confirmed a 'straight to DVD' Futurama movie on a video blog, however this is yet to be officially confirmed by either Matt Groening or Fox.

Related Topics:
July 18 - 2005

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On IMDb there is a Futurama movie page saying that the movie will be released in 2007. There is also a plot summary on the page, but Can't Get Enough Futurama says the plot is "not legit".

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