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Futurama Returns

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:07 AM
from the good-news-everyone dept.
Media Television
riflemann writes "Another 26 episodes of Futurama will shortly go into production! This news comes from none other than Billy West (voice of Fry) himself, in a short post to his own message board. No further details are available, except that it's likely to be on TV, not straight to DVD." The best news is that means fresh quotes for slashteam to hide in the source code.
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[+] Interviews: Ask Futurama Star Billy West About...? 199 comments
In case you haven't heard, Futurama is coming back — in like 2008, so don't go channel-flipping in hope quite yet. This is the first interview Billy West (who voices Fry, Prof. Farnsworth, Zapp Brannigan, Zoidberg, and other Futurama characters) has done since the announcement. Realize, too, that Billy has also been the voices of Ren and Stimpy and hundreds of other animated characters over the years, and old-school Howard Stern fans will remember that part of his career, too. Ask Billy about anything you like; we'll send him 10 top-moderated questions (and maybe he'll answer a few extra ones of his choice, too). We expect to post his answers Wednesday, the day after Freedom Day's 21st Century predecessor, the 4th of July (which, sadly, is not known for nude hot tub parties). Meanwhile, to tide you over, here's a little MP3 voice montage Billy did in his home studio just for Slashdot.
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  • Futurama returns (Score:5, Funny)

    by thrillseeker (518224) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:09AM (#14951884)
    Well, bite my shiny metal ass.

  • Good news, everyone! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ari_j (90255) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:11AM (#14951891)
    I was going to have to make my own cartoon...with blackjack...and hookers.
  • "Back to the Futurama"?

  • Now it's time to kill The Simpsons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nicky G (859089) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:12AM (#14951900)
    OK -- Family Guy is back, American Dad is getting pretty decent IMO. Futurama is returning.

    PLEASE kill The Simpsons already. The longer it goes on, the darker the future is for all of us.

    • Ya, Simpsons not so great any more. It's sometimes OK but there have been more stinkers than good shows for many years. I would hate to see it go off though, as bad as some episodes are they are still better than 99% of TV that's on nowadays.

      Family Guy? Meh, if you've seen one episode you've seen 'em all. It's a cookie cutter show and every episode is nearly identical. It's like South Park or other "shock shows", meh... infantile, boring, and pointless.

      American Dad? Meh, I have only watched bits and p

  • It's really coming back? (Score:5, Funny)

    by scoser (780371) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:13AM (#14951903) Journal
    Crazy theories one, regular theories a billion!

  • HTTP headers (Score:5, Informative)

    by RonnyJ (651856) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:13AM (#14951907)
    The best news is that means fresh quotes for slashteam to hide in the source code.

    Here's an example of one (hidden in the HTTP headers that /. returns):

    X-Bender: Well I don't have anything else planned for today, let's get drunk!

    • Re:HTTP headers (Score:4, Informative)

      by jZnat (793348) * on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:41AM (#14952010) Homepage Journal
      I was waiting for this article to go live so I could post that! :(

      Slash has X-Fry and X-Bender headers it sends on every page (randomised). Press Ctrl+I to see that in Firefox, Konqueror, or pretty much any web browser.

      Slashcode.com also uses those quotes in its random quote of the moment thinger at the bottom of the page.

      • Re:HTTP headers (Score:5, Informative)

        by assassinator42 (844848) on Sunday March 19 2006, @02:32PM (#14952921)
        You sure? I'm pretty sure firefox doesn't natively support viewing the headers. And I assume by Ctrl+I you mean Page Info, as it brings up bookmarks for some reason on Windows (probably because that's what IE does). That dialog only shows "Content-Type" under meta. Now, that would work if you installed this extension [mozdev.org].

    • Re:HTTP headers (Score:5, Informative)

      by cyranoVR (518628) * <cyranoVR@noSPaM.gmail.com> on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:58AM (#14952085) Homepage Journal
      Some more:
      X-Fry: Please, Mr. Nixon! We're appealing to your sense of decency!

      X-Fry: There's a lot about my face you don't know.

      X-Fry: People said I was dumb but I proved them!

      X-Fry: You mean Bender is the evil Bender? I'm shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked.

      X-Bender: Fry, of all the friends I've had ... you're the first.

      X-Bender: Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy -- THAT'S funny.

      X-Fry: Make up some feelings and tell her you have them.
      Discovered these while playing with Firefox plugin LiveHttpHeaders [mozdev.org]. I, for one, am shocked and appalled that they are wasting our bandwidth in this manner!

  • Sweet! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:20AM (#14951935)
    Oh, Futurama, I love you more than the moon, the stars, the... POETIC IMAGE #36 NOT FOUND.

  • Another great service... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AlphaLop (930759) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:21AM (#14951937)
    Done by Cartoon Network. Im sure the high ratings Futurama reruns get there and on Fox had a lot to do with it.

  • Two Down, One to Go... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Xeth (614132) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:22AM (#14951943) Journal
    Futurama
    Family Guy (Careful what you wish for...)
    Firefly

      • Re:Two Down, One to Go... (Score:4, Informative)

        by SquadBoy (167263) on Sunday March 19 2006, @12:45PM (#14952523) Homepage Journal
        Much as I wish this were true. They got broadcast rights for the current show in .uk. Just like they've had in .us for a long time now. But oh how I wish you were right.

        http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds30578.html [digitalspy.co.uk]

        • Re:Two Down, One to Go... (Score:4, Informative)

          by powerlord (28156) on Sunday March 19 2006, @01:24PM (#14952666) Journal
          Well ... on the plus side they seem to have gotten better about their handling of material since the Sliders fiasco (for the fans at least :) ).

          They aquired Stargate when it was looking like it was going to wrap up in its 5th season (or was it 6th?), and its now going into its 10th? (and done rather decently including letter the characters grow and evolve).

          They spun off Stargate Atlantis, and its now into its 2nd Season and looking forward to a 3rd.

          Battlestar Gallactica is looking forward to a 3rd season as well, and getting rave reviews from critics, and some interesting re-imagining that I think most fans are appreciating, except for a few die-hards (Heck, my wife who isn't a big SciFi junky like I am has really gotten into the character driven stories of both SG:Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica! amazes the heck out of me).

          Andromeda had already jumped the shark before Sci-Fi got hold of it (some would argue the same for Sliders), so I find it hard to blame them for the shows last season. Rather, I find it encouraging that they at least gave it a home for a last season, and an opportunity to finish telling their story (to admitedly medocre success).

          I am also looking forward to their new show "Eureka" that looks very intreaging, and I hope shines as well as "The Invisible Man" and "The Chronicle" did. Granted they didn't last as long as they should have (both being fun and entertaining shows in my opinion), but they were both allowed something rare in the Network world, the chance for a satisfying conclusion and the wrapping of most major plot threads.

          They've made mistakes (Farscape not getting a 5th Season for instance, which I think most fans are still sore about, even after the mini-series), but they have certainly made more positive moves as far as dramatic content goes ... although with their emphesis on Mini-Series, I would expect to see that as an outlet for a new 'Firefly' story, sooner than a 22 episode full season. (don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see a new season or three of Firefly)

          I won't get into their original half-hour shows which are usually more schlocky (and not so much my taste) considering "Ghost Hunters", "Scare Tactics", and "Tripping the Rift" (the last of which is at least somewhat amusing, while completely offensive ... as opposed to Futurama which is always somewhat offensive, while completely amusing :) )

          I'm sure, since this is Slashdot, someone will correct my facts if they think they are blatantly out of line with reality :)

  • You people.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by morganix (885178) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:45AM (#14952026)

    You people disgust me! There is currently a war in Iraq, american rights being taken away daily, a buggy operating system on almost every computer, and starving children in africa. With all this going you call another 16 episodes of a cartoon news? Blah!

    /me Makes fun of the war in Iraq, votes for bush, starts up Windows XP, and eats half a sadwich discarding of the rest while watching futurama.

  • Loved the show, not happy about this. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Don_dumb (927108) on Sunday March 19 2006, @10:57AM (#14952081)
    Please dont do this, let it be for gods sake.
    Going back to shows (or films series) has never worked, yes I love Futurama, but once something has stopped, dont try necromancy.
    TV shows should *never* give the viewer what they want, Star Wars EPI-III anyone? The last two Red Dwarf series (bringing back Rimmer) were horrible. Niles and Daphne getting together was at the point when Frasier turned bad
    When will people learn from the example of Seinfeld, Fawlty Towers, the Office (the real one of course)? They all stopped before the viewers had started going.
    The moral of the story is -
    "Always leave them wanting more."

  • You're watching Futurama... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Osirius (962177) on Sunday March 19 2006, @11:20AM (#14952164)
    The show that does not advocate the cool crime of robbery.

    This is great news for all us nerdlingers. For those of you who don't know already, here's a look at the backgrounds of some of the writers on the show:

    J. Stewart Burns: Graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University in 1992. His senior thesis was on "The Structure of Group Algebras." He received his master's degree in mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1993.

    David X. Cohen: Graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in physics from Harvard University in 1988. He received his master's degree in computer science from UC Berkeley in 1992. He published the following article with Manuel Blum: On the Problem of Sorting Burnt Pancakes. Discrete Appl. Math. 61 (1995), no. 2, 105--120.

    Ken Keeler: Graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1983. In 1990, he received his Ph.D. in applied math from Harvard University. The title of his doctoral thesis was Map Representations and Optimal Encoding for Image Segmentation. He also published the following article with Jeff Westbrook: Short Encodings of Planar Graphs and Maps. Discrete Appl. Math. 58 (1995), no. 3, 239--252.

    Bill Odenkirk: Has a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1995.

    Jeff Westbrook: Majored in physics and the history of science at Harvard University and he received his Ph.D. in computer science from Princeton University in 1989. The title of his doctoral thesis was Algorithms and Data Structures for Dynamic Graph Algorithms. He was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Yale University and also worked at AT&T Labs before writing for Futurama. He published the following article with Ken Keeler: Short Encodings of Planar Graphs and Maps. Discrete Appl. Math. 58 (1995), no. 3, 239--252.

    And with that the show also has some great voice actors (Billy West, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Dave Herman...), a great 3D department (praised for its ability to blend 3D scenes almost seamlessly into 2D backgrounds), and the show even uses a full orchestra to record its music (composed by Christopher Tyng). And with the huge scope of ideas possible in the SF universe the show is set in, I imagine it'll take a long time yet for this show to burn out.

  • Capitalism at its finest.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Berserker76 (555385) on Sunday March 19 2006, @11:47AM (#14952294)
    Regardless of the quality of the product, if they think they can make money, they will try.

    I for one believe the quality of this product is top notch and am glad to see it coming back. I welcome back our sardine craving, can get no loving, lobster overlord.
  • All Hail the Hypnotoad!!!!

  • Billy West (Score:3, Interesting)

    by talksinmaths (199235) on Sunday March 19 2006, @01:32PM (#14952701) Homepage
    This is great news, and certainly cause for Futurama fans to rejoice. All the same I'd be just as exited if were to turn out to be true that Billy was going to reprise his role as the Jackie Puppet. I swear every time that freakin' puppet opened it's mouth I'd end up laughing so hard that my stomach hurt and my eyes watered.

    Also, it is just me or is there something not funny about a Futurama thread that consists mainly of Futurama quotes? Oh well, I guess we can at least look forward to the next phase of the Scientology wars, Scientology vs. Robotology. ;)

  • May seem obvious, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SilentChris (452960) on Sunday March 19 2006, @02:08PM (#14952828) Homepage
    I think this is an excellent example of how powerful the masses have become in affecting entertainment, and to a greater degree corporations in general.

    Medieval times: jester makes everyone laugh but the king. King has jester beheaded.

    Modern times: show makes everyone laugh but company has show cancelled. Show does astromical DVD figures and comes back.

    It's a testament to the power of the masses' will. The almighty buck is powerful, but the almighty buck plus thousands of people writing Fox to call them idiots is even more powerful.

    P.s. Don't stop calling Fox idiots.

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