Matt Groening on Futurama, Simpsons and Fox

dipfan writes "Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening, in an interview with the FT, says that the Fox network didn't understand or support Futurama. Groening says: "They haven't really supported it. I think it's a worthy companion to The Simpsons and we're really proud of it. But Fox gave it a bad slot and zero promotion for the last three years." He also accuses the channel of meddling with the show, making complaints that the characters were "too mean". He's hoping to change Fox's mind, and endorses the online petition to try and save the show. The good news is that he's got other ideas for new shows if Futurama really does get canned, and talks about new Simpsons plots involving Enron, and Krusty The Clown running for Congress." His feelings shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who saw the first act of "Homer the Moe", but what I thought was interesting was his comments on Fox and how he's not interested in moving networks over the futurama thing.

Re:Problems with Fox...

[stoolpigeon]

Greg the bunny is funny.

.

Krusty for Kongress!

[Codex The Sloth]

Hey hey! I heartily endorse this candidate and/or proposal.

To paraphrase Krusty: Do we really want to live in a world without the Simpsons? I think the living would envy the dead!

Re:Wow

[NanoGator]

"Futerama would be good if it had better characters, better animation, better plots, better jokes, better acting, and better flow."

That's kind of funny, I was just thinking your post'd be good if it had better spelling, better presentation, a better point, better use of grammar, a better style of writing, and better use of commas.

Wouldn't have been easier to type "I don't like Futurama?". Even so, you picked a bad topic to post that under.

Re:Wow

[great throwdini]

Wow is right. Someone on /. wreckless enough to spell Futurama as Futerama, yet caring enough to remember to accent the 'e' in Pokémon?

What kind of God would create a world where such things happen?

Re:Lifespan of a comedy style?

[spike hay]

I liked this quote from the last ep:

Homer: (sobbing) OOOHH!! I'm a rageholic. I can't live without ragehol!!

Re:I love Futurama but,

[Tackhead]

> Had a lot of what we like, references to things outside the show that is only funny for thow "who knows".

"Church of Star Trek: The Sci-Fi Religion that doesn't take all your money!"

Thanks for the reminder of why I keep watching Futurama. It's a cartoon for adults who actually keep track of what's going on in the world beyond what's reported on the lamestream news.

(I probably shouldn't have said that - it's such a small demographic as to assure Futurama gets canned :)

I comfort myself by thinking that for every "in-joke" I spot on Futurama, there are probably a dozen that I miss.

When they do cancel Simpsons

[stoolpigeon]

I wont even notice. Usually I am busy when the new shows get aired. I watch the Simpsons 3 or 4 times a week but it is all syndication.

That's part of what makes it so awesome. Each time I watch an episode again it cracks me up as much as the first time. Plus I notice little things I missed the first time around.

I figure all the new episodes I've missed give me a buffer of at least a few years. And you know that the Simpsons are going to be on for a very long time on some channel.

Sort of like that 8 minutes of light we get after the sun goes out one day.

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Re:Do not adjust your browser ... we control the .

[Anonymous Coward]

No what made it hard to read was the fact that the Brittish no nothing about the proper use of English.

Oh, Stoolie, you so crazy.

Re:Plenty in Ouvre; Indifferent about plug pulling

[tps12]

"Jumped the Shark,*"

* #1 Candidate for overused annoying chic media term.

Did I miss something? I feel like I'm in Back to the Future II.

Re:Krusty for Kongress!

[istartedi]

Help support the Krusty for Kongress Kampaign!

Send checks to:

KKK
17 Charles St.
Montomery, AL 30220

Re:Hopefully...

[GigsVT]

Are you sure your nick shouldn't be "Comic Book Guy"?

Re:Problems with Fox...

[Anonymous Coward]

Married with Children is a prime example. ...they showed no respect for that. They repeatedly changed the timeslot

That's probably because the people who thought it was funny were too stupid to remember what day it was.

Re:Wow

[NanoGator]

n. pl. parodies

1. A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or
   ridicule. See Synonyms at caricature [slashdot.org].
2. 
   The genre of literature comprising such works.

Something so bad as to be equivalent to intentional mockery; a travesty: The trial was a parody of justice.

Music. The practice of reworking an already established composition, especially the incorporation into the Mass of material borrowed from other works, such as motets or
madrigals.

Thanks for nothing

[stoolpigeon]

I appreciate being modded up but I'm at the cap and just made some other posts that will very likely get modded down. So this doesn't do me a lot of good in my quest for 50 points for 50 days.

If youd've waited until after the others got modded down this would have really come in handy.

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Simpsons Post 911?

[istartedi]

I've been wondering what they are going to do with the war on terror and a lot of other post 911 stuff.

I thought that all the episodes this season were made before 911, but they had "Bin Laden in a blender" last Sunday, so what's the deal? Was that spliced in later?

On one hand, there is a lot of way to spin humor on some of this stuff, but on the other hand it's hard to do it without addressing "important social issues" or having a "very special episode", which was what used to signal the end of a sitcom before everyone started to say "jumping the shark".

Let's see:

They fly someplace. Lisa gets wanded and taken into a special room. Bart's slingshot gets ignored. Homer beeps in the detector, but nobody wants to touch him. Marge is asked to stick her hair in the X-ray machine, and it comes all the way out the other side. Maggie has a gun in her diaper, but nobody notices. This stuff practicly writes itself.

Or how about... Bart decides to become a Moslem. Do all the Lisa Budist stuff--Bart style. Hurl pork chops out the window, etc. End Moslem conversion when Bart finds out he has to get circumcised.

Then again... maybe having the Simpsons come to an end without ever riffing on that stuff would be better. It would fix the Simpsons permanently as part of the "pre-911" world, allowing us to watch it in sindicated re-runs knowing that stuff would never intrude, save for that one little reference to Bin Laden.

Re:Too mean?!

[56ker]

Fox probably got a lot of complaints about Futurama's more adult content. Well to those people I say - 1) it's only a cartoon
2) well what do you expect when one of the characters is a beer-swilling kleptomaniac robot and 3) The obligatory bite my shiny metal ass. :)

I speak UNIX

[PD]

yes "fuck you"

Re:Someone should tell Matt...

[NecrosisLabs]

We had a rather appropriate one in Chicago a while back. The local fox affiliate decided to replace one of the three daily Simpsons repeats with Third Rock (ugh). A web page was created for people to add their names; this list was mailed daily (!) to a number of executives at the station. Not only did they restore the show, but they aired ads for its reinstatement where the executive who made the decision is dragged off bound and gagged. A great day!

Perfect solution...

[weave]

If Futurama gets canceled, have Bender get sent back into time and end up in Springfield. Let's face it, Bender is what makes Futurama. Well, then there's Lela. I haven't gotten excited by a cartoon character since Jose and the Pussycats in the 70s...