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Comments: 94 +- Entertainment: Original Futurama Cast Seals Deal With Fox on Saturday August 01, @08:18AM
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Svippy writes "As we discussed earlier, 20th Century Fox Television was attempting to recast Futurama. As it turns out, this was just part of a big negotiation ploy, and the original cast have now completed their deals to return with the show's new episodes. For those of you who did not follow the story, a chronology of the events and reactions from the cast members are available at Infosphere and Voice Actors in the News. Series creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen said, 'We are thrilled to have our incredible cast back. The call has already gone out to the animators to put the mouths back on the characters.'"
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Oblig. (Score:5, Funny)
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Smithers, there's a rocket in my pocket!
You don't have to tell me, sir.
Did I do it right?
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Unsuccessful in a heroic and majestic manner
Re:Matt Groening (Score:5, Informative)
So ah, if he wants his last name to be pronounced like "Greyning" then why does he spell it so that it looks like it should be pronounced "Growning?" Seriously, by what rule of English grammar does "Groe" sound exactly like "Grey"??.
From the same english rule that allows for words like Phoenix (unless you pronounce this Fow-nix). Words where oe is pronounced as "ee" are from the "ioticized omicron" spelling in Greek, ÎÎ, which was originally pronounced like "oy", but is often simplified into just an "ee" sound or similar.
Parent
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A mention of Checkov actor, Walter Koenig, is appropriate here.
And also of House Minority Leader John Boehner. Or Wayne Newton's song Danke Shoen.
It seems to be American English standard for German names that have an o-umlaut or oe (which is the same thing; the umlaut started out as a small e laying on it's side on top of another vowel) to pronounce it like "ay", instead of like the German sound English lacks or even "ur", which is more like how I think most English speakers hear o-umlaut.
p.s. Curse /. and their lack of support for non-ascii characters.
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That's a very odd explanation, considering "Groening" is a German surname. Here, it is technically "gr" + o-with-umlaut + "ning," where the o-with-umlaut is pronounced like an "eh" sound in your mouth while your lips are shaped like you're making an "oh" sound. However, to make things easier for the Alemanophobes in the audience, we alter it to English phonetics (the o-with-umlaut does not exist in English).
My surname has the exact same sound in it.
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"ee" isn't similar to "ay", and Groening appears to be a German surname, not a Greek one.
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Technically, "oe" came before "o-with-umlaut." It was "oe," then it became "o-with-e-on-top." Because of the way an "e" looked at this point in German orthography, it became "o-with-two-parallel-vertical-lines-on-top," which became "o-with-umlaut." This is the same way we got a- and u-with-umlaut. You can see this in old script for "schoen" at Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: (schoen, scho-with-e-aboven, scho-with-umlautn).
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So ah, if he wants his last name to be pronounced like "Greyning" then why does he spell it so that it looks like it should be pronounced "Growning?"
Why does he spell his last name correctly as it appears on his birth certificate? I don't know why anyone would ever consider doing that.
Re:Matt Groening (Score:5, Insightful)
What does English grammar have to do with a German name?
Parent
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Seconded. I believe the original spelling of this name has been 'Gröning', though even modern Germans sometimes use 'oe' for the o-umlaut. Similarly, 'Koenig' is originally 'König'.
Of course, many families seem to adapt the pronunciation and/or spelling of their names to the local language.
Um, you... You don't get it. (Score:4, Informative)
So much ignorance in your post as to make my head linguist head spin, but this is the sentence I'm picking:
Seriously, by what rule of English grammar does "Groe" sound exactly like "Grey"??
Um, none, for a few reasons:
1) This [wikipedia.org] is what "grammar" means. Clausal structure, etc.
2) The word you're actually looking for is orthography [wikipedia.org].
3) Finally, and this is a big one, English orthography wouldn't apply to a German name. One of the reasons spelling is so difficult in English is that it is a loanword slut. It hangs around at the linguistic docks, taking any wayfaring word spelled in roman characters home. It is the reason we have one of the largest vocabularies on the planet, but also the reason why spelling is difficult. I'll take it, though. It beats the socks off of the Academie francaise [wikipedia.org], which exists to keep foreign words out of French in favor of made-up French equivalents that no one uses. It also beats the Japanese system of ghettoization by the use of a different character set for foreign words. And it is simpler than the daunting task ahead of Chinese speakers, who have to find characters which have a similar sound, and whose meaning at least has something to do with the word in question. Overall, English's flexibility and open nature is a key to its strength.
So there's that.
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Historical Reference? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Of course having explained the joke, it's now ruined. In other news, why didn't somebody negate the goodnewseveryone tag? Strikes me as somebody that didn't really get the show trying to demonstrate knowledge.
Re:Historical Reference? (Score:5, Informative)
Good News Everyone
Phrase from Futurama
Proper usage includes:
"Good news everyone. You are all going to the planet sodomy to deliver some KY Jelly"
After such statements, Dr. Zoidburg may sometimes be heard saying "Hurray!"
Parent
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WTF...
On a related note, what David isn't saying is that they have been actively auditoning and recasting actors to replace the original voice talent, so they were ready in any case.
I recorded an actor friend do an audition for Fry and Kif, he was awesome! And he would have been a lot cheaper than Billy West, but alas, it was not to be.
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According to Mark Evanier [newsfromme.com], who's been in animation for decades:
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Ya know, I think it would be awesome if in the first episode of the new series there was going to be a scene with all the characters without mouths for some oddball reason. Call it a quick "reference" for all the geeks who followed this story :)
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That's a load off my toad... (Score:5, Funny)
Although I knew the only real possibilities were the original cast returning or the show not being made.
Even though we have the proverbial "500 channels", there's still as much a lack of good creative shows as ever, and Futurama fits that bill perfectly. Newt Minow's "vast wasteland" is alive and strong!
Especially since the #1 show "American Politics" got a whole new set of writers but has still managed to get even dumber than ever... ludicrous plots, inane dialog, stories so far-fetched no one would ever believe them in real life...
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Especially since the #1 show "American Politics" got a whole new set of writers but has still managed to get even dumber than ever... ludicrous plots, inane dialog, stories so far-fetched no one would ever believe them in real life...
You realise that was a live coverage of the election campaign? :p
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stories so far-fetched no one would ever believe them in real life...
Oh come now, this last part is one of the main rules of writing sitcoms. Break it and folks will think you are writing a funny documentary.
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Hey, I like all those shows.
The sad thing is that many of the most popular shows from the 70s were creative and intelligent (and funny, in the case of sitcoms):
All in the Family, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, The Bob Newhart Show... just to name a few. Adult shows written for adults without having to resort to crudity and shock value, well, OK, "All in the Family" did, but it was usually in the pursuit of Making A Point(TM), which it did very well. Sure, there was a lot of crap back then, as always, but it s
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Don't forget the glorification of torture.
Severely reduced pay all around! (Score:5, Funny)
Fry- Can I come back at severely reduced pay?
Hermes- Of course! In fact, severely reduced pay all around!
Let's hope life didn't imitate art. These people are worth it. Heck, I'll even watch the commercials ... in my dreams.
Re:Severely reduced pay all around! (Score:5, Funny)
Heck, I'll even watch the commercials ... in my dreams.
You're not a true fan, I'll record the commercials and watch them twice.
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You're not a true fan, I'll record the commercials and watch them twice.
You call yourself a fan? I watch the commercials over and over instead of watching the show.
Re:Severely reduced pay all around! (Score:5, Funny)
--Jimmy
Parent
More reality shows!! (Score:4, Funny)
Almost makes me want to head to the store right now and pick up some Torgo's Executive Powder.
Some Change Could Be Good (Score:2)
I always thought Seth McFarlane would be great as Nibbler.
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Hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
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i can see the future already (Score:2, Funny)
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Have you seen the recent Futurama DVDs? As in the opening scene of Bender's Big Score?
Good to hear... (Score:2)
...Never got around to watching much Futurama, but glad to hear that they're presumably not trying a recycle-just-the-name thing.
For some reason, the idea of post-crash Lynyrd Skynyrd comes to mind here. (Maybe someone who's further into that type of music could enlighten me on that particular example?)
It's not the whole cast yet (Score:4, Interesting)
IMO, unless they get Dave Herman back, it's not the whole cast. That guy is awesome. His regular voices like Roberto, Mayor Poopenmeyer and Dr. Wernstrom are all hilarious, but also he's got range: he can produce amazingly different voices for all those one-time characters he does, whom you don't really remember, like Leela's martial arts sensei Fnog.
Also it's silly to focus just on the voice acting cast. I don't know their names, but I know it takes a huge crew of talented artists and writers to make the magic happen, and I hope all those talented people come back. It would be bad to cut back on the visual and writing talent to pay for the voice talent. The last thing any of us want is 26 half-baked, mediocre episodes. Better the show should end at five good seasons.
Typo in submission (Score:2)
The correct name of the studio is "30th Century Fox."
Re:Good news indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense to the voice actors... They're great, of course...
But I'd rather have the original writers back. Any word on them?
Parent
Re:Good news indeed (Score:5, Informative)
Yes.
Ken Keeler [theinfosphere.org], Eric Kaplan [theinfosphere.org], David X. Cohen [theinfosphere.org] (obviously), Patric M. Verrone [theinfosphere.org], among others are confirmed back. I probably forgot some.
Just to give you an idea on what these writers did, I am going to highlight one episode for each, respectively; "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings [theinfosphere.org]", "Jurassic Bark [theinfosphere.org]", "The Why of Fry [theinfosphere.org]" and "The Sting [theinfosphere.org]".
They already did reveal some of the content for the coming production season [theinfosphere.org] at the Comic-Con panel. In case you want to see if they are still on the edge.
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This Futarama crap is crap. The Simpsons is what should come back. Phil Hartman especially. He must be holding out for 10 million at least. Also, I like The Who to continue to make guest appearences from time to time.
I'd love it if the Simpsons from the 80s and early 90s returned.
Unfortunately all we get are the Simpsons from the late 90s and 2000s.