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Futurama
An opening title for FuturamaAn opening title for Futurama
Created by	Matt Groening
Developed by	Matt Groening David X. Cohen
Starring	Billy West Katey Sagal John DiMaggio Phil LaMarr Lauren Tom Maurice LaMarche Tress MacNeille David Herman Frank Welker
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	72 (13 in production)
Production
Running time	22 minutes approx.
Original release
Network	Fox (1999-2003) Comedy Central (2008-)
Release	March 28, 1999 – August 10, 2003; returning 2008

Futurama is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons) and David X. Cohen for the Fox Network. The series follows the adventures of New York pizza delivery guy Philip J. Fry after he is cryogenically frozen at midnight, December 31, 1999, and is revived a thousand years later.

The series aired from March 28, 1999 to August 10, 2003. Although Futurama was never officially cancelled, Fox decided not to buy the fifth season, and the program fell apart soon after.

However, on June 22, 2006, Comedy Central officially announced that they have ordered 13 new episodes of the series. If the ratings of these episodes are high enough, the show may be brought back for its fifth season. Futurama is currently syndicated in many countries around the world.

The name "Futurama" comes from an exhibit from the 1939 New York World's Fair of the same name. Designed by Norman Bel Geddes, the exhibit depicted what he imagined the world to look like in 1959.

The 20th Century Fox logo at the end of each broadcast is altered for this series to read "30th Century Fox", in honor of its subject matter.

Cast and characters

Template:Spoiler

• Philip J. Fry (Billy West) — Fry was cryonically frozen for one thousand years just after midnight on New Year's Day, 2000, reawakening on New Year's Eve, 2999. This makes him 1025 years old chronologically, yet physically he is merely 25. He got a job at Planet Express, owned by his closest living relative Professor Hubert Farnsworth, where he works as a delivery boy. A DVD commentary revealed that Fry was named Philip after Phil Hartman, who was set to play several characters but was murdered before production began.

• Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal) — Leela is the competent, one-eyed captain of the Planet Express Ship. Abandoned at birth, she grew up in an “orphanarium” believing herself to be an alien from an unknown race. She eventually learns from her parents that she is, in fact, a mutant. Her name is a reference to the Turangalîla-Symphonie (1946-1948) by Olivier Messiaen, which, like many of Messiaen's works, features the Ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument similar to the theremin and featured in many science-fiction film scores.
• Bender Bending Rodríguez (John DiMaggio) — Bender is a foul-mouthed, alcoholic, cigar smoking, kleptomaniacal, misanthropic, egocentric, ill tempered robot originally built to bend girders. He is Fry's best friend and roommate. He has a dislike of almost all humans and other beings, excluding Fry and, to a lesser extent, Leela. Bender sometimes works as the ship's cook, but he primarily "assists" in delivering cargo from ship to planet.
• Professor Hubert Farnsworth a.k.a. The Professor (Billy West) — Farnsworth is Fry's distant nephew and is in his 160s. Biologically, he is older than Fry; however, chronologically, Fry is the elder of the two. He founded Planet Express to fund his mad scientist-esque experiments and inventions.
• Dr. John Zoidberg (Billy West) — Zoidberg is a lobster-like alien from Decapod 10, and is the staff doctor (of questionable competence) of Planet Express. He speaks with an accent most commonly associated with native Yiddish speakers (in commentaries, Billy West has cited George Jessel and Lou Jacobi as inspirations for Zoidberg's voice), while being generally viewed with amusement and/or derision by his peers at 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 outside the Planet Express headquarters, or anything else he can scrounge.
• Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) — Hermes is the Jamaican manager 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 popular dance and similar to the track event of hurdling.
• Amy Wong (Lauren Tom) — Amy is an incredibly rich, over-sexed, blunt and extremely accident-prone intern at Planet Express and heiress to half of Mars. She is an engineering student at Mars University. Born on Mars, she is ethnically Chinese and prone to frequently cursing in Cantonese and using 31st century slang.

Setting

Futurama's setting is first and foremost a backdrop, and the writers are not above committing continuity errors if they serve to further the gags. The world of tomorrow is used to highlight and lampoon issues of today, and to parody the science fiction genre.

Futurama is set at the beginning of the 31st century, in a time filled with technological wonders. 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 mutants 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 New New York, built over the ruins of modern-day New York City.

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 Internet, while being fully immersive and encompassing all senses and seeming to feature its own digital world (similar to Tron or The Matrix), is slow and consists nearly entirely of pornography, though some of it is edited to include educational material ostensibly for youth. Television is a primary form of entertainment, though the resolution is much higher than present-day TV. Robots, powered entirely by alcohol, are commonplace, and most have free will and emotions. The wheel is obsolete, having been forgotten and replaced by hovering vehicles, and transportation tubes, which people can enter and be whisked away; these are reminiscent of old-style pneumatic tubes. In the episode entitled "Mothers Day," Fry builds a carriage to carry his friends because of a robot rebellion, and none of the other characters knows what it is.

Galactic politics

Earth has a unified government, headed by the President of Earth (from season 2 onwards being Richard Nixon's Head). Earth's capital is Washington, D.C. and the flag of Earth looks similar to the Flag of the United States, only with planet Earth displayed, instead of the fifty stars. Residents are referred to as Earthicans.

Numerous other galaxies have been colonized or have made contact by the year 3000. Much of the Milky Way Galaxy now operates under the Earth government's sphere of influence. Mars has been terraformed, and is home to Mars University. The Western Hemisphere of Mars is owned by the Wong family.

The Democratic Order Of Planets (D.O.O.P.) was founded in 2945 after the Second Galactic War. This organization, which has been compared both to the United Nations and to the United Federation of Planets of the Star Trek universe, includes Earth and many other worlds, though Earth sometimes acts unilaterally without the aid of other D.O.O.P. members. Omicron Persei VIII is frequently engaged in conflicts with the D.O.O.P.

Linguistics

There are two alien languages that appear often in the background. The first (called "Alienese" on the show) is a simple substitution cipher from the Latin alphabet. The second ("Beta Crypt III") uses a more complex modular addition code (officially an ancient alien language predating the universe). They often provide additional jokes for fans dedicated enough to decode the messages. Aside from these languages, most of the displayed wording on the show is in English, and most of the alien species encountered speak English.

Additionally, several English expressions have evolved since present day. For example, the word “Christmas” has been replaced by “Xmas” and “ask” is an archaic pronunciation of “aks” (pronounced axe). According to multiple episodes and a season one episode commentary French is a dead language in the Futurama universe; however some French loanwords maintain their original pronunciation; when Zapp Brannigan refers to champagne as "cham-pag-in", Leela corrects him using French pronunciation. Additionally, the gargoyle Pazuzu ("Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles") speaks French at length and Bender speaks French while impersonating Napoleon ("Insane in the Mainframe").

Show status

Mid-way through the production of the fifth season of Futurama, FOX decided to let Futurama go out of production and told the writers and animators to look for new jobs. A Fox spokeswoman told website Zap2it that "Fox has decided not to order more episodes at this time, but we may do so in the future." Fox's decision to stop buying episodes of Futurama led Rough Draft Studios, the animation producers, to fire its animators. According to Ain't It Cool News, FOX did not like the show and had started giving it a secondary status, running it and dropping it sporadically. They also did not show several episodes between seasons 3 and 4.

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 Adult Swim's current deal. It was cited as the largest and most expensive acquisition in the network's history.

Currently, Futurama is still syndicated around the world by many TV stations. See List of syndicated broadcasters of Futurama.

Future and DVD movies

Template:Future film On April 26, 2006, the parody newspaper The Onion's real-life entertainment section, "The A.V. Club", published an interview with Futurama co-creator Matt Groening, in which he discussed plans to create four straight-to-DVD movies. Groening noted 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, to air with the reruns in 2008. Comedy Central also confirmed that Billy West, Katey Sagal, and John DiMaggio would return for the new episodes, with a 2008 debut planned; however, an unofficial fan site reports that the new Comedy Central episodes would consist of the straight-to-DVD movies, each split into 4 episodes (making 16 new episodes) rather than additional new material. According to an interview with David. X. Cohen , the Futurama team are around half way through writing the new season, and Rough Draft Studios have just started animating. The new season will be set two years after the events of the last season, and will re-visit Fry and Leela's relationship and unanswered questions about Nibbler, dark matter and Seymour the dog. A new character has been confirmed, an evil alien nudist named Nudar.

The first movie, currently under the working title Futurama: Bender's Big Score, is in production. The film is written by Ken Keeler and David X. Cohen, and will include return appearances by the Nibblonians, Seymour, Barbados Slim, Morbo, Robot Santa, the "God" space entity, Al Gore, and Zapp Brannigan. In an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Al Gore confirmed that he would appear in the movie, playing his disembodied head. David. X. Cohen later confirmed that he would also appear in the new season, and would be involved in a storyline which will show "what really determined the outcome of the 2000 Presidential election".

Awards

DVD releases

Full season releases

Note: The box sets in Region 2 and 4 are marketed as "Season" rather than "Volume".

Note: The box sets represent the original lineup of the series, before FOX changed the order of the episodes. FOX split the series up into five seasons, while originally four were planned. The episodes airing as season five were made up of episodes originally from seasons three and four that weren't aired during the FOX run.

"Best of" collection

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. The comic is the only part of the Futurama franchise which is still being published to date. While originally published only in the US, a UK version of the series is also available. Other than a different running order and presentation, the stories are the same in both 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 comics have different captions on the top of their comics. Both series contain a letters page, artwork from readers and previews of other Bongo Comics coming up.

It should be noted that the Futurama comics may not be "canon" 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 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. 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 Philip 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".

Toynami has recently announced new Futurama figures which are currently to be released in 2007.

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. The game was subsequently cancelled on the GameCube and Game Boy Advance in North America and Europe.

Futurama Episodes

• List of Futurama episodes

References

1. "Can't Get Enough Futurama - "Remeber Me after my Death!" (sic)". Retrieved 2006-06-12.
2. ^ Wallenstein, Andrew (June 22 2006). ""Futurama" gets new life on Comedy Central". Reuters. Retrieved 2006-10-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. "www.tv.com".
4. "Omniglot". Retrieved 2006-06-13.
5. "Travelphrases.info". Retrieved 2006-06-29.
6. "BBC News - "Silver screen Simpsons, Futurama facing finish?"". Retrieved 2006-06-14.
7. "Zap2it - "FOX Says 'No' to 'Futurama'"". Retrieved 2006-06-14.
8. "Ain't It Cool News - "UPDATE UPDATED!! FUTURAMA Thing of the Past?? Or What??"". Retrieved 2006-06-14.
9. Dempsey, John (October 27 2005). ""Futurama" in Comedy's future via big deal". Variety. Retrieved 2005-10-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. "Matt Groening". Retrieved 2006-06-14.
11. "www.gotfuturama.com". Retrieved 2006-11-06.
12. "www.wizarduniverse.com". Retrieved 2006-12-14.
13. "Ain't It Cool News: "Ben Sinister Has Read The New FUTURAMA 'Movie'!!"". Retrieved 2006-09-18.
14. ^ "Awards for "Futurama" (1999)". Retrieved 2006-06-12.
15. 29th Annual Annie Award Nominees and Winners
16. "Futurama SDCC Exclusive and Toy news". Retrieved 2006-09-05.
17. "Futurama Finds a Developer". Retrieved 2006-07-25.
18. "Sierra to bring Futurama game to the US". Retrieved 2006-07-25.
19. "Futurama Info - Futurama Information - Futurama Release Date". Retrieved 2006-07-25.

External links

• Futurama at IMDb
• Template:Dmoz
• The Infosphere a Futurama wiki

• Animated sitcoms
• Fox network shows
• Futurama