Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!

Good News Everyone!

I've arranged for my blog to be dedicated to Simpsons' creator, Matt Groening's second prime time creation, Futurama!

What's Futurama, you ask? Allow me to fill you in on twelve years of ups and downs in a matter of paragraphs...

On March 28, 1999, The FOX Network introduced the world to Futurama, a program created and produced on the heels of the huge commercial success of The Simpsons, by Groening and then-Simpsons writer David X. Cohen.

The show introduced us to Philip J. Fry (voiced by Billy West, who fields at least four major speaking roles on the show) a shiftless, 25-year-old pizza delivery boy, who unwittingly falls into a cryogenic freezer tube on New Year's Eve 1999 and wakes 1000 years later in 30th Century New New York (a city built on the ruins of the 20th century metropolis).

As Fry explores his new surroundings, he encounters Leela (Married With Children and Sons of Anarchy's Katey Sagal), a sexy, yet sensitive kickboxing mutant (initially presumed to be an alien) and Bender (John DiMaggio), an alcoholic, profane and sardonic robot programmed for the very purpose that his name implies.

Dissatisfied with his permanent future career assignment (and later finding out that Leela and Bender are equally dissatisfied with theirs), the trio encounter Fry's distant great nephew (several times removed), Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth (West); a rickety, quavering, 160-year-old crackpot known for both his scientific accomplishments as his batty demeanor. Farnsworth offers the three runaways positions with Planet Express, the intergalactic delivery crew he instituted to fund his scientific research. The series would continue to follow the misadventures of the entire Planet Express crew, rounded out by Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr), the fiscally responsible Jamaican Bureaucrat assigned to Planet Express, Amy Wong (Lauren Tom), the Professor's socially privileged Chinese Martian Engineering Student and Dr. John Zoidberg (West), a lobster-like alien with absolutely no knowledge of the human anatomy despite his position.

Other voice actors featured prominently on the show are MADTV's David Herman, Simpsons' voice actress Tress McNeille and occasional Simpsons' voice actor Maurice LaMarche, each of whom have been known to voice upwards of twelve different minor roles at a time.

The series continued during it's original run until August 10, 2003 when the FOX network neglected to order further episodes, halting the show's episode tally at 72. The reruns ran in syndication on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim until January of 2008, where the reruns were then sold to Comedy Central. Comedy Central then earned the rights to air the four direct to DVD movies ordered by 20th Century FOX.

The spike in DVD sales and increase in demand from the show's loyal fanbase drove Comedy Central to order 26 brand new episodes of the series in June 2009 that aired starting in June 2010. The second 13 episodes are scheduled to air beginning in Summer of 2011. Due to the overwhelming fan demand, Futurama became one of the latest in a very short list of shows that have been renewed following initial cancellation. Most of the writing staff from the show's initial run (which included no fewer than 3-4 Harvard graduates) have returned for the second run. Their intelligent humor and writing are another large contributing factor to the show's return to television.

Through this blog, I hope to relay my knowledge of this excellent show, spark debates/discussions, relay show-related headlines from other fan sites and produce personalized lists and rankings to open up the floor for discussions and disagreements among fans of the show.

Until the next post, Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!