Futurama News during the 2011 Futurama run

[Reply #160 on:]

Doesn't show much, the Zoidberg-Professor scene in the pasty has already appeared (extended) as CtF storyboard. Still fun to see animated though.

[Reply #161 on:]

I was confused if it was "Overclockwise" or "Reincarnation" that was written by Ken Keeler (they said it was the finale about a year ago, but then they changed the order and all, and now everyone says "Reincarnation"), so I asked Eric Rogers on Twitter (yes, I'm the new Danny). Reply:

Overclockwise. Reincarnation written by Ehasz.

[Reply #162 on:]

(yes, I'm the new Danny).

Not by a long shot.

[Reply #163 on:]

Wasn't Ehasz supposed to be a freelancer on season 6? That's interesting that he wrote two episodes. I wonder now if we'll get more from some of the other writers who returned that way (Lewis Morton and J. Stewart Burns, I believe). Unless he's a staff writer to begin with and A.V. Club just got it wrong. Thanks for the update, Aki.

[Reply #164 on:]

Overclockwise. Reincarnation written by Ehasz.

Wow, just Ehasz for Reincarnation? That must be quite a challenging episode to write on one's own. But his given his track record, it should be good.

[Reply #165 on:]

PART 2 OF THE DAVID X. COHEN INTERVIEW ON ASSIGNMENTX...

Doesn't work... These links work for anyone else? They take me to some Go Daddy.com Domain Hosting page...

http://p.ost.im/p/E4STY
http://wp.me/p1fmIZ-52U

Can't find it through the site either...

[Reply #166 on:]

Here you go Danny 

Show spoiler

ASSIGNMENT X: So now you’re starting Season 7A and 7B – is it the same schedule as 6A and 6B?

DAVID X. COHEN: We’ll be writing for a year and the animation will drag on for almost a year behind that as the we feed these scripts into the animation pipeline. We’ll finish the bulk of the writing in about a year and the shows will be done in about two years.

AX: Does that mean you don’t know if you’re coming back for Season 8A and 8B for a couple of years from now?

COHEN: Yeah, probably not. Same as this time. It will be the same deal, next year, Summer 2012, we’ll be finishing the shows relatively closer to the airdates and Summer 2013, we’ll have all those ready by the beginning of the summer and ready to go.

AX: Is it hard to start up and then close down with your writing staff like this?

COHEN: This year was a little easier than in the past. We’ve had gaps of years in the past before between the first run [on Fox] and the DVDs and between the DVDs and the Comedy Central run. This case, it was only a few months people weren’t around the office. We never shut down the office, because we were doing last minute editing and working on the DVD bonus features, even though we thought we would shut down. It was actually easier. We got back our entire writing staff and our entire cast. It’s all the same team, there are no changes made in the personnel, so in that regard it was easier than previously.

AX: Going into the next arc of 26, will there be new things you’re trying to do? Also, what did you learn in doing this two year block going into the next arc.

COHEN: We learned, as always, that it’s very hard, because it starts out running smoothly, but by the end you’re dealing with writing new scripts and looking at several stages of the animation. At the same time, you’re looking at multiple episodes in one day and doing rewrites on them. It starts out as a manageable process, but by the end of the year it’s chaos because we’re dealing with shows at every stage of production at the same time.

At 26, it’s a tall order. At the same time, as scrappy as it’s been, we’ve all gotten better at the job and we have a better handle of what is a good episode. We don’t spin our wheels doing useless stuff as much as we used to. We have a little better handle of what has worked in the past and what hasn’t. We don’t shy away anymore from weird science-fiction concepts, which in the early days we were nervous about, but have come to realize our fans are always on board for sci-fi episodes. We try to take that more and more seriously over the years. To balance it out, to our surprise, the comedy seems to work in those stories too.

When we really hype up the sci-fi drama of it, you’re sucked into the story in a way where it’s a little more of a release when the jokes come and they play a little better. We’ve definitely learned a lot and learned we don’t have to be scared of complicated time travel or brain switching or things that require our viewer to be on the ball. It’s a complement to our fans – they seem to be on the ball.

AX: Does Comedy Central have a lot of feedback?

COHEN: We’re really just doing it. They had the reruns for several years and the DVD movies, so they said we want more of this stuff. We’re doing what we always do, and they have been great in terms of keeping the show promoted and keeping the re-runs alive. They’re done a huge amount with the Facebook site. We’re up to 14 million likes now and it’s one of the top TV shows [on Facebook], not just cable TV shows. It’s really amazing what Comedy Central has done in keeping the show in the public’s mind even though we’re only doing thirteen a year in the summer. They have done an excellent job with it.

AX: I’m assuming their standards and practives department is a bit more lax than Fox used to be as well.

COHEN: Their standards department is looser than Fox was in the old days. We don’t really have to fight any battles to get the show on the air, because we’re not pushing the limits of what they would want to show. I may have told you this story last year, because it’s more than a year ago, but we did an episode last summer where there was this giant spaceship played by Chris Elliott that was very prudish and easily offended by nudity and cursing. When he heard cursing, he would emit this loud censors beep – like a curse you would beep out on TV. So we had to intentionally put in Leela saying something that he bleeped out on the show. We actually got a note from Comedy Central saying, “what was Leela going to say, because maybe you could say that on Comedy Central.” We kind of got a reverse censor note. “Yeah, say whatever curse you were going to say.” So those were battles we used to fight on Fox, and we no longer have to fight. My take on it is we try to keep the show’s tone pretty consistent with what it was in the old days and not make it filthy if we can, but only if that episode demands.

AX: Comedy Central just started letting SOUTH PARK say “s***” whenever it’s on the show without it getting bleeped – so their censors are getting more and more lax.

COHEN: They can do that without changing the tone of the show, but if we started doing it, it would be a different show. If you like FUTURAMA, you’re going to like these episodes. We’re not changing everything just because we can. We’re trying to come up with new stories and new jokes, but not a new tone.

AX: How involved is Matt Groening with the show?

COHEN: He’s very involved. One thing that has worked out nicely with this return to Comedy Central, is Fox is still producing the show, although they’re not putting it on the Fox network. It still is Fox Television. We’re not on the Fox lot, and we’re literally a hundred yards from the building where the SIMPSONS writers are. Matt can just walk back and forth at will. For the DVDs and the original Fox run, we were not housed on the Fox lot here. Now it’s very easy for him to go back and forth and he’s been here a lot and very involved still coming up with great ideas. In fact, the “Benderama” episode is one of Matt Groening’s great ideas – directly from the mouth of Matt Groening!

AX: Will you try to do another series finale for Season 7A and Season 7B – just in case?

COHEN: I think so. Because we’re in the early stages, we haven’t recorded a single episode of the new 26, but we haven’t figured out how to wrap it up again, I would say if we have not heard word whether there will be more or not after these 26, what choice do we have to once again go down that road? Our routine is we don’t say “bye,” we don’t say “this is the end,” we just try to have a really good episode that has some heart to it and represents the good aspects of FUTURAMA that we would be proud of to be our last episode.

AX: There must be a Guinness Book of World Records for the most series finale of any TV series in history.

COHEN: We did get a Guinness Book of World Records record at Comic-Con last year. It was pretty ridiculous. I don’t know how it qualifies as a record. It did not go into the book, but they just push out the plaque, but we were presented a plaque last year for “Best Reviewed Current Animated TV Show.” I would say that it was some preposterous thing we contrived ourselves, except we didn’t contrive it, someone at Guinness did. Based on some website aggregating reviews, last summer, we were the record holder in that preposterous category. So we have a Guinness record hanging on our wall here – it may have been planted.

AX: Will there be any secondary characters or new characters you want to play with in the next round, or is it still the core?

COHEN: We’ll be seeing Bender’s offspring in 2012 in one of the early scripts. However, in this coming summer, we’re going in the direction of finding out the background of some of these characters. One episode we have coming up this summer is “The Tip of the Zoidberg” and we’re finally going to be answer some questions that even I’ve been wondering for years, namely “why does the Professor and the crew put up with Dr. Zoidberg when he’s such an incompetent doctor?” I’ve always wondered if Zoidberg has dirt on the Professor. So we’re going to do an episode where we flashback and see how the Professor and Zoidberg first met, and what terrible secrets led to Zoidberg staying on at the office to this present day. I think longtime fans will like that episode. We did an episode in last year’s about the origins of Bender and how Hermes was involved.

AX: Will “Anthology of Interest” pop up in Season 7?

COHEN: I feel confident we will do one or two more three-parters. I don’t know if they will be “Anthology of Interest” or if it will be whatever we’re in the mood to do. I like doing those though – from our point of view they’re fun to do. Those are stories that are quick, preposterous and often involve people dying and we need that more abstract form to pull it off.

AX: How has being shown in high-def format changed the show? When you look back at the old episodes from Fox, do they feel antiquated?

COHEN: Yeah, and at the time it was cutting edge since we were working in 3D models. Then you look at it now, it’s 4 X 3 3D models and standard definition. The new ones, side-by-side look way better. You know, everything is in its time.

AX: How many episodes will you have completed once you’re done with Season 7?

COHEN: Counting the DVDs as sixteen, is how they broke down – each one broke into four – at the end of this summer we’ll have 114 episodes and after the next two summers, we’ll have 140. It’s starting to add up in little dribbles.

AX: Any final words?

COHEN: I think this summer’s episodes are really good. Take my biased opinion for it. Because of the production schedule, I think we were going strong during the middle of the year and got back in the groove and a lot of our best episodes fall in this batch of episodes that start of this year. FUTURAMA fans will not be disappointed.

I will edit this post when DannyJC13 has read it

[Reply #167 on:]

You can leave it there I think InfoMan!, easier than clicking the link.

Thanks.

[Reply #168 on:]

Thanks for the interviews, Danny and InfoMan. DXC's explanation of how the writers are learning from their mistakes (and the promise of more cuh-razy sci-fi plots) gives me hope.

In completely irrelevant news: The episode info for "Law and Oracle" (or at least the one given by my cable provider) says "Fry quits his job and becomes a police office." This typo amuses me so. Or at least I'm assuming it's a typo...

[Reply #169 on:]

Hahaha thats funny, still sounds better then half the new simpsons plots  :P

I have high hopes for this episode. Looking forward to a Fry centric episode

[Reply #170 on:]

Thanks for the interviews, Danny and InfoMan. DXC's explanation of how the writers are learning from their mistakes (and the promise of more cuh-razy sci-fi plots) gives me hope.

In completely irrelevant news: The episode info for "Law and Oracle" (or at least the one given by my cable provider) says "Fry quits his job and becomes a police office." This typo amuses me so. Or at least I'm assuming it's a typo...

Haha, one of the comments/jokes at another forum (the NHC) said something to the effect of "I'm going to be really disappointed if that's a typo." It's from the MSN description, or at least that's where I saw it a few weeks ago.

In fact, here that is: http://tv.msn.com/tv/series-episodes/futurama/?ipp=40

I'm not sure if it has any information we haven't seen elsewhere. The description for "Tip of the Zoidberg" was slight news to me, though.

[Reply #171 on:]

Just a bongo promo card

http://www.bongocomics.com/blog/07/06/2011/good-news-everyone

[Reply #172 on:]

Wasn't Ehasz supposed to be a freelancer on season 6? That's interesting that he wrote two episodes. I wonder now if we'll get more from some of the other writers who returned that way (Lewis Morton and J. Stewart Burns, I believe). Unless he's a staff writer to begin with and A.V. Club just got it wrong. Thanks for the update, Aki.

Josh Weinstein is a freelancer isn't he? He wrote tonight's 'Law and Oracle' as well as 'That Darn Katz!'.

Overclockwise. Reincarnation written by Ehasz.

Wow, just Ehasz for Reincarnation? That must be quite a challenging episode to write on one's own. But his given his track record, it should be good.

Mike Rowe wrote 'Holiday Craptacular' on his own. It seems to be the new way of doing things with the smaller writing staff.
I'm still hopeful for Reincarnation as Benderama was well written and funny whereas Mike Rowe's track record isn't exactly stellar.

[Reply #173 on:]

Weinstein's a staffer....you can see his name during the "producer" credits at the beginning of a lot of episodes.

In other news, A.V. Club just interviewed John DiMaggio. Enjoy it, meatbags!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/john-dimaggio,58555/?utm_medium=promobar&utm_campaign=recirculation

[Reply #174 on:]

Ah right, my bad.

[Reply #175 on:]

New interview on

http://tvgeekarmy.com

There's been a lot of interviews published today

[Reply #176 on:]

From the interview InfoMan posted:

Show spoiler

Another recent decision we made about season seven is to stop paying as much attention to what The Simpsons has done because we have been trying a little bit to avoid being compared to them. But we finally decided after 500 episodes that we’re going to stop thinking about it and we’re going to do an episode where Bender becomes a paparazzo even though Homer did that. However our robot version in the year 3000 will be very different.

I don't really care if Futurama does stories similar to ones done on the Simpsons (doesn't South Park have a whole episode about the futility of trying to come up with a story that hasn't been used by the Simpsons?). It's more a general style (the over-reliance on montages and pop culture references in particular trouble me) that strikes me as too Simpson-y when it pops up in Futurama. Futurama can do an episode about Fry joining the police force gaining a zillion pounds and getting disability pay, as long as the style and execution remain distinctly Futurama-y.

Also, this...

Show spoiler

Our second to last episode is “Overclockwise.” Bender’s processor is running at a faster speed than ever before and suddenly he’s becoming a super-intelligent, God-like being that can see into the future because he is calculating so fast. Meanwhile, Fry and Leela are reconsidering their relationship and what their future holds. It has a good ending with lots of crazy sci-fi.

...makes me happy.

Edited so that everything that  might potentially bother the blissfully unspoiled is put in spoiler tags.

[Reply #177 on:]

Bender becoming a paparazzi could be really cool. Exploring more of New New York and seeing loads of our favorite background characters snapped on camera.

[Reply #178 on:]

It'll be interesting to see how the show goes with that decision in mind, I've never really considered that they might've been avoiding similar stories in the past.

Also, what do you suppose he meant by the whole Reincarnation each-segment-ending-with-a-way-that's-unsuitable-for-that-animation comment? My guess is that color is important in the Fleischer ending, fluid movement in the anime one and being able to see details in the video game one... but that's all quite vague, I admit.


I wouldn't be surprised if Calculon has a sizable appearance in this paparazzi episode... although I'd rather not. I feel like we've seen enough Bender / Calculon stories already.

[Reply #179 on:]

Ahhh..I cannot wait for Overclockwise!!!!! It sounds too good!

[Reply #180 on:]

Also, what do you suppose he meant by the whole Reincarnation each-segment-ending-with-a-way-that's-unsuitable-for-that-animation comment? My guess is that color is important in the Fleischer ending, fluid movement in the anime one and being able to see details in the video game one... but that's all quite vague, I admit.

I think it's meaning that an unsuitable ending is one that goes against the clichés for the style. For example, having the video game one end with "GAME OVER. CONTINUE?" would be a suitable and cliché ending.

[Reply #181 on:]

COHEN: I think this summer’s episodes are really good. Take my biased opinion for it. Because of the production schedule, I think we were going strong during the middle of the year and got back in the groove and a lot of our best episodes fall in this batch of episodes that start of this year. FUTURAMA fans will not be disappointed.


that excites me so.

[Reply #182 on:]

I am so thrilled about Overclockwise. It sounds epic. I hope it will not disappoint, for I will be sad for days if that is the case. Nay, months.

[Reply #183 on:]

That reminds me of something I thought about earlier: is there any "serious" Futurama episode that wasn't good? I only hear acclaim about those episodes.

[Reply #184 on:]

That reminds me of something I thought about earlier: is there any "serious" Futurama episode that wasn't good? I only hear acclaim about those episodes.

valid point. seriously, what serious futurama episode has ever flopped?

[Reply #185 on:]

I don't think any of the serious episodes have ever flopped, but I do think some of them hit their mark a bit better than others when it comes to fan opinion. "Jurassic Bark" and "The Luck of the Fryrish" are generally considered gold by everyone, and the same goes for "The Late Philip J. Fry"; "Time Keeps on Slipping" and "Leela's Homeworld" can go either way with fans, it seems.

For my part, I love 'em all (though I am strangely underwhelmed by "Jurassic Bark"), but I'd understand why some people wouldn't want all these emotions getting in the way of their crazy sci-fi comedy.

[Reply #186 on:]

Cool profile on Eric Rogers:

http://www.middletownjournal.com/news/middletown-news/futurama-episode-written-by-miami-edgewood-grad-1203322.html

There's a few plot details for the next episode in there, too.

[Reply #187 on:]

For my part, I love 'em all (though I am strangely underwhelmed by "Jurassic Bark"), but I'd understand why some people wouldn't want all these emotions getting in the way of their crazy sci-fi comedy.

Sometimes I think we are the same person.

Neat article, DotheBartman. Crazy Bender-centric plots are generally either at the top of my list or at the bottom, so we'll see where this one ends up.

[Reply #188 on:]

The picture released of Bender in Bling looked pretty awesome.

[Reply #189 on:]

SEASON 6A HAS HIT THE UK! SKY ONE! JULY 22ND! IT'S HERE!

[Reply #190 on:]

I'm happy for you, DannyJC13 ...

[Reply #191 on:]

I'm happy for you, DannyJC13 ...

Aren't you happy?! No more illegal downloading?! No more crappy torrents and streaming?!

[Reply #192 on:]

I have the DVD bought from America; I was watching it last night, so no odds to me. Happy for those that don't though...

[Reply #193 on:]

I have the DVD bought from America; I was watching it last night, so no odds to me. Happy for those that don't though...

Well I don't have a multi-region DVD player so this is all good news to me.. Sorry if my posts don't make much sense, shaking from excitement and shock.

[Reply #194 on:]

To be released December 20, 2011!

Futurama Volume 6

13 episodes (Season 6-B)

Special Features:

Optional commentaries for all 13 episodes
Deleted and extended scenes
Professor Farnsworth featurette
Music featurette
Fans featurette

[Reply #195 on:]

A fans featurette eh? Well I'm happy that they finally decided to include me on one of their DVDs!

[Reply #196 on:]

Oh, and here's a link to an article where this info was obtained from (read the bottom):

http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Rio-More-Glee-Modern-Family-Simpsons-and-Futurama-Coming-on-Blu-ray-from-Fox.shtml

[Reply #197 on:]

quality news, fellas.

[Reply #198 on:]

Oh, you!

Here's some news, by the by: looks like "The Late Philip J. Fry" was nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. It's up against The Cleveland Show, Robot Chicken, The Simpsons, and South Park. Seeing as how TLPJF is brilliant and full of time-traveling sci fi goodness (much like "Roswell That Ends Well"), I'm thinking it has a pretty good shot. Of course, I haven't seen any of the other nominees, so...

[Reply #199 on:]

And Maurice got nominated for Outstanding Voice Performance for his work on Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences as Lrrr and Orson Welles!