Original Futurama Cast Seals Deal With Fox 94
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.'"
Historical Reference? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's a load off my toad... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's a load off my toad... (Score:3, Interesting)
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 seems to me there is nothing comparable to those shows today.
There are some good mainstream shows that I follow, "House M.D.", "24", "Fringe", well, the latter might not be too mainstream, but it hasn't been cancelled yet. "24" isn't always very intelligent, but it does suspense in a way that most similar shows can't even touch. There's more plot progression and resolution in a single episode of "24" than in a whole season of, say, "Heroes".
I don't know about you. . . (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't know about you, but I didn't see this one coming. I mean, Billy West, Katey Sagal, John Di Maggio, Dan Castellaneta, Phil Lamar, and everyone else on the cast are all expendable and anyone can do the voices they do.
Okay, Leela _could_ be replaced, but would anyone buy Leela as Leela with any voice other than that of Peggy Bundy? Amy Wong can be replaced, but why would you want to? It would only serve as a distraction and land you in a JTS category. (for the record as an aside: if Fry and Leela do it, I don't think it'd be a JTS moment. I hope Fry+Leela eventually happens because that can open up whole new story lines to explore)
I know, other hit animations have changed voice actors (Meg Griffin) without too much impact, but the magic of Futurama is like the beatles - the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It's not just the great writing, it's not just the unique blend of 3D rendering and conventional 2D cel animation, and it's not just the individual character voices. It's the great chemistry throughout the entire team. It's a damn shame Futurama was ever cancelled in the first place (allegedly due to corporate politics) and I don't understand why it was harder to resurrect than Family Guy was. I mean, I know more people who like Futurama than Family Guy (I happen to enjoy both shows, but I wouldn't adjust my schedule around Family Guy like I did for Futurama).
Family Guy offends a lot of people. I don't know anyone who is offended by Futurama. Non-geeks/non-engineers I know who watch Futurama watch it for the low-brow humor (it includes some LCD humor for the low-IQ segment of the population) and while they don't get the math and science jokes they love it nonetheless. Almost every well-educated person I know who has seen Futurama loves it: engineers, doctors, chemists, programmers, help desk workers, architects. The only person I know who hates it also hates The Simpsons, and it's for this reason: he is a graphic design artist, and detests the simplicity of the 2D animation. Unlike most fans, he doesn't see Groening's style as having its own unique charm, but sees it as a hack and as lack of talent/laziness. I happen to see genius in Groening's style; in that he lets the writing and quality of the team as a whole convey the story rather than producing poorly-written, poorly-acted eye candy. If you want eye candy, go see a Disney flick. You'll get dreadfully boring eye candy.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Historical Reference? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Historical Reference? (Score:2, Interesting)
According to Mark Evanier [newsfromme.com], who's been in animation for decades:
Re:Matt Groening (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Matt Groening (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
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.