Futurama Season 4 Update from David X. Cohen

Robotron2084 writes "Just goes to show that the best animated tv show around has some of the savviest producers around. Futurama producer/co-writer David X. Cohen posted this message on alt.tv.futurama recently. Interesting tidbits for futurama addicts to munch on while we await the season premiere on Dec. 9th. David talks about the prestigious awards they've received, upcoming guest appearances, and the banned christmas episode. I guess the fox executives were a bit scared of 'kwanzabot' at first, but they'll finally be airing a double-Xmas dose on Dec. 23rd!!"

Comments

Re:I like the show

[alexmogil]

I'll hate to see the absolute thrashing you'll get for this comment, but by God, you're right. How many times to we need to see that certain Anime DVD titles *might* come out on DVD, yet... where's the Simpsons Season 1 DVD review? Not that the review would be terribly *good* mind you.

Decoding the Alien Alphabets

[hyyx]

I welcome anything new from Matt Groening. The Simpsons is still the ultimate classic, despite its similarities with CmdrTaco.

I am still missing the discussions of the decoding the alien alphabets at The Futurama Outlet (content has been down for some time). Does anyone know of any other forums where this is being discussed? Is anyone even following me here?

Re:Decoding the Alien Alphabets

[Zocalo]

You could try the revamped Cant Get Enough Futurama site at http://www.gotfuturama.com. They have pretty much the entire old CGEF site back on-line now, including the Alien Language codecs - it's in the "Interactive" menu section.

Bad timing

[ajuda]

I think that December 9th is a bad time to air the premier. The popularity of Futurama probably rests highest amongst the college crowds... Won't they all be too busy with finals and papers to notice and remember that Futurama is on?

Re:Bad timing

[petree]

Although you might think that the primary audience for Futurama is college students, I would tend to disagree. Most college students I know watch television, but they rarely watch it with the kind of consistancy you look for in a target group for a once-a-week show. If I only have a 30minute window in which to catch a show, and that window happens to fall sometime when I would likely to be out (8-10ish) I very likely won't catch the show.

Shows that are truly geared towards college students (Southpark for example) would be aired many times a week, at normal (10pm) an strange (12 and 2:30) timeslots. This is a tactic that I haven't seen show up elsewhere too much in the TV world. Finally, I feel like a network is working it's schedule around me, rather than vice-versa.

Futurama is rising, Simspsons is declining

[mcarbone]

perhaps it should watch an episode or two of _The Simpsons_

Not if you watch an episode or two from the last few seasons. I think it is pretty clear to all Simpsons fans that the last 3 or 4 seasons of The Simpsons show signs of aging. Compared to these recent seasons, Futurama is a far superior and funnier show. However, Futurama still does not surpass Simpsons during its height; i.e., seasons 4, 5, and 6 (maybe 3).

Then again, Futurama's very first season was about as funny as an above-average Simpsons season. So if it has a season 4 comparable to the Simpsons' season 4, we're in for a real treat.

Sure, they'll be studying

[barzok]

But most mortals take study breaks. You can't do everything in one marathon session.

Let's face it, people...

[Murdock037]

"Futurama" is the best animated show on television today.

Tough to swallow, I know. And this is coming from a guy with over a dozen Simpsons tapes. And I don't think anybody could argue against the fact that The Simpsons is probably the best animated show to ever hit the airwaves-- but even the die-hard fans realize deep down that the show today is a pale imitation of what it once was.

Most of the key creative minds behind the best seasons of The Simpsons-- seasons three to five or six, or so-- have moved on. I've read that even Matt Groening devotes most of his energy these days to Futurama, only keeping a vague guiding hand over his original creation and sitting in on script readings.

Futurama is marvelous. It's clever, consistently fresh, and it's got the spark and bite that The Simpsons has lost. The fact that there was a censored Christmas episode demonstrates a lot-- not that the show is any better for having material worthy of being censored, but simply that the writers are obviously trying to do something different from the norm.

Fox effectively screwed the show when they dumped it to the Sundays-at-7pm slot a few years ago. Most everybody I know who liked the show stopped watching, because it's just an inconvenient time. The ratings are probably abysmal, and Fox probably keeps the show on just to keep Groening happy-- but as long as it's out there somewhere, I'm happy, too. The DVDs should be marvelous.

Let's just hope they don't fall prey to the temptation to overuse celebrity guests like The Simpsons has; at least the Futurama writers tend to use their guests in ways that kinda sorta fit into the story, instead of bland and obvious ass-kissing. With the list that Cohen supplied, at least they're keeping some variety, but it's something worth a little bit of concern.

We all know how reflexive Simpsons fans are, because anybody reading Slashdot either is one or at least knows one. I'm hoping this isn't going to start any sort of flame-war or be seen as pissing on hallowed ground. I'll admit I'm wrong if anybody can describe a Simpsons show from the past three years to me that made them laugh half as hard as the classic, say, Homer Goes to College episode.

Re:Let's face it, people...

[Greyfox]

It's good, but I think Invader Zim has a slight edge, especially for us folks who appreciate those twisted, surreal plot lines. If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should.

Just thought I would get ready. . .

[Newt-dog]

If you are in anticipation of the kick off of a new season - Here's a place to catch up on the latest gossip and even download a wallpaper for your puter. For those of you into ASCII art, they even have a few pics for you. If you are looking for a few original sketches or cells you might want to look Here.
But if your a real die-hard, you can download a few MPEG episodes Here at around 220 meg per episode (also 56k'er versions available for the bandwidth impaired)
I for one like the snappy comebacks and the semi-adult humor. My personal favorite is Bender drinking and smoking cigars!

Newt-dog

Re:people are also stupid

[Sarcasmooo!]

I don't see what's wrong with friends. Seems to me like it's a modern, wholesome, realistic portrayal of a New York City where people of color are never around in any capacity.

Slashdot is powered by Fry and Bender

[scrutty]

Check the http headers

506 $ lynx -source -head http://slashdot.org | grep X-
X-Powered-By: Slash 2.003000
X-Bender: There's nothing wrong with murder, just as long as you let Bender whet his beak.

There's either a X-Fry or an X-Bender with a random quote each page.

"guardians of good taste at the Fox Network"

[sharkey]

Some more sentiments in the same vein:

Military Intelligence
Bureaucratic Efficiency
Microsoft Quality
George W. Bush's Oath of Office

Thank god!

[BillyGoatThree]

Week after week of homoerotic "sports" were beginning to make me think Futurama wasn't coming back. Unfortunately it won't be THIS Sunday. *sigh*--another Junkyard War rerun it is, I guess. I wish they'd kill off that idiot Tyler and bring back Robert.

Suggestion to Slashdot: Interview with David Cohen

[Masem]

Given that Futurama (and by collarary, the Simpsons) are much watched shows at Slashdot, why not arrange for an interview with him? He's probably much more accessable and net-savvy than Groenig, and as they should be in the final editing process for this season of Futurama, probably has a sufficient amount of free time to do so.

The Family Guy

[superdoo]

I'd have to say that The Family Guy is funnier than the Simpsons or Futurama right now. It is fresher in every way, animation, humour, pop-culture ripping, relentless cynicism. Doesn't anyone else agree?

Help Save FAMILY GUY!

[glowingspleen]

Guys, it sounds like Family Guy is getting some less than stellar ratings this season (then again, its timeslot sucks). Fox should be making a decision on its future in the next month or two.

Help Save Family Guy is a link I found skimming through Google. They'll print out your comments and mail hard copies to Fox directly.

Re:I really liked Futurama until...

[Ozan]

... I watched the Lucy Liu episode, which has some heavy RIAA-aligned propaganda against P2P file sharing. It was somewhat disturbing to see that in such a cool show

Heh heh, you didn't get the greatest meta-humour the show ever had. Do you remeber the 'Don't date robots!' propaganda when Fry had the idea to download a celebrity? The story of the whole episode is in the same style as the small clip, made up as a propaganda against file sharing. The space-pope-propaganda was obviously overdrawn in its ridiculousness while the whole episode was not. It is just a big, subtle piece of meta-humour, showing that the modern propaganda do not need to be as obviuous as one might think.

best TV show, ever.

[geekoid]

Futurerama is THE geek show. secret codes, alien languages, robots, good parody of technology, bitchen spaceships, hot chicks, great animation.

Any show thats had Gary Gygax on it gets an immediate nerd rating. todays generation of geeks and nerds will look back on Futurama like yesterday geek look back on the Original ST.

I love the apartment numbering system in bender and fry's building. Not to mention the robot perspective of the world is pretty damn funny.

Any show with an anti-chrysler building has got to be good.
One of the principle characters is named after the inventor of Television, probably one of the first Technology geeks.
"that was in 2150, just before Jesus second coming" Farnsworth

Re:Clever Nick Name, where are you?

[Legion303]

Remember Sesame Street? The part where they showed four objects and sang about which one didn't fit?

Moderators: read the parent and this again if you think this is offtopic.

-Legion