After only 4 weeks of waiting, the long awaited "new episode" update!

• Reviews: A real dual-use facility! Read them and then post your own review of yesterdays episode.
• Quotes & Sounds: Had trouble to understand why your friend (if any) laughed while you just sat there? 14 quotes to reread!
• Frame Grabs: The usual bunch of schreen shots for referencing and freeze frame fun.
• Capsule: Help this poor document to grow and submit references, goofs and the likes!

Trivia and a "Dub The Frame" game will hopefully follow tomorrow.

Going through the missing episode quotes & sounds the other day, I added "I Second That Emotion" in which Bender flushs Nibbler down the toilet.

Bender: "There! This'll teach those filthy bastards who's lovable." (listen)

Unrelated: Don't forget to watch Futurama tonight. 7PM on FOX has a new episode with the crew trying an anti-aging agent while 11PM on Cartoon Network has a rerun of the Star Trek episode with many of the original cast doing the voices.

For the first time in I don't know how many months, I can finally list 3 weeks with 3 new Futurama episodes scheduled. Mind you, they might change their mind still. Infact, one Indiana FOX affiliate lists a Simpsons rerun for tomorrow. But I guess they got it wrong.

Sun 30th: FUTURAMA "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles"
Sun 06th: FUTURAMA "The Why of Fry"
Sun 13th: FUTURAMA "The Sting"

There might be one more episode after that if the "No episodes during May sweeps" thing holds true.

Need your help.
Mr. Michael Giltz from the (Old) New York Post writes in his article "DVDs This Week":

Futurama has always stood in the shadow of "The Simpsons," and rightly so. At the heart of "The Simpsons" is a warm, genuine cast of characters. At the heart of "Futurama" is merely an excuse for endless gags.

Looking at episodes such as "Godfellas", "Time Keeps on Slipping", "Jurassic Bark", "Luck of the Fryrish" and "A Flight To Remember", he doesn't seem to have based his opinion on much Futurama watching. The entertainment editorial manager Faye Penn would probably like to hear your opinion on that matter by email. Keep it civil and make sure to include proper reference to the article and Mr. Giltz.

One more 4ACV episode on Cartoon Network (see the Star Trek classic cast), then it's time to jump back to the series start with "Space Pilot 3000" on Monday.
Sun 30th: Where No Fan Has Gone Before
Mon 31st: Space Pilot 3000
Tue 01st: The Series Has Landed
Wed 02nd: I, Roommate
Thu 03rd: Love's Labour's Lost In Space
Futurama airs Sun - Thu at 11pm on Cartoon Network.

Lots of DVD updates this week. According to amazon.com, the Futurama Season 2 DVD set will be released on September the 2nd for region 1 (USA / Canada). They already take preorders at 25% off for $37.49. This set will have 19 episodes spanning 4 DVDs. All details can be found at our European version review, which was released last October.
If the date stays, we'll have to see once we're closing in.

Quoting FOX as the source, The Futon Critic announces that Futurama will be replaced with Simpsons and King of the Hill reruns throughout May sweeps.

FOX will have a backlog of fresh episodes of both "Futurama" and "Cedric the Entertainer Presents" for the summer. [...] "Futurama" will be pre-empted for the entire May sweeps period (April 24 - May 21) as at least six episodes of the animated comedy will be left in the can come June. [...] Repeats of "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill" will fill the 7:00/6:00c slot.

This would mean that no more than 4 additional episodes could air this season. In the light of the last few weeks with Futurama being removed from the schedule a few days before it should air, it is questionable if we will see any of those this season at all. Let's hope for this Sunday.

With the DVD set being out, there comes some extra publicity for the show. IMDb had it on its front page (though they misspelled Leela as "Lena"), amazon.com currently has it on sales rank 5 in the top selling DVDs, several DVD sites posted reviews of the set (all of them pretty much praising the it) and the LA Times/CalendarLive has a Futurama feature called "Where the 'Futurama' is now" in which they quote Groening on his feelings towards Futurama:

"I feel about 'Futurama' the way Paul McCartney must feel about Wings. It's tough to compare anything to 'The Simpsons,' but I'm incredibly proud of 'Futurama.' The show is still alive, even though it's no longer supported by its original network, Fox. It's on Cartoon Network now. We're still working on 'Futurama' comic books and toys, and we've been talking about 'Futurama' movies. Just a few days ago, fans of the program submitted a petition to save it that had 130,000 signatures. Even by TV standards that's pretty amazing."

The article continues with different persons' views on the creation process of Futurama.
This also answers the "will comics continue" question and confirms that the much rumoured about Futurama Movie is at "talking about" levels, but no further yet.

Got your Futurama Season 1 DVD set by now? Head over to our new User Review section to tell others if you like 'em.
If the User Review system is welcomed and helpful to others, I'll be adding similar user review sections on other things (Season 2 DVD set, Video Game) as they become available and the need arises.

With the Futurama DVD set arriving in the USA in a mere 2 days, it was time to update our 'Futurama DVD: Season 1' review (meaning, rewrite from scratch).
The DVDs are currently ranked #18 in the sales chart at amazon.com and you can still preorder the set at 25% off from them.

UPDATE: Just saw the first few DVD sets being dispatched from amazon.

You can now find the new futuramachat with our java applets. You will need the latest version of the Java plugin, you can also use the evaluation version of JIRC. If you want to connect using your Favorite IRC client use these details : #futuramachat @ irc.whackpack.com:6667.

Seeing that the last two schedules were changed on the Thursday before a new episode should have aired, the following is to be read with some suspicion.

Sun 23rd: NO FUTURAMA "Jurassic Park 2" *
Sun 30th: FUTURAMA "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles"
Sun 06th: FUTURAMA "The Why of Fry"

The Why of Fry will supposedly bring some plot lines regarding Fry's and the Nibblonians' role in the universe to a close.

* Used to be "True Lies". Maybe they didn't want to make a trend out of opposing the Oscars with Arnie.

Sounds like a thing President Bush would say? Nah, it has nothing to do with the war or anything, just the trivia of "A Taste Of Freedom". I'll be looking into fixing the Java chatroom next and solve the "mysterious" ban on AOL

Bender, a God? Fry, planet express CEO? Bender, a chef? Leela, a daughter? Bender, making out with Lucy Liu? Who woulda thought!? Check it out this week on CN's Adult Swim.
Sun 23th: Godfellas
Mon 24th: Futurestock
Tue 25th: 30% Iron Chef
Wed 26th: Leela's Homeworld
Thu 27th: Love and Rocket

An article titled "Keeping in 'Toon" on the canadian site canoe.ca gives us some information about Groening's thoughts on FOX and our delivered petition:

"The people at Fox didn't ever support the show and it wasn't to their taste and, in my opinion, they're out of their minds. [...]
The fans loved (Futurama), but they couldn't find it. It never got promoted. The fans delivered a petition with 130,000 signatures and there was no reaction from Fox.
We won the Emmy for best animated show a few months ago and I didn't even get a begrudging phone call from anyone at Fox. That's a dark company that they can't even make a fake phone call."

Harsh words showing the frustration of Futurama's creator. We ourselves never got a response regarding the petition, either.

In other news: Marge's chest size didn't reflect in the ratings. With a 5.1/8 Nielsen primetime metered market rating it fell considerably from the previous week (5.8/9), was easily beaten by King of the Hill's 5.5/9 and only 0.1 higher than the last Futurama episode (5.0/8), which ran without any notable promotion I know of.

Sounds and quotes for Fry & the Slurm Factory are finally up. Expect the other missing 1ACV ones to appear on the Sounds & Quotes page within the coming week without further notice.

Farnsworth: "Who are those horrible orange creatures over there?"
Glurmo: "Why those are the Grunka Lunkas. They work here in the Slurm factory."
Farnsworth: "Tell them I hate them!"
(download 65kb)

The hard to find RixTin Merchandise surfaced on eMerchandise. Most interestingly, it includes the heavily sought after and usually quickly out of stock Slurm Can with Playing Cards for $7.95 and its Playing Cards Tin variation (two decks in a nicely designed tin case, no slurm can) for $10.95. For the drinkers and non-drinking pretenders they stock the $6.95 Tin Coasters with logos of your favourite Beer kinds: L

The morning after Futurama writer and executive producer Ken Keeler won the 55th Annual WGA Award for writing Godfellas, I sought to get a small interview with him for CGEF. Roughly a week later, I can present you this not all that small Q & A session going from background information about Ken and Futurama over the WGA ceremony to details on Godfellas (including removed scenes) and some (non-story telling) bits about Futurama's final episode to be: "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings".

Interesting side note is that he (and others I know of) monitors the online fans now and then. So watch your potty mouth when writing a comment

FOX Network changed their mind about showing Futurama this Sunday and now scheduled a third run of Marge Simpson getting breast implants to show in its place. The episode first aired in November 2002 and then again as recently as the 300th episode Sunday in February.

The week afterwards (03/26) will be Futurama-free, too. The Oscar ceremonies are countered by FOX airing "True Lies", which incidentally pre-empted Futurama one year ago on 03/25, too.

Now there are 9 Sundays left till end of May on which Futurama could air but 10 episodes remaining...

UPDATE: 03/30 lists "Futurama - Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" but I'm not going to believe that anytime soon. It's also the same Sunday on which "The Pitts" is poised to premiere and use up one of Malcom's slots. Meanwhile, TVGiudeLive lists Futurama as "On indefinite hiatus".

Guest starring in this week's Adult Swim Futurama line-up are none other than Lucy Liu, Hank Aaron, Mummified Bender, Human Bender, and of course Bender - 1000 years in the past (err, future?)
Sun 16th: I Dated A Robot
Mon 17th: A Leela Of Her Own
Tue 18th: A Pharaoh To Remember
Wed 19th: Anthology of Interest II
Thu 20th: Roswell That Ends Well

While we are all waiting for the Futurama game to get in stores near us, Ign already took a first glance at the upcoming futurama game:

The story is set up to be another classic case of saving the planet Earth from certain destruction, except with a quirky Futurama spin on things. The evil businesswoman Mom has just purchased Planet Express Deliveries from Professor Farnsworth. [...] Pretty impressive, no? Players must stop the evil Mom by joining forces with the Planet Express team, traveling back in time, and preventing the deal from happening.

Read the full article or look at some screenshots from sci games and Gamespot The futurama action/platform game is expected on June 2003 and available on GameCube, PS2 and XBox. Thanks to Sachit Harish for the lead.

With the Futurama DVD Season 1 Set release (March 25th) getting closer and closer for the USA now, Amazon lists it as #13 on the pre-order charts currently and I've even seen it in the top 10 before, too. For those without a way to buy it themselves (and other freeloaders) we now have a solution:

Sponsored by FOX Home Entertainment, we'll hand out 5 DVD Sets to participants of our Futurama DVD Contest. What you need to do is answer the 5 trivia questions. Take your time, you only get one chance. Contest ends in a month on April 10th. More info on the contest page. Good luck.

Scott Roberts - artist and writer for the Dexter's Lab and Rugrats comics - was interviewed by Rich Watson for slushfactory and talked some about the animation industry goods and bads. The topic changes to a rather long paragraph about Futurama:

RW: Why do you suppose Fox gave up on Futurama?

SR: Well, I don't want to get into the dirty laundry, but some of this was already in the press - I feel that a lot of it was punishing Matt Groening for not allowing the executives to be involved in the creative end of the show. [...] I think they kinda slapped it back at him by giving him very little support, putting it in a ridiculously early time slot, where it's constantly pre-empted. You're lucky if a new season is three or four episodes.

The interview was done in January 2003 at the Big Apple Con and published today.
Thanks to Tom S. for the lead.

The Toronto Star has a story on Maurice LaMarche and his voice acting in different cartoons. On Futurama he's responsible for Morbo, Kif and smaller characters like the Hedonismbot.

LaMarche will be all over Toronto video-store racks this month with the much-anticipated DVD release of the entire first season of the now-defunct Futurama [...].
Are reports of the cartoon's demise premature?
"I don't know," allows LaMarche. "There are still people holding out some hope for an 11th-hour, 59th-minute rescue. Matt (Groening) is still in there, pitching. You know, The Critic got rescued by another network (from ABC to Fox). So anything's possible, I guess."

Read the full article by his old friend Rob Salem.

A few hours ago, the 55th Annual Writers Guild Awards were handed out at the Beverly Hilton Hotel for outstanding achievement in writing for the screen, television, and radio. New in this case was that the animation writers got a category, too. Before they had their own, publicly less regarded awards.

Former Letterman, PJ and Simpsons writer Ken Keeler beat the tough competition of three Simpsons episodes, one King of the Hill and 'Santa, Baby!' to the WGA Award for writing in animation on television with his work for (one of my personal favourites) "Futurama - Godfellas".

This means that Futurama won or helped people win the following awards since its production stop:

Emmy Award for "Roswell that ends well"

Annie Award for Rich Moore's directing work

AWC Lifetime Achievement Award for P. Verrone

AWG Award for Ken Keeler / Godfellas
and was nominated (without winning, but still a big recognition) for:

Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation

Congrats to Ken!

After cleaning out my fanart email I got enough material to fill up the various submitters area with new fanart from Lee Roberts, and some old work from FrysGIRL whose work has also been sealed in crystal in the futurama comic That's all for today from me.

The FOX site still says that there's Futurama on tomorrow, but everything else says no (TVGuide and the local FOX affiliate schedules). So:

Sun 09th: NO FUTURAMA "The Simpsons - Helter Shelter"
Sun 16th: NO* FUTURAMA "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles"
Sun 23rd: NO FUTURAMA "True Lies"

Also, the name for the one episode to air keeps changing. FOX lists it as "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" while others drop the "Hurdles".

The bad part is: One more pre-emption and there is no way to finish airing the last episodes by end of May anymore.

* UPDATE: Was too good to be true. Got replaced by Simpsons.

This week on Cartoon Network we learn about Leela's past, watch Kif and Amy lovin' it up, watch guess star Beck play a 29 minute song, and see how much Fry loves Leela.
Sun 09th: Cyber House Rules
Mon 10th: Where The Buggalo Roam
Tue 11th: Insane In The Mainframe
Wed 12th: Bendin' In The Wind
Thu 13th: Time Keeps On Slippin

In related news, thanks to Cartoon Network, the Gender Bender was able to have a very sexy ad placed in this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.

Ever wanted to be a game tester? How about the upcoming Futurama game? Now you got a chance if you fit in with these requirements:

• free on March 13th (Thursday in a week)
• UK based and able to travel to central London
• 16 to 24 years of age
• own your own Playstation 2
• like platform games
• agree to discuss your expirience with the game afterwards
• agree on signing a "non-disclosure" paper (eg, no telling anyone about the game looks, feels and story)

If you got what it takes, send me a short email stating your name and phone number. I'll forward it to the person in charge.
UPDATE: The ranks are filled now. No more testers accepted.

The upcoming US Futurama DVD set release also has the added advantage of Futurama getting more press exposure. USA Today's Bill Keveney quotes Matt Groening in today's "'Futurama' hits DVD, but show comes to close" article:

"I've gotten more response since it's been on Cartoon Network than in its years on Fox," Groening says. "It's so refreshing to have a network that appreciates the show." [...] The last of Futurama's 72 episodes will provide some closure, but he wishes the show could have continued: "We had so many more stories we were eager to tell."

Going along with Groening's impression, Cartoon Network today posts another success story regarding Futurama:

The Sunday telecast of Futurama scored its highest delivery and rating yet on Cartoon Network with adults 18-34, adults 18-24 and men 18-24. Among adults 18-34, the 1.0 rating was up 233% vs. last year.

The problematic scheduling and promotion situation is addressed in the article, too.

As announced, a new round of "Dub The Pic" starts today. Have a look at the picture and post what the persons on it might be saying/thinking. Funny things are prefered.

If creativity is not your thing, try solving the 10 Trivia Questions for Sunday's episode.

Some things on the upcoming DVD releases:

US: March 25th is coming closer. Here are some bits from the press release:

Hungry aliens, delicious humans, and beer-fueled robots collide as the Emmy Award

Go go go New Justice Team!

Incomming stuff for you to devour:

• Reviews: Read 'em. But better yet: Tell us, other fans and maybe Mr Weiner what you thought about yesterday's episode.
• Quotes & Sounds: The funniest lines - redux! If you didn't catch one of them, head here.
• Frame Grabs: Just in case you want to see Clobberella again.
• Capsule: The source for all info on this episode. Submit references and goofs and the likes!

Trivia and a "Dub The Frame" game will likely follow tomorrow. Now enjoy!

While in our mourning-mode, we sort of forgot that issue 11 of the Futurama comic was released a week ago. Go buy it and then give some feedback by rating and reviewing it. As for the story (written by show writer and producer Patric Verrone):

Fry catches a cold. One problem. The cure for the common cold was discovered and then forgotten hundreds of years ago. Now the 20th century virus is wreaking havoc on the 30th century populace, and there's only one race that can save New New York City... the sewer mutants!

Our reader and guestbook entry #1 writer Nina aka FrysGIRL managed to get her Futurama Tattoos printed among the fan mail.

We're back for tomorrow's Futurama episode "Less than Hero" and now will have a look into the future ...

Sun 02nd: FUTURAMA "Less Than Hero"
Sun 09th: NO FUTURAMA * "The Simpsons - Helter Shelter"
Sun 16th: FUTURAMA "Teenage Mutant Leela"

We previously told you that there would be Futurama on the 9th - which was what FOX planned at that time. Now they decided to kick it and show a Simpsons rerun instead.
* UPDATE: And just now, FOX says they will be airing Futurama on the 9th. We'll have a look at it in a few days when things settled.