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No New Series of Futurama 176

Posted by Hemos from the too-bad-so-sad dept.
Nikoth writes "It seems that Billy West got it wrong when he announced that there are 26 new episodes of Futurama on the way, and instead there will only be the 4 movies as planned. "
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No New Series of Futurama More

No New Series of Futurama

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  • Oops (Score:4, Funny)

    by endrue ( 927487 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:46AM (#14956541)
    I should have submitted a story that Elvis was still alive. Tons of traffic - no facts needed!

    - Andrew
    • It seems that Billy West got it wrong when he announced that there are 26 new episodes of Futurama on the way, and instead there will only be the 4 movies as planned. "

      Only four movies? What a disappointment.

      The first one isn't even out yet, and already the movie franchise is well underway. Is this isn't success, then I don't know what is.

      • Re:Is That All? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by moro_666 ( 414422 )
        Imho more than 1 movie on any theme is a disaster, stretching reapeating boring stuff. Just look at chuck or seagal, these dudes play the same record for years (or decades, depends on the actor).

          The series were nice tho, i think it's one of the funniest tv cartoons that we have had in the last 10 years.

          Must kill all humans
        • I think Segal has stated publicly he hated being type cast. He looked like that fat wine salesman in his last self made picutre. Debauchery must be fun.

        • Imho more than 1 movie on any theme is a disaster, stretching reapeating boring stuff.

          Several counter-examples:

          • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
          • Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
          • Aliens
          • LOTR: The Two Towers
          • LOTR: The Return of the King
          • Superman 3
          • Biodome 2
          • Plan 10 From Outer Space
          • Stargate SG-2: Electronic Bugaloo

          (O.K., those last four were just to see if you were paying attention.)

      • all together now : "doh!"

        oh wait, wrong series...
    • I was sure Netcraft confirmed the return of the series. Oh well.
  • Man, I really wish these tv execs would quit screwing with shows. Firefly, Futurama... it almost seems like they're just trying to see how much we'll put up with.

    What's it going to take to get them to listen to the fans again?
    • It almost seems like nerdy clique shows don't generally rake in a large enough share of the ad revenue for their time slots and get cancelled because more people will sit down and watch a fat woman screaming about GAHGOYLES than a "witty" starship captain and his zany adventures.

      It almost seems like tv execs are trying to make money rather than pander to you personally.

      What an unfair world we live in.
      • Which is rather absurd considering that the purchasing power of Firefly fans or Arrested Development fans is probably far greater than that of "Haunted Houses Extreme Makeover".

        When we really like a show, we ought to immediately start writing relevent corporations to tell them how much we love the show and how much money we have to spend. That would probably be more effective than a bunch of obssessives starting petitions and whining on messageboards. Producers are morons, but they can smell money and will
    • Love Monkey (CBS)- Man that was a good show with some great support from viewers and corporations (Sony is big into it, introducing many new artists). Too bad they got rid of it after 3 episodes. Rumour has it that UPN will pick it up

      -M
    • The input from the fans has little to do with what gets programmed. What makes the listing are shows that attract specific demographic groups that the advertisers want to go after.

      Programs that would still be around today if it was up to the fans; "Dead Like Me", "Firefly", "Rome", "Babylon 5". The list grows ever longer.

      This has been true since the early days of radio when Barbersol sold shaving soap.

      The smartest programming still seems to be on PBS and they only have a fraction of the budgets of major net

    • Re:Stop screwing with shows (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @12:46PM (#14957510) Homepage Journal
      What's it going to take to get them to listen to the fans again?

      Advertising revenue. When you're dealing with the people who watch nerdy niche programming, you're dealing with an uncommonly tech-savvy crowd that owns TiVos, refuses to watch commercials and never pays for anything anyway. You've got a fan base of freeloading music and software and movie pirates. Just look at the ads that run during reruns of Star Trek. It's all penis enlargement and debt relief. It's pretty obvious that this isn't a crowd that has much disposable income to squeeze out of it.

      There's a lot of demand for the 18-35 male population, because it spends a lot of money. But our niche, for whatever reason, is VERY undesirable. The above reasons are probably why.

      Note: I am not suggesting that everything in the first paragraph is TRUE, and certainly not of every single person who watches Futurama. But look at the commercials that run on Spike and during Next Gen rebroadcasts... it's obvious what their advertisers think of us, and they hate us. Hence, you can run Battlestar Galactica at 10:00pm on a Friday and get record numbers of us to tune in - they know we're not doing anything else on Friday night from 10-11 pm.

      Anyway ... there's some assumptions being made about their demographics and those assumptions fuel the types of advertisers they get and thus their revenue off broadcasting. I think some of those assumptions can be borne out, as uncomfortable as that may make some of you.

      • When you're dealing with the people who watch nerdy niche programming, you're dealing with an uncommonly tech-savvy crowd that owns TiVos, refuses to watch commercials and never pays for anything anyway.

        Well, except for TiVos, HD sets, fancy home theater gear and the like.

        You've got a fan base of freeloading music and software and movie pirates. Just look at the ads that run during reruns of Star Trek. It's all penis enlargement and debt relief. It's pretty obvious that this isn't a crowd that has much

      • Hence, you can run Battlestar Galactica at 10:00pm on a Friday and get record numbers of us to tune in - they know we're not doing anything else on Friday night from 10-11 pm.

        Hmm...you know, I've seen this argument before, and now that I think of it, I'm not so sure about its accuracy. I mean, take someone outside of the usual "Sci Fi watcher" sterotype, i.e. someone who goes out into the world on Fridays. The bars & clubs don't really get hopping until 11/midnight anyway. Why not watch some Sci Fi w
        • I have to agree here. In my 'clubbing' days, you didn't even bother leaving the house until 10-11PM , unless you were doing dinner before hitting the clubs. Even then you never went out before 8-9PM. ;)
      • ..is why is it that when Geeks get to become "Neilsen Families" and so forth.. do they skip the commercials? I mean, that *must* be what happens, otherwise, how would the advertisers even know the behaviour of the geeks?

        I've twice had the opportunity to become a television-watcher (or whatever you call those). I made SURE that for that month I didn't watch -anything- that I thought sucked, and I DID NOT MISS a single episode of my favourite shows. I mean, why the hell not? It's like voting crap off the t
      • As an ad exec in this much sought after demographic I'd have to agree with you, but only partially. What you will find is that advertisers do not focus the bulk of their media spends on TV for us nerds, because they learned long ago that the internet is a much use of their media dollars. You see, geeks tend to do something WAY more than normal TV watchers...we research. Take a look sometime at the ads that appear on fan sites and all the show encyclopedia sites...take a look at some of the big brand name
      • Futurama is actually one of the few shows I have paid for. I own all of the released DVDs, and apparently I am not alone, as it is an extremely popular seller on DVD. I don't care if Futurama goes straight-to-DVD, and I think Futurama episodes on DVD would sell better than Futurama movies.
      • I actually think that Fox may be onto something with their "cancelling great shows" habit. I know you and I think of television as an ongoing thing; success in the American market usually means a long pre-syndication primetime run. But other areas of the world are perfectly willing to run single-season shows. The perfect example of this is Anime - many popular shows, such as FLCL, Evangelion, Trigun, and Cowboy Bebop were written with a single story arc, 26 episodes or less, intended to be taken together
    • I disagree. I actually "wish" the networks would learn that 2-4 seasons of a show is a good goal and would start writing tighter story lines based on not extending a show past it's viable prime. (Simpsons... I'm looking at you!) I actually wrote a post on newsvine.com that looks into the possibilities of this model concerning network TV. You can read it here. [newsvine.com]

  • I'll make my own series! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tyten ( 726456 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:48AM (#14956556)
    With hookers! and Blackjack!

  • A Farnsworth Paradox (Score:5, Funny)

    by CrackedButter ( 646746 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:48AM (#14956557) Homepage Journal
    Looks like Bender has been using "The What If Machine".
  • April 1st is still 12 days away!

  • Well, bite my shiny metal ass! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:49AM (#14956567)
    F*** you, Fox Network!
  • Well that sucks. As a passionate Futurama fan, reading that news this weekend gave me some hope, which has suddenly been dashed.

    "You win again, Gravity!"

  • Well... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GundamFan ( 848341 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:51AM (#14956585)
    How hard is it to understand that Fox makes a habit of canceling good shows (or prempting them every week) and holding there rights in limbo and then puting on unwatchable trash.

    The return of Famly Guy was a sign, we can vote with our wallets here we don't need to stand for being told what we like anymore.

  • Or is there... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bizzeh ( 851225 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:51AM (#14956587) Homepage
    maybe.... billy west was told about this, and told its a secret, forgot that it was a secret, told the fans of futurama, when it got out that people know, billy was told to tell them its not true... to keep the secret...
    • Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense... Because, of course, you wouldn't want people to KNOW it was going to be on... If you did that, they might actually tune-in, and watch it... Watching the ads... Making money for Fox...

      So, yeah, I can see why they'd want to keep that a secret... They wouldn't want to, you know, make money...

  • Early adopters (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:53AM (#14956596)
    It seems like early adopters of rumors of this nature experience more bugs!

  • Here comes the quotes! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nherm ( 889807 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:54AM (#14956604) Journal

    CmdrTaco: Hey, I heard that Futurama is back

    /. crowd: What? Really?

    Hemos: No. we just thought you would enjoy that for a moment.

    Anyway, that was the best nanosecond of my life

  • Life is hilariously cruel.
  • Looks like Billy West needs some grief counseling. ;)

  • GRRR!!! (Score:3)

    by joe 155 ( 937621 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @10:55AM (#14956612) Journal
    what can I do to get this series brought back, I've already bought *legally* all 4 DVD box sets! it was a fantastic series, and the DVD sales have been going well... why would they kill really good shows just to stick crap on. I remember the joke at the start of the newest series of family when they went through all the crap shows which have gone down the tiolet since it was cancelled...
    • "why would they kill really good shows just to stick crap on."

      Fox, like all the other networks driven by commercials, exist to sell product. They obviously thought that the numbers and the demographics of the Futurama audience wasn't appropriate for the products they were trying to sell. They do not exist to provide quality programming. Only channels such as HBO need to produce something that is actually watchable, because they are content providers rather than product pushers.

      • Fox, like all the other networks driven by commercials, exist to sell product.

        Which is precisely why I tape the two FOX shows I watch (Simpsons and Family Guy), and fast forward through the advertisements. I make this publicly known on FOX messageboards (notably Arrested Development) and have emailed them to this effect. Why do I make a big deal out of this?

        Because we as viewers are not the networks' customers. Networks don't give a flying **** what you or I think unless we understand how it works, e.g., b

  • Oblig. Futurama (Score:5, Funny)

    by everphilski ( 877346 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @11:02AM (#14956660) Journal
    Good News, Everyone!

    er... :/
  • cut Billy some slack. It's hard to accept anything Leela says about foresight, with that one eye...

  • Ob. Tinny Tim (Score:5, Funny)

    by doob ( 103898 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @11:05AM (#14956686)
    "You raised my hopes and dashed them quite expertly sir!"

  • It's for the best I guess because... (Score:3, Funny)

    by hevenor ( 931854 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @11:34AM (#14956909)
    Bender should not be allowed on TV!

  • dolphins (Score:2, Funny)

    by crablouie ( 7844 )
    dolphins still missing
    so long and thanks for all the fish

  • 26 episodes equate to appx. 13 hours of goodness (minus commericals of course). Four DVDs won't give me the same amount of entertainment. I guess we should be grateful for anything we can get though.
    • You're not seeing the big picture:

      26 episodes --> 13 hours --> 2 season box sets --> $80 sales

      4 movies --> 6 hours --> 4 DVDs --> $80 sales.

      Half the work for the same amount of sales. Ugh.

      Just look at that retarded Stewie movie for the Family Guy series. It costs half as much as a full season, yet contains only three episodes.

      • Just to nitpick a bit...26 episodes of a half-hour TV show originally aired on commercial TV does not equal 13 hours. There are 20-22 minutes of show per episode with comes out to 8-9 hours of actual programming. So, four movies (assuming 90 minutes each - they'll probably try to get them around 85-95 minutes) comes out to about 17-18 episodes worth of material. Depending on the timing - faster is best assuming the quality is there, of course - that's not too bad at all.
  • The team should make an "open source" Futurama series.
    -> Mozilla Futurama
    -> SpreadFuturama.com
    -> Fundraising (i would pay)
    -> Mozilla Futurama NY Times ad
    -> FuturamaFlicks.com

  • FanFlicks? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ah.clem ( 147626 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @12:01PM (#14957143)
    I don't recall seeing any fan created versions of Futurama, Family Guy, etc. after they left the air - it seems to me that it would be easier to create an animation homage than do live action movies (like Star Trek). Have there been any home-grown versions of animated series?

    ah.clem
    • The subsequent crippling lawsuit from Fox could be seen as an homage to an homage, and the fact that the people behind this would lose their houses is merely a courtesy of detail.
    • No way.

      A student film typically runs about 45 seconds to 2 minutes. It takes one person about four months to storyboard, do layout, animate, clean up and colour. You need a 12-field scanner, which isn't cheap. You need thousands of dollars worth of proprietary software licenses if you want to actually distribute your film. Student films also tend to be simple... 20 cuts at most.

      Now, you can knock out a flash film in much less time, but Futurama it won't be. Futurama had very high-quality traditional animat
    • Are you crazy? Any handful of Trekkers can go put on monocolored shirts and plastic phasers and go make a "new" episode with Mom's camcorder in an afternoon's time. It takes months to draw the tens of thousands of frames for each episode of an animated show.

  • If anyone needs me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by barzok ( 26681 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @12:11PM (#14957228)
    I'll be in the Angry Dome.

  • how interesting (Score:5, Funny)

    by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @12:21PM (#14957309)
    no, wait. the other thing. tedious.
  • Apparantly, Billy West is unable to see into the future...

  • I call it the fing-longer!

    /I will use it to wipe the tears away from mine eyes =(. Truly the worst cock tease in history!
  • Spleesh, Taco, way to get my hopes up!
  • I think this sets the record for how fast Fox can cancel an excellent show.

  • Hopes up (Score:2, Funny)

    by uberjoe ( 726765 )
    In that case I'll just get back in this suicide booth line here.

  • So Sad (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lewp ( 95638 ) on Monday March 20, 2006 @02:59PM (#14958734) Journal
    This is the only show out of the current Adult Swim lineup that I still watch. In a block of programming that, IMHO, jumped the shark a long time ago, Futurama is a shining beacon of comedy with replay value.

    I've seen every episode multiple times, own the DVDs, and I'll still sit down and watch it if it's on when I wander past the television. How the hell King of the Hill remains on television while Futurama can't catch a break is beyond me.
  • I'm sure the 4 movies will eventually get broken up into episodes and shown on tv. (4 movies at 143 minutes each = 26 episodes at 22 minute an episode.)

  • Six weeks ago (Score:2, Interesting)

    by caliban-23 ( 962503 )
    Matt Groening told me personally that the series was going back into production for television.

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