On November 27, Futurama comes back in a big way with Bender's Big Score, an "epic" film involving all the characters from the show that ran on Fox from 1999-2003. The DVD is the first in a series of four direct-to-DVD releases, which will be edited into 16 episodes that will air on Comedy Central in 2008. Fellow Squadder Brad Trechak gave the disc a positive review last week, which is high praise coming from a big fan of the show as he is.David X. Cohen, executive producer and show-runner of Futurama, spoke to me via phone last week. We didn't have much time, only about ten minutes or so, so we got down to the nuts and bolts: how the movies will play on Comedy Central, some information on the show's comeback, a quick preview of the next DVD, and how the Fox executives felt about being ground into all-purpose powder.
Joel Keller: OK, we're recording...
David X. Cohen: Do you have a Nixon-style reel-to-reel recorder under your desk there?
JK: (laughs) Why, yes, yes I do... how did you know? (both laugh)
Let's get right to it: last January I spoke to (creator and exec. producer) Matt Groening at the TCA's and he told me the entire story about how you brought Futurama back. I'd imagine it was the same story as how Family Guy was brought back, because of the popularity of the repeats and DVDs?
DXC: Yeah, the fans would just not let it die, and ultimately all credit goes to them for continuing to watch the reruns even on the 83rd showing and buying the DVDs year after year. And it just took about three years for the depth of the fans' support to sink in over at Fox. And I think they just thought it was an anomaly at first and then it kept up year after year. So, you know, three years passed and then suddenly our phone rings, and they said "You know what? I think we might be able to capitalize on this!" We wish they had realized earlier, but we'll take it.
JK: So let's go over how this is going to work. You're putting out four movies, starting with Bender's Big Score...
DXC: Right, and down the line, they're going to air on Comedy Central. For anyone who doesn't know, Comedy Central is taking over the cable reruns on January 1, 2008. It's shocking to hear that five years have passed since Cartoon Network started showing it, because that's how long they had the rights for. And they just... I just want to give them a lot of credit out there for keeping the show alive and promoting it and doing all the things that, you know, the first time around I think the show would have benefited from: keeping it on at one time and place, basically, so the fan base could grow.
Cartoon Network did a great job, and the result of that is that other networks became interested in showing it as well, so Comedy Central ultimately ended up with the rights. These new DVDs will hopefully air as these epic, 4-episode arcs on Comedy Central and then they'll go into the general run of the show after that. But there'll be a window of time where they'll only be on DVD; I don't think there's any actual official date yet when these will air, so it's gonna be a while yet before you see them.
The DVDs basically have a little more material than the episodes will have, but we actually put in a few treats in the episodes that are not on the DVDs, so you know... we want to reward people no matter how they come back to Futurama, we want to give them a little treat.
JK: Any examples of the treats in the episodes?
DXC: Yes, in the first movie we have a commercial for Torgo's Executive Powder, which is an all-purpose powder made from ground-up Fox executives, and it can be used as, you know, a jock itch powder, or an explosive, or a scouring powder, that sort of thing. So we have a little fake ad for that that's not on the DVD.
JK: I like how you use the Executive Powder throughout the entire movie to solve every problem.
DXC: (laughs) You know, we really let the Fox executives have it in this movie, as you're alluding to. People ask us if we had any trouble with them. The answer to that is no because those are the Fox network executives and we're not going on the Fox network this time around. So they never saw it (chuckles). In fact the basic thrust of that sequence is true, that the executives who were there at the time are all gone now, so it makes no difference anyway. But we're only dealing with the Fox television studio that produces the show, this time around. And to our amazement, they've just been incredibly supportive.
This is a show that's not used to getting tremendous support and this time around they just called us in to discuss doing these and they immediately said, "Let's do more than one," and then we said, "How 'bout three?" And they said, "How 'bout four?" So the ante just kept going up and up. And they gave us a big premiere at the Cinerama Dome, which was beyond anything we would have expected when we were on the air. So it's been a total change. Again, I just think the sheer numbers hit home when they saw the ratings these past years not going down.
JK: Does the Fox network have the option of picking up these episodes later?
DXC: It's not impossible actually, because what Comedy Central owns are the cable rights. The broadcast rights are a separate issue. We're getting into the technical issues, but techincally they an sell the broadcast rights separately and the logical place would be the Fox network, but it doesn't have to be the Fox network; they could sell it to CBS. It just might not be as good a fit (chuckles) with their programs as it is with The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad, so...
JK: I could see it airing right after Two and a Half Men.
DXC: Yeah! We'll call ours Six and a Half Lobsters or Three and Half Robots or something like that, and they can try to make a programming block that way.
But, yes, theoretically, Fox can show it. We have not gotten that phone call yet, that's another phone call. Again, it's a new set of executives there so it's actually not impossible, and i would encourage any Fox network executives reading this to ignore the first 20 minutes of the movie where we grind you up into a powder, and please call us up and we'll be more than happy to be back on Fox as well.
JK: One of the things I'm really curious about is that during the story of Bender's Big Score, once we get into some of the time travel and dimensional elements, the story gets really complex. I also thought was a really emotional story, more so than anything I think I've seen before from either Futurama or The Simpsons.
DXC: Oh, thank you and you've kind of... Can I butt in here or are you getting at a really specific question?
JK: Well, my specific question is that how are you going to break this up into episodes?
DXC: Ah, well, I'll answer that and go back to the other thing for a second. How it'll go into episodes is that we're gonna present them as an epic four episode arc, basically. There are actually dramatic points in the movie -- which hopefully you didn't notice -- where there is peril and we're going to say "To be continued," and then the next episode, we're going to say, "Previously on Futurama," and you're going to see a little catch-up of things you need to know to catch up with it.
We didn't want to try to break it up into four things that sort of stood on their own but sort of didn't. We thought it would be better to say, "These are epic 4-episode arcs," and we're going to present it still as a grander return to life. Something that is a bigger version of Futurama than you've seen before. It just seemed both easier to do and that it would make more sense, ultimately, than to just try to cut them up willy-nilly into four semi-related episodes.
JK: There's a lot of references in this movie to older episodes. Tons of them.
DXC: Basically we tried to guess who's going to buy these DVDs. We hope everyone in the world is gonna buy them, but we know that our real hard-core fans are going to buy them. So we want to reward those people, especially not just for buying the DVD this time but for being the people who are responsible for us coming back in the first place.
So, yeah, we put in references to a whole bunch of old episodes, even characters who only appeared once or twice, like Seymour the dog or Kwanzaa-bot or Michelle (Fry's ex-girlfriend), who's played by Sarah Silverman. We wanted to just reward those people and have these moments that just go by as part of the story if you aren't super familiar with Futurama, but if you are you'll be like, "Oh my god! That explains why such-and-such happened in this episode in the past." But because of the time travel story we're allowed to go back and explain a few things that happened before that begged explanation.
JK: And it's not the type of thing where you or Fox or Comedy Central were afraid that the episodes would be too inside for non-fans to enjoy?
DXC: I think ultimately it's not... I don't think it plays super inside, because you have to be an insider to realize that those are inside jokes. You know what I mean? So if you say, "Oh, this is Fry's ex-girlfriend," the fans know that. It doesn't really matter that it's Fry's ex-girlfriend. But if you've seen the episode, you get that reward.
I hope we pulled it off; that was our attempt, anyway, to structure those moments in such a way that if you've never seen Futurama before it won't grind the movie to a halt. You'll just go, "Oh, that's Fry's ex-girlfriend," or you'll say "Oh, that's Kwanzaa-bot, the symbol of Kwanzaa," but you won't say, "Oh I don't understand who that is because I didn't see the episode." We tried to present them as characters if you saw them for the first time you would just let it go as part of this movie too. We'll see (Tuesday, when) it hits the general public, if we succeeded.
JK: Before you go, you were going to mention the dramatic parts of it.
DXC: Oh, I really appreciate that you thought it was touching. This movie was obviously a real writing challenge, because we wanted to do two things to make it a really big return to life. One was to have a real big, crazy science fiction story, and that was this epic time travel story where Bender is running around through time as a giant gun (laughs), and is affecting history and those kind of things. But at the same time, we wanted to have a story that followed up on the personal lives of our characters, both for the hard-core fans and to just bring it down to earth a little bit for fans who are coming for the first time to Futurama.
So we wanted to do two things that are difficult to do at the same time: a huge sci fi story and a touching emotional story. It's another thing I'm curious to see people's reaction to. But the fact that you used the word "touching" is touching to me. So it at least it worked a little bit. I appreciate it.
JK: When is the next DVD coming out?
DXC: There's no official release date. If I had a rough guess, I'd say six months, but that's only a guess. But I will say for anyone who sees the first DVD, it kind of leaves off at a point were you might think we're either going to come back and deal with a couple of unanswered questions or we might just let it go without ending it. But I reassure you that we're going to pick up the second one where the first one leaves off and your questions will be answered.
The second one guest stars David Cross as a giant, disgusting planet-sized alien from another universe.
JK: And I've heard that that planet sized alien has certain romantic interests...
DXC: .. in every single living being in our universe. Yes. It's another touching and disgusting story to look forward to.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-26-2007 @ 11:48AM
Oreo said...
I think the bad guys, story, and the way the plot moved was terrible. Some of the characters were out of character, Nibbler, and it just felt weak at best. Plus I thought the writers didn't like time travel, they said that in Roswell That Ends Well, and how they made it very hard to do time travel because they didn't like it.
Also now all the characters were in the movie, Mom wasn't, she would have made a better bad guy.
All that out of the way, all the in jokes for die hard fans are wonderful. Plus they brought back the dog from the saddest episode of any comedy ever. And Santa, you should have seen me when Santa showed up, I was so happy.
And 6 more months for another DVD?! That's insane. At this rate Comedy Central will not be showing new episodes until late 2009.
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11-26-2007 @ 12:17PM
MosquitoControl72 said...
Disagreed on the dog episode being the saddest. I thought it was the most contrived and manipulative. That season of Futurama was very up and down. They took huge risks, knowing that they were doomed anyway. Some really paid off, like the Devil's Hands. Some didn't, like the dog. I really felt like they tried too hard to jerk strings. I felt patronized and it took me out of it.
Rare for Futurama, though.
The movie started slow for me. Again, I felt like they were trying hard, and I felt like the jokes weren't clicking. Like you said, Nibbler felt out of character, as did a few others in the start.
As it got going, though, I think it worked better. Maybe because it moved a bit away from humor as it went. In the end I enjoyed it. Maybe they'll be four weaker episodes, but in a series where very few episodes were actually weak that doesn't mean much.
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11-26-2007 @ 12:27PM
Oreo said...
You didn't find the dog episode touching?!?!
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11-26-2007 @ 12:36PM
MosquitoControl72 said...
No. Well, maybe, if feeling like the writers were stapling puppet strings to my apendages counts as being touched.
Far too manipulative. Transparently so.
Now, The Luck of the Fryrish, that was touching. Or Time Keeps Slipping, also touching. Even the episode with the bee sting, which wasn't althogether a success but a risk well worth taking regardless.
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11-26-2007 @ 12:50PM
James said...
In the words of Bender, "You guys can bite my shiny metal ass!"
Even on its worst day, Futurama is still better than 99.999% of the crap that's out there right now.
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11-26-2007 @ 1:04PM
Marc Morrison said...
Good interview with Mr. Cohen. I've liked him a lot, especially after hearing all the commentaries for Futurama, and his insight, and wit are especially nice. The movie itself is very good, and worth the purchase alone. I also have complete faith in the decision to split the movie up, into individual episodes. I know Family Guy did that, but they also failed in it.
Al Gore rules, in Futurama.
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11-26-2007 @ 2:17PM
ClintJCL said...
I can't stand douchebag naysayers. They never like anything that comes back, because what they actually like is the novelty of something new. If you hated the new Futurama movie, I think you never TRULY liked the old futurama stuff either. It was just novel, and now it's not, so now you wont like it. I've seen this pattern time and time again with any new season / movie / comeback for ANY show. Always the naysayers. Always.
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11-26-2007 @ 2:38PM
Chris Tucker said...
Even though I have the DVD preordered, when it all but fell into my lap via BitTorrent, well, instant gratification IS my birthright as an American!
I loved the movie. Yeah, there's LOTS of stuff for us long time fans, and THANK YOU, Mr. Cohen, for that.
Regrettably, there's no full frontal Amy Wong or Leela nudity.
Thankfully, (Oh, thank you, sweet Jeebus!) there's no Zapp Brannigan nudity of any kind!
As I said, I loved the film and I am eager to get the DVD for the extras!
"All Glory to the Hypnotoad!"
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11-26-2007 @ 4:04PM
MosquitoControl72 said...
It comes within millimeters of Zapp Brannigan nudity. Millimeters.
It's definitely not as good as the series. But that's somewhat expected. It spends a great deal of time apologizing for being gone, which is expected but not that special. It brings in tons of old characters to make love to the fans, which is expected but detracts. And it's satire isn't quite as sharp, as everyone falling victim to spam just isn't as funny as other hijinks.
But c'mon. The show took a bit of time to get up to speed. No reason to expect the return, with some new staff, to pick up where it left off. Of course it would be slower.
It will get better as they find their voices again.
And Clint, naysayers are often right. Futurama was on the air 4 years ago. That's a long time to be gone. People change a lot, if they even return. It's bound to be a different product under the same name. In this case they product isn't much changed, but in other cases it can be entirely. Some people will acknowledge differences, others will simply whine about those and claim that it's great simply for being the same title.
That's BS.
Things change. Things can get better or worse. I hate when fans refuse to acknowledge that their favorite product might be less than it once was. These are the people that still think The Simpsons are great because Homer sounds funny or thought Episode 1 was awesome because it had lightsabers.
Although your point stands with other things, like Family Guy. Family Guy is exactly the same, yet I find it horribly unfunny. I won't deny that I changed, not them. The gimmick and schtick got old. Old episodes are mostly as unfunny to me as new ones.
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11-27-2007 @ 2:22PM
MeggV said...
"naysayers are often right" is the most hilariously dumb thing I have ever seen written.
Right about what? That THEY don't like something? The point is that they B#tch and moan about everything when they have never done anything creative in their own right. Frankly, their comments are too boring, predictable, and formulaic for me to read through. The fact that they can hardly handle innovation in 1 paragraph makes me quite certain they are not qualified to weigh-in on a much anticipated comeback.
I'm old enough to appreciate that having great shows "come back from the dead" is a relatively new phenomenon. TV has become so depressingly bad that frankly, watching Zoiberg flush a toilet for half an hour would captivate me for more than Dancing with the Stars, or The Hills or whatever else is going on out there.
11-26-2007 @ 4:07PM
Oreo said...
ClintJCL, you're an idiot, heaven forbid I have a different view on the movie that you!
I have all the DVD sets, I love the comics, and I'm one of the many fans that brought it back. It's just a bad movie that doesn't feel like Futurama. Have you even seen the movie? There are several parts where they dumbed the story down to make the little plot there is work. They also rewrote other parts of Futurama to fit into the movie.
I'm glad as hell that the show is back, doesn't mean I have to like the first movie. And if you think differently than go fuck yourself, I don't care.
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11-26-2007 @ 4:11PM
Joel Keller said...
@Oreo and Clint: Please keep the conversation here on a civil level. Any more name calling comments will be deleted. So let's discuss and play nice, OK?
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11-26-2007 @ 4:11PM
nee said...
The one gripe I have crept up on me and culminated in the big battle scene: every single character that ever appeared (with a few notable exceptions, like Mom or even the one-lining Randy) showed up. Even the Hanukkah Zombie showed up - hilarious choice of voice actor for him - although he'd only been mentioned in passing before.
It didn't seem that these side characters had a legitimate reason to appear other than the fans would recognize them and think "ooh! I remember him!"
My objections aren't strong enough to make me dislike this as a movie. It's a triumphant return for Futurama, a show that's been out of production for far, far too long. It's also good to note that these objections only apply to fans of the show - no first-time viewer's going to notice that every little side-character has a line or two. For a fan, though, this one little nag makes it less easy to watch all at once and more appealing as episodes.
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11-26-2007 @ 5:49PM
Mr. Rodriguez said...
Shame on all of you nay-sayers... ok so maybe not shame, Movie has a few week moments, and can not wait to actually get the DVD for the extras that will accompany it.
All in All though i must say i laughed myself into a new pair of shorts when i watched this movie, and i couldn't be happier to have futurama back, and if i need to wait six months for another movie, well, thats no different than waiting for the next season of any tv show you like so i will eagerly wait and re-watch all of the futuarama everything.
Loved the little Inside jokes for us die-hards, but was a little sad bender didn't try to hook up with the globe trotters again, i think the insider bits were seamless, first time watchers of futurama laughed themselves into new shorts as well.
New episodes will be worth the wait, nothing on tv can even hold a candle to futurama's brilliance and wit.
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11-26-2007 @ 6:41PM
GersonK said...
Anyone want to make odds that once all four moves have finally aired, they'll release a dvd box set that includes the cable only material to try to "reward" the completists?
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11-26-2007 @ 7:18PM
K'shar said...
"reward" By reward I'm sure you must mean to rape from our wallets just like George Lucas. Oh here you go 17 different versions of the same thing but you're not cool unless you own them all.
Futurama is my and my wife's favourite show. Absolutely love it.
"Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children & Hitting them?"
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11-26-2007 @ 8:42PM
Ben Belden said...
Just a warning, you might find this a bit spoilerish even though I'm not saying anything specific.
I saw the ending coming from literally the first five minutes of the movie. That to me ruined the whole thing. Not that I didn't laugh really hard at some points, but once I knew where the whole thing was going to wind up, it REALLY killed any emotional impact. Because of that too, the movie really seemed to drag at parts, especially the scenes set in the past.
The villains really annoyed me. Like others have said, there is such a rich cast of characters they could have used many other choices and had it work just as well, if not better. How about the aliens from Omicron Persei 8? Sure, they've been used quite a few times before, but I don't recall even seeing them once in the movie. Or have the brains come back. Flexo? Robot Devil? Robot Mafia?
Yes, there are a few treats for the fans. I loved Bender's spaceship chase and the result. But after all the early reviews and comments, I was expecting more. It does touch on a few moments from the original series, but only a few. I was expecting a romp through 25 different episodes and insane craziness and instead I got five-second cameos and things that have done before (specifically Fry in the cryogenic lab).
The musical numbers were TERRIBLE. The second one preparing for the fight was better, but nothing like Herme's bureaucrat song. They had absolutely no flow and I still don't understand why they were necessary.
Finally, the title. Bender's Big Score? Really? I guess they had to use something and it does relate to the movie, but after looking at the cover art for months and waiting, I was just confused because it really had nothing to do with the plot.
Despite all this criticism, I did enjoy the movie. I guess after all the waiting it never could have been exactly what I wanted, but there were a lot of good things about it and I would recommend it obviously to the fans, but to anyone else who may be on the fence.
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11-26-2007 @ 9:59PM
Sanders said...
@Ben Belden
"Finally, the title. Bender's Big Score? Really? I guess they had to use something and it does relate to the movie, but after looking at the cover art for months and waiting, I was just confused because it really had nothing to do with the plot."
I think you should have to watch the movie a few more times, seems you missed some "Bender Bending Rodriguez" stealing.
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11-26-2007 @ 10:50PM
Ben Belden said...
You are completely right, Bender does steal in the movie. I didn't miss that but I can see how you might get that from my comment. What I meant, and again, I don't want to ruin any of the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it so stop reading, was that the 7-8 minutes of the movie where Bender is stealing (not even for himself I might add) doesn't seem to warrant his giant picture on the cover. And the picture on the cover along with the title makes it seem like Bender becomes a king or something which is what I assumed going into the movie. Why not just call the movie "The Bendernator" and show him in Terminator mode? His hunting of Fry gets as much screen time as his thievery and was much more entertaining, at least in my opinion. (That was sarcasm by the way, it's a terrible idea and title mirroring the actual title.)
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11-27-2007 @ 6:40AM
H Farnsworth said...
Bad news everyone. David X. Cohen flipped a coin to pick which script to use. My doppleganger with the stylish head wound in Universe A tells me that their script is much better.
So if anyone has seen a double headed quarter with President Nixon's Head please swap it with the quarter DXC uses to pick scripts.
I am getting too old for this...
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