“Good news, everyone,” “Futurama” is back!It’s been seven long years since Fox canceled the retrofuturistic animated comedy — and damn them for doing it!The show, featuring a slacker delivery boy, his older than old nephew, a purple-haired cyclops, a foul-mouthed robot and the large cast of 31st century misfits returned June 24 with all-new episodes.”Futurama” ran for four real seasons on Fox, airing from March 1999 to August 2003. After many disputes between Fox and show creator Matt Groening (who also created “The Simpsons”) as well as scheduling conflicts because of overrun sporting events, the network canceled production of the show.Fox then decided to “make it up to fans” by running un-aired episodes from the show’s third and fourth season after it was canceled, dubbing it a “new” fifth season.However, these episodes were often out of order and things didn’t make sense in the “Futurama” timeline since they were written as part of an older season.In early 2003, as the show was ending its run on Fox, Cartoon Network acquired the rights to show reruns of older episodes as the centerpiece of its expanded Adult Swim animated block.Fans of the show praised Cartoon Network as episodes were run every night, but we wanted more. We wanted new “Futurama,” but unfortunately, it appeared our calls were going unheard.After five years of reruns on Adult Swim, Comedy Central boasted all-new episodes of “Futurama” were coming, and it was sort of telling the truth.The show’s creators released four straight-to-DVD movies, “Bender’s Big Score,” “The Beast with a Billion Backs,” “Bender’s Game” and “Into the Wild Green Yonder.” Each movie consisted of four back-to-back episodes, with these 16 “episodes” becoming the real fifth and final season of the show.As a big fan of “The Simpsons,” I remember that day back in 1999 watching the pilot of “Futurama” — excited about a new show coming from the same creator of my favorite cartoon.After religiously watching the first two seasons, I lost track of the show because of the erratic showings of new episodes. Like I said earlier, episodes were being skipped over or canceled because of sporting events running late or other big events such as breaking news or presidential speeches.After losing touch with the show, I did watch some of the reruns on Adult Swim and later Comedy Central, but now with the new season underway, I’m excited it’s back.However, the show’s trip back wasn’t an easy one. Last year after the show was set to be revived, there were heated discussions between the network and the voice actors over pay. The network even went as far as putting an ad out to replace the entire cast — this would have destroyed the show.After more talks and lawyer involvement, all of the original actors returned and it appears to have not missed a beat either.The first three episodes shown so far are just as funny and awesome episodes as I remember watching 10 years ago. Last week’s episode ripped on both Twitter and the new iPhone — which brought great joy to my heart.This also inspired me to go back and re-watch the series to familiarize myself with jokes and gags from episodes I may have missed (and Netflix has made this a lot easier for me by adding the entire series on its Instant Queue.)As Bender said during the new season’s premiere with hypnotoad on the screen, “On the count of three, you will awaken feeling refreshed as if Futurama had never been canceled by idiots then brought back by bigger idiots. One, two, (snap),” it’s back — and it’s as if it never left.While I’m not a fan of “Family Guy” in the slightest, it too received similar treatment as “Futurama.” The show was canceled by Fox, picked up by Adult Swim, ratings soared and the show was brought back. Maybe Fox should learn to stop canceling their popular TV shows.But that’s all in the past now. Futurama is back, I’m smiling and I can’t wait for Thursday nights to see what happens to the lovable crew of Planet Express.Thank you, Comedy Central!
—-Contact Adam Arinder at [email protected].