From the horses mouth (aka Billy West, aka Fry, Farnsworth, hell it’s easier just to list the people he doesn’t voice):
“And the other good news is that they’re doing 26 new episodes of
‘‘Futurama’’ for TV and we’re hammering out the deal now.The original
plan was to have the DVD’s first but that’s no longer the case.I’m totaly
jammed dude.”
Praise whatever gods may be for Adult Swim! I credit them fully for bringing back not only Family Guy, but (hopefully) Futurama. It gives me hope that shows I love may be called back by popular demand after they’ve been cancelled.
Yeah, okay, I want some confirmation too. Still, this news is as delectable as dipping my bottom overand over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams. And only for Futurama would I say something like that.
Assuming it’s true, how much of the original team is going to be back?
They need Billy West, John DiMaggio and the woman who does the voice of Leela at the very least. That covers most of the main cast. The same writing team would be very helpful as well.
Leela was the Mom/Wife from Married with Children and other shows. Katey Sagal
the Major Voice actors were:
**Billy West ** … Philip J. Fry/Prof. Hubert J. Farnsworth/Dr. Zoidberg/Zapp Brannigan/Leo Wong/Smitty/President Richard Nixon’s Head/Additional Voices (voice)
**Katey Sagal ** … Turanga Leela (1999-2003) (voice)
**John Di Maggio ** … Bender/Additional Voices (1999-2003) (voice) (as John DiMaggio)
**Phil LaMarr ** … Hermes Conrad/Additonal Voices (1999-2003) (voice)
**Tress MacNeille ** … Mom/Linda the Newsanchor/Tinny Tim/Hattie/Monique/Nd-Nd/Petunia/Turanga Munda/Additional Voices (voice)
**Lauren Tom ** … Amy Wong/Additional Voices (1999-2003) (voice)
**Maurice LaMarche ** … Lt. Kif Kroker/Morbo/Calculon/Walt/Lrrr/Raoul/Donbot/iHawk/Horrible Gelatinous Blob/Additional Voices (voice)
**David Herman ** … Mayor C. Randall Poopenmayer/Professor Ogden Wernstrom/Turanga Morris/Larry/Dwayne/Additional Voices (voice)
That’s excellent news! I was excited when they revealed a couple months ago that they were going to be producing new movies staright to dvd, but a new season of episodes is even better!
IIRC, when the the DVDs were announced it was said the whole cast would be returning. In any case, getting them all back together wouldn’t be a big problem. With a live action tv show, it might be difficult to revive because the actors have gone on to other projects. With an animated show, recording the voices hardly needs to be a full time job so even if Katey Sagal (for example) were to be starring in another television show, recording her lines for Futurama wouldn’t be much of a problem. For some of the cast, like Billy West, most of their work is voices, and they’re often working regularly on multiple shows.
I agree that it wouldn’t be the same if some of the original actors didn’t participate, and I hope they’re able to get the writers back too. When they went back into production on Family Guy, they had several scripts that had ended up not getting made when the show had previously gotten canceled. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some stories they were working on when Futurama was killed that they can pull out and get back to work on.
