'Futurama':
Futurama premiered on Fox in 1999. It ran sporadically for five seasons until Fox cancelled Futurama in 2003. Futurama re-surfaced on Adult Swim until Comedy Central snapped it up in 2008. Because the show saw good ratings in re-runs, four straight-to-DVD Futurama movies were ordered, including Bender's Big Score, which also aired on Comedy Central in 2008.
Premise:
Futurama is about a pizza delivery boy, Fry, who delivers a pizza to a cryogenics lab on New Year's Eve, 1999. He gets frozen by mistake and wakes up one thousand years later. He winds up being a delivery boy for Planet Express. In the five seasons of Futurama, we come to know Fry is a loser, but we love him anyway. He befriends Bender, an amoral robot, and falls in love with Leela, a one-eyed mutant.
Characters:
Futurama features a roster of fun and out-of-this-world characters. Philip J. Fry is an anti-hero who relishes a second chance at life in the 31st Century. Leela is a one-eyed mutant from the sewers who kicks butt and endlessly seeks love. Bender is a beer-guzzling, cigar-smoking robot with no ethics. Professor Farnsworth is a descendant of Fry's who owns Planet Express. Planet Express also employs Amy, Dr. Zoidberg and Hermes.
Creators:
Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, both of The Simpsons, created Futurama. The staff of writers includes several with Ph.D.s in math and science.
My Two Cents:
When Futurama first premiered, I was ready to hate it. How could Matt Groening abandon The Simpsons for such an outlandish animated series? It's in space! Well, I was happily surprised to discover that Futurama was funny and smart. I wish the show had prospered, but how could it when Fox changed timeslots too often and put the show on hiatus for long periods? Though I credit Futurama for the decline of The Simpsons, I make sure to catch re-runs, or buy the DVDs.
