Comedy Central found a pretty cool way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “Futurama.” The network announced on Tuesday that it’s bringing the 1999-2003 Fox series back to the airwaves for at least 26 new episodes starting next year. Read Zap2It’s news story here.
So if you bought the four DVD movies, pat yourself on the back: You (and your pocketbook) spoke, and somewhere in Hollywood, a bean counter listened. “Futurama” joins “Family Guy” as the only shows in TV history to return after being gone for more than a year.
Since we are now living in the future, “Futurama” (which debuted way back in the 20th century) is timelier than ever. Of course, the real joke — and the real joy — of “Futurama” is that the 31st century is just as absurd as the 21st. All of today’s silliness gets a futuristic spin: Instead of a traffic jam, you have a pneumatic-tube jam. Instead of a rowdy fraternity of college men, you have a rowdy fraternity of college robots. Instead of a crooked politician, you have a crooked politician’s head in a jar.
“Futurama” is easily in my all-time top 10, but it does have to step it up from the last two DVD movies. The first two movies were strong — “Bender’s Big Score” touchingly told of Fry’s bonding with a narwhal, using that as a metaphor for his Leela love; and “The Beast with a Billion Backs” had a funny turn by David Cross as the title villain. But “Bender’s Game” (clever title, but it had nothing to do with “Ender’s Game”) and “Into the Wild Green Yonder” were tough to sit through.
“Futurama” has no shortage of things to make fun of, so I’m going to hold the writers to a high standard when they return to the full-time job of making me laugh. I hope they’re jotting down ideas right now.
Anyone else excited about the return of “Futurama?” Share your thoughts in the comment thread.