By April MacIntyre Nov 23, 2007, 12:40 GMT
The future of the Emmy award-winning cartoon Futurama had been looking fairly dead thanks to some nitwits at Fox, but its creator Matt Groening hit the red carpet at the Cinerama Dome Arclight in Hollywood proudly declaring: "Futurama is back, baby".
On November 15th, the premiere of the first of four DVD features was celebrated in big Bender style. After the release of each DVD movie, each film will be divided into four episodes and later shown on TV.
The first title is "Futurama: Bender's Big Score." The story continues the adventures of Fry, Bender and the crew of Planet Express in an epic battle against nudist alien Internet scammers. Hilarity ensues.
20th Century Fox Television will follow "Bender's Big Score" with three additional films – "The Beast with a Billion Backs," "Bender's Game," and "The Wild Green Yonder."
Groening approached the studio in 2006 with a proposal to create a new direct-to-DVD Futurama film, the plan is to release four full-length Futurama films on disc, slightly reformatting them into 16 half-hour episodes to be aired on Comedy Central at a later date. In the meantime, Fox will air classic episodes of Futurama in 2008, after The Cartoon Network's contract expires.
The event was held at the best theater in town; the Arclight in Hollywood, aka the famous Cinerama Dome on Sunset, and was held for Fox employees, their guests and some fan-tastic Futurama contest winners.
Luckily I was positioned right next to Gawker's Matt DeBord and Collider's Steve Weintraub – two entertaining LA scribes, as we all held up the rear and scored some good sound bites for the red carpet boogaloo.
Speaking on the red carpet prior to the special LA screening of the film, the Simpson's creator Matt Groening barely contained himself: "Unbelievable, Fox brought us back. They killed us and then they revived us, we're very happy that Futurama is back."
Groening explained: "We've done four of these while we were doing the Simpson's movie, we were fast, fast and cheap on Futurama."
Groening also had words of support for the WGA. "Of course I support the writers," and when asked if there was something he missed, Groening didn't miss a beat: "I miss Disneyland when I could actually get into it."
Billy West, who voices Fry and Professor Farnsworth, told reporters the cast owes viewers a lot: "It's real exciting and I have the fans to thank for bringing it back, they're the ones that kept the thing alive."
John DiMaggio, who plays id-monster robot Bender, joked it was easy to get into character: "Bender likes booze, I like booze, Bender likes hookers and I like... running from the police."
Tress MacNeille plays Linda, who shared her favorite line: "Jam a squirrel in it, you crab."
Maurice LaMarche plays Morbo, was joined by his son, who told me a favorite line his dad voiced was "Oh Jeez" when his character went up a ladder sans underpants.
"Technology may change, but we stay the same, our foibles, idiosyncrasies, we're all still goofballs," added Maurice.
Maurice was the voice of Inspector Gadget's "Chief" in the animated series back in 1985.
Phil LaMarr plays Hermes Conrad and some other assorted voices in the film, was on fire. "I like to make things very complicated!"
He talked about the writer's strike a bit. "A lot of stuff has ground to a halt," then jokingly, "here's your virtual money..."
LeMarr turned serious. "It's about establishing precedents." "Fox is the network putting their profits before their pride," he joked, and he mused, "if I had a billion dollars in my pocket I'd be bargaining all day long."
Loquacious LeMarr also dished about attending Comic-Con with Matt Groening. "He's just like a regular guy…"
LeMarr's favorite lines? "Great Lion of Zion, and generally great animal something of some rhyming place."
Writer David X. Cohen was completely stoked his creation was brought back from the celluloid abyss. His spontaneous ad-lib during an unplanned technical snafu later in the evening showed off the elasticity of his wit.
"We were canceled three years ago, it was a teary goodbye but the fans stuck with it…when the 'Family Guy' came back it gave us hope."
David Herman who voices Nudar was delightful. He spilled that he had never been to Comic-Con, and talked about seeing Doug Henning live, and wishing he had caught Frank Zappa's show. "I never got the chance."
He couldn't give me a favorite quote from his character, there were just too many. His "effortless" beard was the by-product of having a career as a voice over artist.
Lauren Tom voices Amy Wong, she loves her slutty character and one of her favorite lines involved Amy talking about a stalker, then worries if he likes her and will call her later.
Actress Katey Sagal is the voice of one-eyed ass-kicker Leela, the object of Fry's unrequited love. Sagal explained recording the show is always fun: "To do an animated series is really so fun to do and I don't really think of it as hiding so much, I take on the persona of a one-eyed purple haired alien."
There were some audio difficulties at the start of the show, the sound kept dropping out until Fox had the projectionist dispatched and replaced; they had to try it twice.
This prompted the entire Futurama crew to come up to the stage to stall for time.
"This part of LA is being rebooted" quipped David X Cohen, as Matt Groening, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, David Herman, John DiMaggio, Lauren Tom, and Phil LaMarr started ad-libbing and fielding questions, in and out of their voices.
John DiMaggio did a perfect Garrett Morris imitation as he loudly repeated everything Cohen said, and he described the three influences that birthed Bender's voice, one of them being Slim Pickens, a drunk at the end of the bar, and Charlie the sausage loving hawker: "Brats, beef Brats… we got sausage.. eat it right here.. Kielbasa all kinds of sausage you can eat.."
After the film came the best part of any Hollywood shindig; the parade of food that follows. Waiters stood ready with trays of sliders, gourmet fries, crab cakes (I had five, they were great) and other appetizers too. Good wine and drinks flowed like a river.
The centerpiece of the room was a rectangular tower of boozy mini cupcakes, the frosting for each one had a shot of apple martini, merlot, vodka and other spirits whipped in.
The mood in the lobby (redecorated as a giant hipster party scene after the film was screened) was pure ebullience; everyone knew that Groening and company had scored a hit with the funny film.
"It was like coming home," said Billy West. "It's all the same people, same voice people, same writers, same crew basically. We fell right back into everything again and it was a delight. It was a joy to come back and I have the fans to thank for bringing it back. They kept the resonance going."
Matt Groening summed it up: "The future will be animated."
Here is a look at the red carpet event:
Futurama - Bender's Big Score is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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