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FOX Makes Typically Brilliant Decision in Regard to Futurama's Return to Television


Henry B

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Aren't you guys a bit ungrateful? Yes they were good voice actors, especially DiMaggio, but I'd rather more awesome Futurama comedy and get used to slightly different (but I'm sure perfectly capable) new voice talent, than none at all.

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Aren't you guys a bit ungrateful? Yes they were good voice actors, especially DiMaggio, but I'd rather more awesome Futurama comedy and get used to slightly different (but I'm sure perfectly capable) new voice talent, than none at all.

Yeah, and why bother having John Williams score films when you can just hire William Ross or somebody to imitate him?

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Aren't you guys a bit ungrateful? Yes they were good voice actors, especially DiMaggio, but I'd rather more awesome Futurama comedy and get used to slightly different (but I'm sure perfectly capable) new voice talent, than none at all.

Yeah, and why bother having John Williams score films when you can just hire William Ross or somebody to imitate him?

If John Williams doesn't want to score a film because he isn't getting paid enough, then more power to William Ross.

The stars had all expressed interest in returning. But with the budget for “Futurama” dramatically slashed, the salary offers came in well below what the thesps were asking.
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It wouldn't surprise me if this is just a negotiating ploy on the part of FOX.

I hope so, even if it's a stupid one.

Aren't you guys a bit ungrateful? Yes they were good voice actors, especially DiMaggio, but I'd rather more awesome Futurama comedy and get used to slightly different (but I'm sure perfectly capable) new voice talent, than none at all.

I'd rather have none at all. Anything else just wouldn't be Futurama, no matter how hard it tried.

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If you guys don't like who ends up voicing it, don't watch it.

Do we need a whole thread dedicated to people circle-jerking about the voice talent of the original Futurama series?

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If you guys don't like who ends up voicing it, don't watch it.

Do we need a whole thread dedicated to people circle-jerking about the voice talent of the original Futurama series?

Discussing the acting talent of a popular TV series over several years of syndication? Yes, what a negligible subject. I shouldn't even have mentioned it. What we do, of course, need is twenty pages of speculation about a score that hasn't even been written based on vague intimations that it might, in the future, be written.

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If you guys don't like who ends up voicing it, don't watch it.

Do we need a whole thread dedicated to people circle-jerking about the voice talent of the original Futurama series?

Discussing the acting talent of a popular TV series over several years of syndication? Yes, what a negligible subject. I shouldn't even have mentioned it. What we do, of course, need is twenty pages of speculation about a score that hasn't even been written based on vague intimations that it might, in the future, be written.

Yes, on a John Williams fansite we need more Futurama voice talent discussion and less speculation about future John Williams scores for the biggest film series of all time (besides Star Wars), oh and add to that much much more sarcasm, obviously.

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Okay, so what should we do? Devise some sort of rating system to determine the importance of a subject based on its relevance to John Williams and then make discussion allowances based on the subject's importance? Sorry to break it to you, but this is the general discussion board for films, television and music. Futurama falls under that umbrella.

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No one's forcing you to post in this thread. If you don't approve, you can always, you know, refrain from posting.

This whole thing is ridiculous, though. Those guys are incredible voice actors and as much an indelible part of what made Futurama great as robot hookers and crack vending machines.

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Okay, so what should we do? Devise some sort of rating system to determine the importance of a subject based on its relevance to John Williams and then make discussion allowances based on the subject's importance? Sorry to break it to you, but this is the general discussion board for films, television and music. Futurama falls under that umbrella.

Thank you for explaining to me what "General Discussion" means! 'Cos when I said "do we need a whole thread dedicated to this particular minutia of television executive decision-making," I was clearly under the impression that only John Williams could be discussed in this forum, rather than legitimately questioning whether an upcoming series of television will POSSIBLY have slightly different vocal intonation, since the final outcome of the standard back-and-forth between Fox executives and its voice actors in this instance is yet to be known, really deserved its own thread, in the interests of board moderation, when an older thread on a similar topic could surely have been resurrected.

Or do you feel that you have the right to be glib in posturing yourself as a moderator while others do not?

No one's forcing you to post in this thread. If you don't approve, you can always, you know, refrain from posting.

Thank you for enlightening me to the nature of forum posting, and of choice in general.

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Okay, so what should we do? Devise some sort of rating system to determine the importance of a subject based on its relevance to John Williams and then make discussion allowances based on the subject's importance? Sorry to break it to you, but this is the general discussion board for films, television and music. Futurama falls under that umbrella.

Thank you for explaining to me what "General Discussion" means! 'Cos when I said "do we need a whole thread dedicated to this particular minutia of television executive decision-making," I was clearly under the impression that only John Williams could be discussed in this forum, rather than legitimately questioning whether an upcoming series of television will POSSIBLY have slightly different vocal intonation, since the final outcome of the standard back-and-forth between Fox executives and its voice actors in this instance is yet to be known, really deserved its own thread, in the interests of board moderation, when an older thread on a similar topic could surely have been resurrected.

Or do you feel that you have the right to be glib in posturing yourself as a moderator while others do not?

No, I'm just interpreting the board rules as best I can. Seriously, why are you flipping out because of this thread? 20th Century Fox is a massive, faceless corporation, so I think it's safe to say I'm not offending anybody by posting about one of its lousy decisions. By the way, all I did was post a link with a sarcastic header. Did I go crazy and rant about the evils of Fox or anything like that? No, and neither did anybody else who posted in this thread. But then you showed up and acted like you were personally offended by the idea that anyone would care for something as trivial as the voice cast of a TV show. "Circle-jerking," thanks for that. By the way, if you don't like this thread, don't read it. Haha, wait, that sounds familiar.

Bottom line: replace "Futurama" with "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and "voice cast" with "composer" and you have the very discussion thread you were propping up on an altar. So what's the difference? Well, the difference is what interests us. You're into score speculation, I'm more content to wait. I think the vocal cast is very important to Futurama, you don't. That's fine. But why do you have to shove your idea of what's more notable a discussion down our throats? Also, no thanks, I'm not going to waste my time searching for an older topic. I'm not sure if there's any thread concerning the return of Futurama to syndication, and if there is, why the hell do I need to find it? This is what really mystifies me about board etiquette. It's not like any bandwidth or space is saved by bumping old threads. Either way, posts are created and read, whether in one thread or another. If anybody didn't know that Futurama was coming back to TV, this new thread makes it clear. So why is the possibly-existent old one so important? I'd say you need to stop "posturing yourself as a moderator."

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If you notice, I actually responded legitimately once, then you made some lame ass dig about Williams not scoring a film, as if on a John Williams website the two have parity. If you read your own article, you'd notice that it WASN'T "BLOODY" FOX'S FAULT FOR THE ACTORS NOT DOING IT, so not only is the thread speculating on something that really doesn't fit the theme of the forums -- which is I agree perfectly acceptable -- you've all also misconstrued the article in question.

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Maybe you're right, but Fox is a multinational corporation. I think they can take my abuse. Besides, even if I was a jerk to make that post about John Williams, others were not, and you tore into them for basically saying "yeah, it'd be too bad if the original cast didn't come back."

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I apologize, but I find posts such as

I'd rather have none at all. Anything else just wouldn't be Futurama, no matter how hard it tried.

to be worthy of being torn into, or at least, my calmly making the valid point that nobody will force you to watch a show you don't want to watch, just as nobody forced me to participate in this thread.

And I too agree that Fox and especially Fox News and the "corporation-or-die ideology" of Murdoch to be abhorrent, which would make for a great topic if this site weren't anti-politics.

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It wouldn't surprise me if this is just a negotiating ploy on the part of FOX.

According to several industry members quoted in that article, it is.

Now what's with all the ruckus in here?

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I apologize, but I find posts such as
I'd rather have none at all. Anything else just wouldn't be Futurama, no matter how hard it tried.

to be worthy of being torn into, or at least, my calmly making the valid point that nobody will force you to watch a show you don't want to watch, just as nobody forced me to participate in this thread.

Then we might as well not even criticize anything. After all, nobody forces you to watch such-and-such a movie or listen to such-and-such a soundtrack. Stay silent rather than spreading such caustic words as, er, "Anything else just wouldn't be Futurama."

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I think some people devalue voice acting, and think it's all down to just making a funny voice, or imitating a funny voice, which it isn't at all, so they get a bum deal.

It's akin to Star Trek's third season having Kirk, Spock and McCoy recast, really. They may be the same characters written by the same people, and they may have a very similar vocal style, but they're not the same. I agree that I'd rather they don't bother if they don't bring back the soul of the show, but then I imagine Groening and Cohen probably think the same thing so I'm not that worried.

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I agree that I'd rather they don't bother if they don't bring back the soul of the show, but then I imagine Groening and Cohen probably think the same thing so I'm not that worried.
I apologize, but I find posts such as
I'd rather have none at all. Anything else just wouldn't be Futurama, no matter how hard it tried.

to be worthy of being torn into, or at least, my calmly making the valid point that nobody will force you to watch a show you don't want to watch, just as nobody forced me to participate in this thread.

Then we might as well not even criticize anything. After all, nobody forces you to watch such-and-such a movie or listen to such-and-such a soundtrack. Stay silent rather than spreading such caustic words as, er, "Anything else just wouldn't be Futurama."

I don't mind you criticizing anything, but according to the article, the ACTORS decided not to sign on. Why aren't you criticizing the actors? The thread title implies that Fox decided on a whim to recast Futurama, whereas the actors were simply too greedy to accept an income that forms part of a considerably smaller budget. Yes, I'm sure Fox at the end of the day could afford a greater budget for an arguably low-profit cult-following series, but likewise the voice actors can accept fewer thousands of dollars to do a few table readings and spend a few hours every fortnight in a recording studio.

Not only that, but people want there to be no Futurama at all because of slightly different vocal talent? Is this not fair on people who don't mind and would get much joy out of it regardless? Not only that:

1) The talks are still in progress as others have mentioned;

2) The new vocal talent might be just as good if not even better, and probably deserve a chance at work if they're good enough. Talk about heartless.

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Frankly the idea of Futurama returning without the original voices sucks and I don't like it and I don't give a damn what anyone think of my opinion.

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Is this not fair on people who don't mind and would get much joy out of it regardless?

Eh, those people can watch Family Guy instead.

Family Guy > Futurama

Anyway... like many here have said, the voice talent is an important part of any animated series. There is just no one else that can voice SpongeBob, or anyone else that can do Peter from FG, or Homer from The Simpsons. FOX made a stupid decision (big surprise) to cancel Futurama in the first place. Now they want to bring it back, but they can't even do that correctly.

If they can afford to make Seth Macfarlane the highest paid person in TV history, they can afford to pay the original voice cast.

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Frankly the idea of Futurama returning without the original voices sucks and I don't like it and I don't give a damn what anyone think of my opinion.

A typical circlejerker's mentality.

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Bad idea I think. Imagine recasting The Simpsons - you couldn't do it because the voices basically are the characters.

Personally I think Futurama ran out of ideas years ago, but if others still enjoy it and can live with new voices, good for them.

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So really, was Futurama that big of a deal. I remember when it was on, nobody was crappin' their pants with anticipation for each new episode. I can't even remember what night on which it aired. Was it on Sundays, after the Simpsons?

And how totally bankrupt ideawise is Hollywood, when they spend all of this time trying to stuff these forgettable shows back up the who-ha to see if it'll drop out a little better? There are so many ideas out there, and these goons have no balls whatsoever.

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So really, was Futurama that big of a deal. I remember when it was on, nobody was crappin' their pants with anticipation for each new episode. I can't even remember what night on which it aired. Was it on Sundays, after the Simpsons?

And how totally bankrupt ideawise is Hollywood, when they spend all of this time trying to stuff these forgettable shows back up the who-ha to see if it'll drop out a little better? There are so many ideas out there, and these goons have no balls whatsoever.

Futurama was not treated amazingly well by Fox, but was also probably a little too smart for the audience it was played to. It was aired in several different time slots, and never given a proper longtime home. Personally, I was "crappin' my pants with anticipation for each new episode". It was an amazingly funny, brilliant, and surprisingly emotional show that was never really given a fair chance.

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Trying to show something as smart as Futurama to an audience used to watching Family Guy probably wasn't the best decision. And Charlie's right, they could bring some true emotion in too.

That being said, the DVD movies were a bit hit and miss so I'm a little dubious about how good new episodes will be, original cast or no.

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I've never found Family Guy entertaining and I didn't really dig Futurama, either. I stopped watching after the first season I guess.

Homer from The Simpsons.

I'm just going to throw this out there. I prefer Homer's voice in the earlier seasons of the show.

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I'm just going to throw this out there. I prefer Homer's voice in the earlier seasons of the show.

Still Dan Castellaneta, however. For Family Guys fans, just think of Meg in Season 1 and then after Mila Kunis took over. Dialogue and character doesn't really change, but the character did with a different voice. As a casual fan of Futurama, I can't believe FOX could be so dumb, but considering the great "success" of their movie division I'm not surprised.

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I never really got into Futurama that much. I mean the first season was sort of fun, but there was a point where it just stopped being interesting to me.

Same happened with American Dad actually - seems to be that no one's 'second child' works for me.

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I think Futurama is more successful than American Dad because Futurama had a much a larger scope than The Simpsons, with a markedly different cast and premise. Oh, and it had Bender. Whereas American Dad was, as pointed out by critics, more or less a re-hash of Family Guy, but at least Family Guy had a good opening, I thought...American Dad was just lame from the beginning.

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