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People from both the fanboy and hip hop worlds were excited to hear that Matt Groening’s Futurama was coming back to TV. But today there is some not so great news for fans: the return of Futurama will not feature the return of any of the voice actors. From Entertainment Weekly:
Twentieth Century Fox, which is still producing the series even though new episodes will air on Comedy Central, is recasting the major voice roles for the show. That means no more Billy West (Fry, Professor, and Ziodberg), Katey Sagal (Leela), John DiMaggio (Bender), Maurice LaMarche (Kif Kroker, among others), or Tress MacNeil (Mom, and several others).
Fox released a statement saying “We love the Futurama voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands. While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on.”
Summer bummer. Replacing a voice actor* on an animated show is almost worse than replacing an actor whole cloth on a live-action show, because when you replace an actor whole cloth it’s weird, sure, but eventually you can move forward (isn’t that right, Sarah Chalke?). When you replace a voice actor, it just sounds wrong. Like you’re watching a dubbed version of the show for Europe (GROSS!).
That being said, as someone who doesn’t really care that much about Futurama one way or the other (sorry fanboy and hip hop worlds. It’s got some laffs, and I will watch it sometimes, but it’s no Simpsons, which peaked 39 years ago and should probably just go off the air by now, and it’s not even as good as South Park, which is another show I don’t care about) I’m intrigued by who they have hired for the new cast:
TV’s Corbin Bernsen will be playing ALL of the characters on the relaunch (relaunch!) of Futurama. You have to admit that this is a pretty bold move that I just made up. Congratulations, Corbin Bernsen, and welcome back into America’s homes. Sustained! (Thanks for the tip, Tyson.)
*Also, don’t play games, Twentieth Century Fox. I doubt that the voice actors of Futurama made exorbitant salary demands. “We love the Futurama voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their $500 per episode and cab fare demands.”
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Burns: Get me Steven Spielberg!
Smithers: He’s unavailable.
Burns: Then get me his non-union Mexican equivalent!
Homer: “Networks like animation ’cause they don’t have to pay the actors squat!”
Flanders (in altered voice): “Plus, they can replace them, and no one can tell the diddley-ifference!”
Ahhh, I seriously wish I could have found the actual clip online instead of just my hacky quote!
This is a dealbreaker, ladies.
Disgusting. I hope this show bombs.
Never have I been more amused by Corbin Bernsen than I am at this moment. Thanks, Gabe!
So this means they’re replacing Phil Lamarr as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti?
Why isn’t this upvoted more? I think V-gummers don’t appreciate how rare the oppotunity to make a futurism joke is. I have a pun involving Giacomo Balla that I’ve been saving up for years!
Ugh, I know about a million assholes who do “incredible Bender impersonations, dude, listen” who will be first in line to audition for this. I don’t watch this show, and can’t help but think that this doesn’t bode well for the relaunch.
Everybody, they are not going to replace the old cast. All signs point to this either being a negotiating tactic to get the actors to accept lower salaries (same thing happened to The Simpsons back in 1998 (and they ended up getting more money) or an elaborate joke for Comic-Con. Rest assured, one way or another, the original voice cast will be in place for the new episodes.
@Gabe: You don’t like Futurama? ZOMG FANBOY RAGE!!! I”LL NEVER VISIT THIS SITE AGAIN!!! (Refreshes site 1000 times)
Also, I know it’s not supposed to matter but it still makes me a little
that Gabe doesn’t like Futurama. I thought the show managed to be somehow both touching and hilarious at its best and well written and pretty funny even at its worst. It’s not like it was Family Guy which should totally get boneitis.
What are we videogum? Sharks or Sheep?
You read that Gabe? We all like you so much that when you don’t like something we do like it makes us sad. Do you feel the like?
In actual response to Max- I agree with you man. Futurama is one of the best T.V. series ever made. It managed to combine low and high-brow humor, interesting stories, well-developed characters, great running arcs (Fry/Leela shipper right here), absolutely fantastic acting (you hear that FOX! (who are totally reading this post), and basically everything else that could be good about T.V. Show into a single entity. About the only time it truly faltered was with the movies (and at least Into The Wild Green Yonder managed to get it right), while almost every other time we were met with brilliance. Truly, we’ll never get another show like Futurama. Hopefully FOX let’s Futurama finish on it’s own terms this time, rather than being canceled by their bad decisions. LONG LIVE FUTURAMA!!!
Yessss. And even then, I thought the movies were of a much higher quality than most of the comedies on television right now.
Thanks, Gabe, this post has totally brought me out of the FuturamaFanboyCloset. Damn.
Gabe, I know this is a minor complaint, but could you make it so that I don’t have to press Enter 3 times in order to space paragraphs on this site. Literally every other site and word program only requires two presses. You really can’t expect everybody to go into VideoGum Mode (3 presses, 3 presses, 3 presses) when they come here. Or at least add some sort of edit option? Please?
I know about this problem! Sorry. Hopefully someday it will not do that.
C’mon, Gabe is not the lawnmower man. That is not his fault. And I am going to stop posting on here cause YIKES.
“This website is gonna shoot straight to the top and stay there, like Cyndi Lauper!” Is Gabe a shark or what??
Uh-oh. Ehm guys can’t you see the frightening place this is going? The people making this series clearly want to make it but don’t want to spend much. I guess they’ll be looking for viewers too. They’ll quite possibly be looking for a voice that will get these viewers in. Somebody with a track record of getting viewers but somebody who is cheap. Very cheap. In fact, somebody who’s willing to voice every character in the programme. Please, please, please will somebody make sure that they don’t find SETH MACFARLANE’S PHONE NUMBER!!!
Seth MacFarlane was already in one of the 4 movies that came out. So, it’s possible. Shiiiiiiiieeeet.
To be fair, he only sang the opening song (a remix of the main theme with Rat Pack style lyrics) and on that note I’d say that McFarlane, as awful as his shows are (and he probably is), he has a great Lounge Lizard singing voice. The song is actually damn good.
Check it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCtFjXBAdD0
I like Futurama a lot; that being said, the only voice actor I really am going to miss depending on how they handle the replacement is the professor. Maybe Zoidberg. Even when shows use the same voice actors, their voices sometimes change over time. See: South Park. Of course those are usually conscious changes for the better, not ‘hey let’s replace the entire cast’. So, who knows.
What about DiMaggio for Bender? No one can replace him! I mean, in terms of possiblity, anyone could, but this is serious business here. We’re not playing aroung with semantics.
Yeah, that’s true. Maybe FistfulOAwesome is right because its not like the entire cast hasn’t been coming back on a relatively regular basis to make 4-episode DVD’s. Granted those have high profit yields for a little amount of work.
The problem is, is that a lot of the characters are done by Billy West. So if they’re going to recast him, they have a handful of other characters to get new voice actors for as well. Also, the AV Club reported this last week, I believe (here). It sounds like a power play, though, as they did something similar with the Simpsons. I hope so.
Of course, they’ll probably just write it off in the first episode. Kind of like the Were-Crow segment in the “Werewolf” episode of MST3k.
“Your voice will change inexplicably every 7 years or so…”
Yea, but Crow’s voice changed because Trace Beauleau decided to leave the show, not because Best Brains or Sci-Fi kicked him out. It was amicable, unlike this.
I really just don’t care at all, because Fox will inevitably skew the scripts into a Family Guy-like comedy.
They should clearly just get Seth MacFarlane to do all the voice. That’s the only way to make sure it’s still funny. And only one actor = less $$$.
Obvi.
Gabe, I was expecting you to never write about this, because this news is so old. This is really turning into lazygum. I was a huge Futurama fan but this is a huuuge deal breaker. (PS, around half the comments I’ve posted here are in some way Futurama related.)
Relax, Professor Futurama.
PS Gabe, the voice actors were asking for 75,000 per episode based off the Variety.com article AV Club links. But I don’t know if that’s all-together or individual. Just thought you’d like to know so someday you can impress your Professor and get a Smiley Face Sticker in Rise and Fall of Futurama Studies.
Relax, Adjunct Professor Futurama.
Thanks Gabe! You’ll do great.
Missed opportunity: “Relax, Professor Farnsworth” followed up with “Relax, Cubert”
One of the actors (likely Maurice Lamarche or Phil Lamarr) has anonymously commented that the 75,000$ figure is a complete fabrication. FOX was trying to make the actors look like the bad guys by making up a figure they thought was absurd. This backfired on them since most fans think the actors deserve much more.
It seems I have hurt your feelings. Here, have a smiley sticker for effort.
When has this ever been breakingnewsinentertainmentgum.com? Varietygum.com?
That’s true. Sorry Gabe.
Abraham Lincoln would be angered if Dane Cook did all the voices…
http://lincolnsaysuncool.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/lincoln-says-uncool-dane-cook/
I heard Padma Lakshmi is going to do the voice of Leela.
SOLD
I’d really like to watch, but I just don’t know if they can meet my salary demands.
Having actually seen an in-person table read of the Futurama cast I am painfully aware of how much awesomer they are than Fox and will now throw up in rage for the fourth time since I’ve heard this news.
I remember when they replaced all of the voice actors from the American version of
Dragon Ball Z. This is the same.
It was like someone Spirit Bombed my heart
This is terrible news! I’m sad now.
They could have been asking for the same or slightly more than what they were getting when it was airing on Fox. Which would definitely be way too much for a Comedy Central show.
Recent developments suggest that FOX will be airing it again (thus they’ll definitely be able to foot the bill). Comedy Central will likely go the Adult Swim route by getting to air the show sometime later (New Family Guy and American Dad air on Adult Swim a week after their FOX premiers).
So what you’re saying is that Futurama ISN’T coming back.
i’ve been thinking about it all day. (not really, i have a job that requires thought. but i have thought about it fleetingly today) i will probably boycott the show if the actors aren’t back. i hope the numerous posters are correct about it being a power play of some sort. sorry about the lack of JOKEZ in this post.
Billy West sort of went scab when John K got fired from Ren & Stimpy and West took over as Ren, right?
Sort-of is correct. But to be fair, I’d like to make some points in Billy’s favor.
1st of all, Billy was originally supposed to do both voices but Nickelodeon didn’t want him to for some reason (maybe both voices for Billy was more costly than 1 voice for him and another for John K).
2nd, John K got fired for exceeding deadlines and being sort of a dick to the executives, not for anything related to his voice work. He expected Billy to go along with him to his new production company after his firing, but Billy had made it clear in the past that theirs was a working relationship and he had no loyalty to John K past the paycheck.
That last one makes Billy sound like a dick. What I mean is that Billy isn’t friends with John. John screwed himself over by succumbing to artistic vanity, not realizing that he was getting paid to make the show for Nickelodeon, not for himself. Billy saw no reason to lose his job just because John K threw away his.
I hate to do a Gabe-hatin’ comment and get all downvoted, but if Gabe doesn’t like King of the Hill, Futurama, or South Park WHAT CARTOONS DOES HE LIKE????
And for the record, I find Futurama’s four seasons to be funnier and more enjoyable than any four seasons of The Simpsons.
Yeah, I said it.
Basically just The Simpsons, I assume. It’s hard to ask for Gabe’s opinion on Cartoons since I don’t think most people (him included) would consider any of the shows you mentioned as Cartoons (in the sense that most people think of Cartoons as “those shows for kids”). I think it would be more accurate to ask what other Animated shows Gabe likes (Animated shows for kids are called Cartoons, Animated shows for adults (or at least easily enjoyable by adults) are called Animated Shows). Also, I wouldn’t diss Gabe for not liking Futurama or any of those other shows. They simply don’t mesh with his style of humor as much as Golden Era Simpsons.
Let’s be fair here, Golden Era Simpsons meshes with everyone. There are very few people who wouldn’t connect with an episode of GES. At it’s best, that series managed to have a joke for every demographic. The other shows simply don’t have the same appeal as GES. Futurama mainly appeals to nerds (especially males between 15-30), Southpark appeals to people with perverse senses of humor, King of the Hill appeals to…, and Family Guy appeals to idiots. None of those shows come close to appealing as widely as GES.
For the record, I agree with you that Futurama is a marvel of television and I enjoy it more than any other show. But in the end, it probably won’t leave it’s mark quite as much as The Simpsons left its (since Futurama is for nerds while GES is for everybody). At least, if Star Trek is any indication, it’ll be a well-loved cult treasure (actually, it already is, but it’ll prove its staying power if dudes aren’t getting laid in 50 years because they can quote entire episodes and dress up as Omicronians at Conventions (just like Star Trek).
Nerd!
Ive been a big advocate of Gabe just compiling a list of things he DOES like in this world…because I suspect it may be shorter.
OK, well all I can say is, I trust Matt Groening.
This show is genius.
However, I can’t see this actually happening. Futurama does not exist without Billy West and Tress MacNeil (but then, nothing can exist in its most fully formed state without Tress MacNeil).
Fox will give in.
Aw shucks, thank you.
That Art History class in high school has really paid dividends.
Bernsen also has one of the largest snow globe collections in the world, with over 6000 snowglobes.
*yeah i copy pasted from wikipedia – and its already been on stereogum DEAL WITH IT
Unfortunately, if it IS a Comicon hoax or just playing hardball, they’re taking it far. Sides and audition notices went out to a lot of people in the last week.
I feel a little guilty when I admit that I auditioned to be one of the voices. I love the show and it would be weird to be a scab. My dream is that all the actors return to do the original voices and they hire me to play a brand-new character and we all become best friends and live together in a big house that looks like the Planet Express set.
awww. This show will fail without bryan west