Futurama News
Archive for April 2003
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Things are getting unclear here... The line-up:
Sun 06th: FUTURAMA "The Why of Fry"
Sun 13th: NO FUTURAMA - KotH repeat *
Sun 20th: NO FUTURAMA - X-Men 2 prview
So, tomorrow we'll finally see "The Why of Fry", (*) but TVGuide lists a King of the Hill repeat for next week and an X-Men 2 preview for the week after. In other words: If the KotH repeat holds true, tomorrow could be the season's finale due to FOX supposedly not airing Futurama during May sweeps. This would mean that Season 5 consisted out of 8 episodes aired over a 5 months time span unless possible summer runs of the remaining 8 episodes would be counted towards this season. |
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The region 2 (Europe) Futurama Season 3 DVD set is now up for preordering at amazon.co.uk for £35.19 (12% off). Orders placed over this link help us pay our server bills.
The release is scheduled for June, 2nd and the 4 disc set will feature 22 episodes. More details on our Futurama DVD Season 3 preview page.
A pre-order for the German discs should be available soon (currently only lists an import). |
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 FrysGIRL submitted 1 picture, yes you read it correctly. By this I have set the record for World's Smallest Update. This update is also dedicated to a) #futuramachat b) The Fanart Zone c) my mom. This is TGIF signing off for today  |
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 GC Europe has an official trailer for the Futurama Game up and game.uk has a longer preview. Expect the release date for Game Cube, Playstation 2 and XBox to be around start of June 2003 if everything goes well. Preorders in the UK are available at amazon.co.uk for £34.99 (PS2/XBOX) and £24.99 (Game Cube). No signs of US preorders yet. The US publisher FOXi was recently sold to Vivendi Universal. |
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Next season 2 Sounds & Quotes are up. This time it's for the Nixon-heavy episode "A Head in the Polls".
Bender: "Game's over, losers. I have all the money. Compare your lives to mine and then kill yourselves." (listen)
Go read and listen to them. |
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As The Why of Fry is likely to trigger a bit of response, both the episode reviews and the episode capsule are already up, now that it aired on the East Coast. If you haven't seen it yet, beware that these include heavy SPOILERS. Be strong and wait the few hours.
Quotes, sounds, framegrabs and - Andie willing - trivia will be there by tomorrow morning. |
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 Today is your last chance to take part in our region 1 Futurama Season 1 DVD contest. To stand a chance, you'll definitely have to have all five trivia questions right. The five winners will be picked at midnight (PDT) and have 72 hours to respond to the notification email. Good luck. |
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Midnight passed and my edelfied random number generator picked 5 lucky people among the 98 correct entries (692 total). Without further ado: - David Ho.
- Tom Gr.
- Eric Gar.
- Abby P.
- Justin B.
All five of them have been notified by email and have until Saturday ends to claim their free Futurama Season 1 DVD set. To the rest of you: Tough luck, suckers. Just go and buy it (plus preorder Season 2) 
Thanks goes to FOX HE for enabling us to give out these goodies. |
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The sounds and quotes for "Why Must I Be A Crustacean in Love?" are now up for you to enjoy.
Farnsworth: "We, by which I mean you, will have to rush him to his ancient homeworld, which will shortly erupt in an orgy of invertebrate sex."
Fry: "Oh, baby. I'm there!"
Leela: "Fry, do you even understand the word invertebrate?"
Fry: "Nope, but that's not the word I'm interested in. No need to pack pants, people. Let's roll!"
(listen to it) |
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We're back in the No Futurama domain:
April 13th: No Futurama (KotH repeat)
April 20th: No Futurama (X-Men 2 Special)
April 27th: No Futurama (Simpsons repeat)
Going from there, we can expect "No Futurama", "No Futurama", "No Futurama" and "No Futurama", due to May Sweeps during which FOX will try to get high ratings Futurama can't produce in its "never on, never promoted" state. Unaired episodes are expected to be shown starting June.
We'll still have a weekly outlook for FOX - just in case. |
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The Futurama Season 3 DVD set scheduled for release in the UK on June 2nd got a new preorder price on amazon.co.uk: £29.99 instead of £35.19 previously and £39.99 list price.
If you already preordered at the higher price, go check your account page to see if they updated it (otherwise you can always cancel and preorder again).
Update: The Futurama Season 3 DVD set currently has sales rank 17 and preorder rank 5 at amazon.co.uk among the DVDs (updated hourly). |
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Metered market Nielsen ratings for Sunday are in and I thought I'd just let you know even though no Futurama was on.
The 7-7:30PM slot was dominated by a 11.0/19 PGA Masters overrun on CBS, followed by a 5.8/10 Dateline half-hour on NBC. ABC's Dr. Dolittle repeat finished with 4.5/7 average between 7 and 9PM. FOX's Futurama replacement "King of the Hill" episode (repeat) came in fourth with a low 3.4/6 rating.
This compares to:
Futurama - The Why of Fry 3.8/6
Futurama - Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles 4.3/7
Reading ratings: Generally higher = better. First number indicates how many people watched, second tells what percentage of the watching people that is. Advertisers like the first number better, but these highly depend on the time slot as less people watch TV during the nights/dinner time etc. |
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From May 25th onwards, Futurama will be removed from the Sunday 11PM time slot in Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block when Home Movies takes its spot. However, Futurama will continue to air Mondays through Thursdays at 11PM.
Starting this Sunday, Family Guy will follow up Futurama at 11:30PM but Cartoon Network won't be showing the first season (1ACX) for the time being. Luckily, the Family Guy Season 1 & 2 DVD combi set just came out today in the USA. |
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 I got a first picture of the Futurama 2004 Calendar cover for you. The list price is $12.99 and release date should be August 2003. Preorders are available at $10.39. The picture looks like a reference to M.C. Escher's "Hand with Reflecting Sphere". This might hint at an art theme. I'll try to find out. |
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Next in our Sounds & Quotes adding marathon: Anthology of Interest I. This three-part episode features guest stars former vice president Al Gore, Gary 'D&D' Gygax, Nichelle 'Uhura' Nichols and even Stephen Hawking. Yes, his real modulator voice - not some cheap self-made ripoff.
Al Gore: "To my left you'll recognize Gary Gygax, inventor of Dungeons & Dragons."
Gary Gygax: "Greetings! It's a" *rolls dice* "pleasure to meet you!"
(listen to it) |
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April 20th: No Futurama (X-Men 2 Special)
April 27th: No Futurama (KotH repeat)
May 04th: No Futurama (KotH repeat)
Even though the King of the Hill repeat last week fared worse than any Futurama episode in that time slot, FOX is seemingly going to air more KotH for most of May. The planned-for Simpsons repeats have been pushed back to 8:30PM as The Pitts vanish from Sundays. On the 25th of May, FOX is airing NASCAR. After that, we can hope for some Futurama.
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I added some more fanart to the various submitters area and I welcome a new artist in the area too, his name is J. Barboza and he has made his own image episode guides. |
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 An update on the situation of the European Futurama Season 3 DVD set release:
German Amazon now lists the set. However, the release date is said to be September 13th and the price €54,99. Compared to that, Amazon in the UK offers the set for June 2nd and at £29.99 which translates to roughly €45/$45 after adding shipping to western Europe or the US.
If the late date on the German amazon isn't wrong, it could be explained by the local station PRO7 never airing one of the included episodes. If you can live without having the (horrible) German sound, I'd recommend buying the sooner and cheaper British set. |
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April 27th: No Futurama (KotH repeat)
May 04th: No Futurama (KotH repeat)
May 11th: No Futurama (Simpsons repeat)
And then most likely:
May 18th: No Futurama (KotH season finale)
May 25th: No Futurama (NASCAR Coca-Cola 600)
With a bit of luck, we'll get a new episode (likely The Sting or Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV) after that on June 1st - one day before the Season 3 DVD set is released in Europe. |
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Some more news about the Futurama Video Game for PS2, Game Cube and X-Box: SCI in the UK now officially lists July 4th as the release date for Europe (well, at least for the UK. Don't know if that's valid for other nations, too). By now amazon.co.uk mostly is in accordance with that, but for the X-Box one which they wrongly list as already released. FOXi - the former Northern American publisher - never told much about the release, but now I got a press release by Vivendi Universal Games (who bought FOXi). They don't list the Game Cube (error? I'll investigate) and the release date is vague with "3rd Quarter". "Futurama's sci-fi themes fit perfectly with sophisticated video game technology, helping you imagine what it would be like to be alive in the 31st Century. It involves blasting a lot of aliens." -- Matt Groening
If interested, have a look at the full press release. |
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Well, actually, it's some time till the 11th of May. Anyway, the edel-version of the Sounds & Quotes for the Season 2 episode Mother's Day are ready:
Mom: "Jerkwad robots make me sick to my ass!" (listen).
Also, if you go to eMerchandise before Thursday and enter "MY_MOM" as a coupon at the bottom of the shopping basket page, every item (non-Futurama, too) not yet at 10% off will be set to that. I'd suggest having a look at the Futurama Series Coasters (see our review) as the popular Slurm Can is out of stock. |
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I just got confirmation by the public relations director of Vivendi Universal Games that there won't be a Game Cube version of the Futurama Video Game in Northern America. SCi (Europe) does not yet confirm a release date for that version either, after all. I've been told by people testing the game that there were only PS2 and X-Box versions around at that time (about three months ago). This could indicate some problems with the time line or with technical/quality issues. Seemingly, two of the game producers have abandoned ship (or got thrown overboard) at the development company, which doesn't really bode well in the final stages. |
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After showing "The Why of Fry" yesterday, Sky One is going to air reruns on Sundays for the time being as they caught up with FOX in the US. Supposedly, Sky is allowed to show episodes before they ran on FOX, but I very much doubt that will happen. Next Sunday will be "Luck of the Fryrish". |
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Richard 'Ricky' Heggland was able to scour a short Q&A question session with Vibeke Hansen (representative of the Norwegian TV2 |
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Back to where Futurama is treated nicely, Futurama was able to reach out to 859,000 adults between 18 and 34 on April 23th, making it the most-watched telecast in the target demo in Cartoon Network history. Ever. Together with the prior throne occupier - Family Guy - it "propelled the network's Adult Swim franchise to #1 in its time period on all cable during April with men 18-34 and men 18-24." (quote CN)
Rising numbers don't seem to stop yet either. Just last week was Adult Swim's most watched period for most of its target demographics since the block started. |
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Futurama News
Archive Overview
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At the end of May, Cartoon Network will bump Futurama back to 11:30PM on Sundays with Home Movies taking the 11PM slot. Coming up this week:
eMerchandise is having a 
Thanks to FrysGIRL, we now have word in from Futurama executive producer David X. Cohen that the Futurama staff will most likely be attending this year's 
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