Good to know that Cartoon Network really like Futurama.

Unlike Family Guy, Futurama wouldn't work that well in an inexpensive version.

Seems like your saying Cartoon Network might be thinking of renewing Family Guy. Are there any quotes from Mike Lazzo saying something to that extent?

That was just referring to the animation methods used. Family Guy could work if done in Flash, Futurama probably couldn't. There is no hard news on new Family Guy episodes.

I'll take a limited collection of well made episodes over a slew of mediocre ones (Simpsons, anyone?)

AHH WELL ITS TRUE DAT FUTURAMA IS TOO EXPENSIVE IN ITS CURRENT FORM SO WHY DON'T THEY CHANGE IT. IF IT SUCKS AND IT PROBBOLEY WILL BUT IF IT DOES THEY CAN JUST STOP IT THEN I MEAN AT LEAST TRY

#4 brings up a very good point. I'd rather have 5 seasons of strong material instead of 15 seasons on slowly dwindling creativity and interest.

And, on the issue of Family Guy's animation, it's actually done pretty badly, anyway. If you watch the DVD commentary on them, Seth MacFarlane actually points out one scene in which Peter's head randomly shrinks in proportion to everything else around him, and it wasn't a joke. That, and they never seem to be able to show him not wearing his glasses, without having a zoom in shot where he is wearing his glasses, and then isn't again on the pull back! It was a funny show, but the production values we're actually pretty bad.

Imagine Futurama without the 3-D animation. It wouldn't be the same. I say we just accept the greatness it achieved, and hope for a movie. Although, I would be in favor of fewer episodes of high quality. Then again, I'm not going to hold my breath.

But they say it themselves: the show is very good. What kind of risks are there to pay the extra price when you already have the winning formula? Heck, we're talking about Matt Groening here, not about Mr. Nobody who tries to make a name with crap about a propane jerk that lives in Texas.

actually, Family Guy cost roughly $1,000,000 an episode. Why you ask?

First, there's the usual FOX practice of hiring an extensive staff. It's not common for a FOX show to have 10 directors and maybe 20 writers.

Second, Family Guy was RETAKE CITY!!! Family Guy's animators were unfortunately not very good. And they were constantly having to send back footage to be redone, and all it did was eat up more money. It was common for a Family Guy episode to have 10-12 minutes of footage needing to be redone, maybe more than once.

Third, is the usual FOX practice of doing rewrites and retakes late into the episode. That's a very extraneous, and at times unnecessary, method of doing a show. If you've read Futurama interviews with the writers, you'd know that they usually write the first draft, rewrite it, do a table read, rewrite it, finalize, do the animatic, rewrite/redraw it some more, animate it, and rewrite/redraw/reanimate it some more. FOX doesn't really have to do it, but they think they're big cheese and demand perfection. The average Cartoon Network series (Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Lab, Harvey Birdman, etc.) rewrites until the animatic, and then all rewriting and reshooting stops there (unless it's due to the animators messing up, which is common). [cont.]

If you were to remove all the extraneous rewriting/reshooting from Futurama or Family Guy, the budget could easily drop a good $300,000. And the writers of said shows have said before that sometimes they thought the original jokes they wrote over were funnier.

Call me crazy *waits*
but is a direct to dvd release really that bad of an idea?
would anyone not pay $50/10 episodes? or even $100? Thats not that bad for a dvd u get to keep forever and watch ad nauseum.
i dont know how many futurama season 1's sold worldwide, but its gotta be atleast in the 10s of thousands. right? so if it were 100,000 dvds, at $5/episode, thats $500,000 to make 22 minutes of animation.
now having read #9's take on family guy, i dont know how to view this, it seems like enough money, but who knows...
comments?

You're forgetting the administration costs. It costs money to create, package and ship the DVDs, money to administer the system, etc.

Plus, most animators/writers probably work on salary. The profits from the DVDs are not guaranteed, so it's highly unlikely they'd be able to work something out.

It seems an odd thing to say, but it's often the actions of TV censors that make shows like Futurama as subversive as it is. If there were no censorial control, imagine the jokes that we wouldn't have, such as "scratching your axe-hole". Finite things are good. It seems The Simpsons is proving the theory of comedy entropy by losing more and more momentum and energy as time goes by.

Futurama on Fox usually got between a 5-6 nielsen rating. On Cartoon Network, it has been averaging 1.5-2.0, ie, 1/3rd the audience. Cartoon Network paid $10 million for the whole run of Futurama, but the cost per show equates to under $200,000 per episode. A new season would probably have to fall in the sub-$250k range per episode. The downside is that Fox probably still owns the rights for Futurama, and CN would have to buy that from Fox as well, which would be an added cost to lump on top of the cost per episode.

On top of that, the staff would have to be shrunk from its former size, which would be a problem, as the large writing staff was probably one of the ways in which Futurama stayed funny. The animation would have to be severely altered, down to a Home Movies or South Park level. I don't know why everyone says keeps hyping flash. I think South Park uses Maya or some other upper level animation package, and the results are much better with South Park now than the flash animation that is on Home Movies (or the first two seasons of South Park, for that matter).

Now, could another network pick up Futurama? It's possible, but they'd still need to negotiate over the rights with Fox (at least I think so, I may be off the ball with this one). The problem is that the cast, production crew, and animators have all gone on to other things. Combine that with the long time between initial investment in the show and when the episodes are finished, over 6 months. (continued)

Assuming that none of this mattered, the network that would make most sense to me would be the WB, as they could then cross-promote it onto Cartoon Network as well. However, I doubt that AOL-TW would allow them such a high-dollar and high-risk investment. Plus the WB isn't exactly a ratings giant, and they seem to enjoy keeping budgets and costs down.

In short, the odds of seeing new episodes of Futurama on any sort of broadcast or cable channel are slim to none.

Direct to DVD sales would be doubtful as well, at least for a full season. The capital needed to invest in something so large would be tremendous, especially without any broadcast money invested into it. At best, one could hope for a direct to DVD Futurama movie.

Now what about a theatrical Futurama film? Possible, but somehow I get the feeling that such a release would follow the release of many of the anime movies that have been released in the past few years. Less than 200 screens, followed in 2-3 months by a DVD release.

Combine all of these factors with the fact that, someday, we're going to see a Simpsons movie which Matt Groening should be heavily involved with, and the odds move down to slim to none. Let's all enjoy our Futurama comics, video games, and other assorted merchandising. Who knows, maybe the creators and staff of Futurama might move on to create something even greater, hopefully on an outlet that appreciates genius.

Futurama is worth it, people. All the other shows suck major cheese(well, maybe not South Park or Family Guy or stuff. KotH on the other hand...).

To be quite honest, i'm happy that CN isn't trying to make more episodes. What's wrong with having 3.99 good seasons?? We have over 1500 minutes of high-quality entertainment. Futurama had an amazing run. If CN made new episodes, it would be at least a year before any were ready. Needless to say, the entire staff would not be able to return, and we would have to put up with replacements. The budget would be much smaller, as well. I would rather have 4 great seasons than 4 great seasons and 3 crappy ones. I'd like to see Futurama left alone, in all it's glory. If they could do a high-quality movie, with the original staff, that'd would be nice, to tie up loose ends.

In conclusion, lets not be greedy. Futurama is almost over, but we will remember it.

All Good Things Must Come To An End (the Simpsons, on the other hand)

UH...ZombieZoidburgJesus, I think you are being a bit hasty, I wouldn't mind waiting 3 years, as long as I knew some quality television was coming around the corner. All we have to do is go out and buy lottery tickets, and when someone wins the jackpot, we donate it to Cartoon network under a contract to re-new futurama. Yeah!!!

Long live Futurama!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While I agree that the chances of any new Futurama's are 0, adn Fox wouldn't let it happen anyway. Plus it would be hard to put the talent back together even if some were ordered, but here is a thought:

CN has been doing great with it's late night showing of cartoons. Cartoons are cheaper than most TV. Fox has always wanted something to compete with Leno and Letterman. Why not start a late night hour of adult cartoons. You couldn't do Futurama every night, but if you picked up a lot of old stuff (Aeon Flux, The Maxx, etc.) and put out four new cartoons (especially ones with proven track records in the late night hour, like Futurama and Family guy), you could pull it off. The economics might be hard (even only three hours of new programing a week for 20 weeks would get expensive), but since cartoons have better residuals than Letterman (DVD and merchandise sales), maybe you could make a go of it. And it is not like Fox doesn't have a stable of old stuff they could pull back (although syndication rights might be hard.
Just a thought.

hey, dows anyone know this old Hanna-Barbera-Cartoon "The Adventures of (insert name, I can't remember)"? About 10 years later or so they did a remake (The new adventures of...), much better quality and so on... well I didn't really watched it because I wasn't interested, but imagine new Futurama episodes in 10 years, or new episodes of Family guy or of Daria... I keep hoping and dreaming... :)