I was a bit bored today and added a Simpsons Merchandise section. So, if you still don't have your Simpsons Season 2 DVD fix or your Simpsons Guide, might as well get them now.

Some people asked where to buy the Crossover Comic online: There are some auctions on ebay.co.uk or you could look at milehighcomics in a while (none available right now).

I added the first 5 pages of shadowstars all NEW guide pages to the fan art page. They're pretty good. I also got the corrected tab of the Slurm surf theme. He said last one was inaccurate.

Some new stuff on Futurama Season 5:

• Associated Press has a report on the possible Baseball strike this year (decision on Saturday) which includes this:

  The entertainment division would take over the lost prime-time postseason time slots, but the network is scrambling to decide whether to move the launch of the new season for many shows to October instead of after the World Series.

  However, with only 16 episodes left, this is somewhat unlikely to happen to Futurama.
  
  
• mediaweek columnist Marc Berman lists Futurama with a premiere date of November 10th at 7:30 pm now. This would go with information we previously wrote about. If FOX does promote the new time slot and Futurama gets to actually stay there instead of fluctuating, then this would be a good thing, as it means less football preempting. If ...
  

The often overlooked Futurama Lunch Box is on sale at eMerchandise right now. Sale price is $18.36 instead of $22.95 (20% off). The fully embossed metal lunch box measures 8" x 7" x 3 3/4" and surely is useful beyond stuffing food into it.

Also have a look at eMerchandise's other Futurama stuff and support us some

Remember that surfer tune in the 'fry and the slurm factory' episode, well I don't, but someone submitted a guitar tab for it, I haven't checked it out, but I'm assuming it's correct. I'll check it out tomorrow on my guitar.

As the Futurama/Simpsons Crossover Comic is on sale now, I added it to the comic review list.

Be a good boy/girl and review it. The authors would probably like to see some feedback from the fans.
Thanks go to Ian from Bongo Comics again for keeping us up to date on the comic throughout its creation.

The second Crossover will be out in December.

There we go: I updated all Futurama Capsules, so you can now download the new txt files if you collect them.

Looks like FOX is not rerunning 'Where no fan has gone before' anytime soon, so I also added that capsule - based mostly on work by Alan Hamilton. This includes a huge list of Star Trek episodes referenced. Thanks!

With that capsule added, we now have a capsule for every Season 4 episode which you can read and add to!

I got 2 wallpapers from impossible today, it seems she also does wallpapers now, let's hope she'll send in as many as she sends in his art, which is great well enjoy.

Hey, I'm back from holiday and Andie is back from being lazy (got the whip handy), so there should be updates from now on again
So, first thing to do: tell you what's on today. Godfellas it is! That's my favourite Season 4 episode where Bender is catapulted into space and both becomes and meets God. Here are some links for it:

Episode Guide

lots of reviews

Frame Grabs

Sounds & Quotes

and of course the Episode Capsule

Watch it, it's great! (A 92% rating from over 90 reviews can't lie)

Next week: No Futurama
Week after: Rerun of the season 3 premier The Honking, but pre-empted for NFL in the Eastern and Central time zones.

I got a nice drawn picture from Jimmy Hird of futurama, check it out and I also want to take this opportunity to promote getting the 'futurama/simpsons' crossover comic, check out some info at the articles page about it. Enjoy, I'll be away for the rest of the week now to some rock concert..

I added a new wallpaper made by Jo Jo, check it out at the wallpaper section. Also don't forget to form huge lines at the comic book store tomorrow to get your copy of the futurama/simpsons crossover comic.

Ok the capsule of 'the day earth stood stupid' is now ready. You can begin adding to the capsule. The entries won't be approved until mArc gets back from his parents though.

Today at 7PM airs 'the day earth stood stupid where The Earth is conquered by flying brains with the power to turn normal human beings into idiots. This episode got a 93% CGEF rating, enjoy.

I got this new submitted game last week, it's pretty fun, the gfx aren't that good, and it's butt hard, check it out and deliver those packages...

This season's Baseball - repeatedly the reason for Futurama pre-emptions - might run into a strike starting on August 30th unless an agreement between the owners and players is found:

Sports Illustrated:

Players set an Aug. 30 strike date Friday, moving the sport closer to its ninth work stoppage in three decades and angering fans sick of money squabbles. [...] The St. Louis Cardinals' game at the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 30 would be the first affected by a strike. Fourteen games are scheduled for that night.

The mean strike duration in the past has been 2 weeks, but the average is as high as 46 days due to the last strike in 1994/95 which lasted as long as 234 days.

Enough Baseball babble, what's this got to do with Futurama?

FOX can't just go black screen on its Baseball Sundays. About a month ago they told that they'd be vested with "alternative programming" but wouldn't disclose details.
Pure speculation: This might mean that they have to pull the season start of Futurama and other shows some more towards September.

News Corp. President Peter Chernin:

We have put together fall launch plans that are sort of based around the playoffs and the World Series and using that as a promotional platform to help launch those series. If that is not there, I guess there won't be a promotional platform and it will disrupt our scheduling plans.

I got 5 promotional pictures of the Futurama/Simpsons comic that comes out next Wednesday. I guess you'll all want to buy that comic, but feast your eyes on these first sneak peaks at the newest Futurama comic. Thanks goes out to Ian Boothby at Bongo for giving us the chance to put these promotional pictures online.

An article on Cinescape tells us that Mike Judge, the creator of King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead, is working now to bring us the movie '3001': the story of a modern man transported to the year 3001. Sounds familiar ...

Fry: "huhu, you said boobies, huhu."
Leela: *snort* "booooobies, hehe, hehe"

no please?

Got bored and did a little wallpaper of mom in the PlanEx ad which is a direct reference to Apple's 1984 ad, directed by Ridley Scott and first aired during the Super Bowl. People kept wondering what Apple was trying to sell with that ad. It turned out that the Macintosh was a personal home computer.

As "The Day the Earth stood stupid" is going to air next Sunday, I did the episode sounds and quotes for it.

All glory to the hypnotoad.

As there have been news on slahsdot and Fark about Futurama today, here are some things in regards to our current understanding of Futurama's state:

• CN seems to be negotiating for reruns only for now
  
• Nothing is confirmed by "the heads" as of now
  
• Futurama is out of production this year. The episodes that are shown from 11-11-02 on are left overs from Season 3 and 4. No production run 5. Quite some if not most of the artists and writers had to switch to other productions (like back to the Simpsons)

Many get confused by the fact that Futurama is both "on TV" and "out of production".
Our news on the CN thing:

Futurama Syndication?

More information from source

Neat site supporting us: Fry By Investigation

Rixtin sent a set of Futurama playing cards to our toy imp Jon. Actually, it's two decks. And they come in a nicely detailed tin case. The conclusion of his review? Well, read yourself


Oh, and afterwards, go to TFAW to buy them online! (Takes a few seconds to load)
Thanks to RixTin for providing the sample!

Neat site supporting us: Sage's Ronin Page

Yes we do that, I processed another batch of submissions today, if yours hasn't come up yet, it'll get on very soon. impossible sent me some of the latest new drawings, I hope you enjoy them.

Today at 7pm it is time for "The 30% Iron Chef" in which Bender challenges Elzar to a cooking competition in the televised 'kitchen coliseum' known as the "Iron Cook" after he's been rejected by the Planet Express crew.

The episode got an 85% rating by our readers which is about 5% above the Season 4 average.

Quick links:

Iron Chef Pictures

Iron Chef Quotes & Sounds

Iron Chef reviews
and just in:

Futurama episode capsule for Iron Chef
Make sure you add to the capsule!

Next Sunday: The Day the Earth Stood Stupid
Sunday after: Godfellas

The 'Dark Horse' subsidiary 'Things from another planet' has stocked up on Futurama Merchandise. Here are some new highlights:

Futurama Tin Coaster Set
For only $5.99 you get four tin coasters in a neatly high quality. They are available off the shelve right now. Read the detailed and picture rich Futurama Coaster review by Jon, our lovable rascal.

Squishy Brain Slug
The picture you see is a prototype only. The real thing will be around sometime next year - probably February. But TFAW offers 10% off the price ($8.99 then) if you pre order it now. This is the toy many have been waiting for. The real thing should look some less 'painted'.

Zapp Brannigan Atomic Ray Gun
This is meant to ship in two months already, but I got no real picture of it yet. You can see a prototype picture of this highly nostalgic tin gun on Jon's TFMP. Again: 10% off the price ($11.69 then) if you pre order it now!

I got 3 new Futurama wallpapers from Paul and a nice drawing of Angelic Leela with devilish Fry by Erdrik for you today.

Unrelated: There are only 5 copies of the Futurama 2003 calendar (pic) left at amazon.com at the moment, but they will get new ones soon. The low stock could mean that Harper Entertainment didn't produce that many this year.

... changed the speed of light in 2208.

"A team of Australian scientists has proposed that the speed of light may not be a constant," reports Reuters in an article on Yahoo!News.
Interesting if true. Besides the negligible horrid conclusions for science as we know it (right up to E=mc

FOX in the UK told me that the Futurama Season 2 DVD set would indeed be released in November and not October like stated before.
Also, good news for those without a DVD player: A VHS version will be released, too.

Update: As noted in the comments, amazon.de lowered the price for the season 2 set to ~ €50 today. These discs will very very likely include english sound again. If you want to preorder them but know no german here is what you need to click to order:

1. "Jetzt vorbestellen" (in the top right)
2. Zur Kasse gehen (in the top left)
3. enter your email address in the top box and check the first box saying "Ich bin ein neuer Kunde", then "weiter"
4. enter fields in order: first+lastname, leave empty, streetaddress, city code, city name, leave empty, country and phonenumber
5. click weiter twice
6. enter some password in the top box, repeat in box below, check "Visa/VisaElectron" and select your credit card type, enter credit card number, expiration date and owner name to the right of that
7. click weiter twice

We asked around for people to verify the story of Futurama being picked up by cartoon network. A reliable source at cartoon network said that there are negotiations going on between fox and cartoon network for the reruns of futurama. So it's not a done deal yet, but we can all hope.

As promised yesterday: A first ComicCon 2002 report on the Futurama panel by Alex Franklin is now up for reading. Little excerpt:

"Futurama will probably appear in the 7:30 time slot a few times which will surely help the show"

We will see if a jumping timeslot helps the ratings but it should help the die hard fans in football heavy areas.

If any of you got photos of the Futurama panel, mail in!
Now read the article.

Here is the first report on the San Diego ComicCon: Alex Franklin was nice enough to mail us a Season 5 Spoiler of Less Than Heroes which was pre-aired on the Futurama panel. It includes SPOILERS, but not everything is revealed. Anyway, you have been warned.
More from Alex soon!

There has been some (seemingly well-informed) rumour about Futurama being syndicated on Cartoon Network as part of the Adult Swim block. The rumours started on the San Diego Comic Con where strangely enough non of the Futurama people talked about it, but the Cartoon Network guys seemingly did. Here is a thread about it on PEEL and a short notice at 'Cartoon Research' (authored by Jerry Beck who works for Cartoon Network if I remember correctly).

This could mean several things:
• A late time slot (possibly after midnight even).
  
• Futurama gets to show how well it performs with an older audience
  
• Opens the gates for American Season 1 DVDs in a few years
  
• They could run 5 days a week
  
• Might make it more lucrative for FOX to order a real new Season 5
  

Futurestock got a good (3.0/6) overnight rating yesterday but still only scored 4th place for the time slot. Still a nice hike from last weeks low rating and I can't help but grin at how Greg the Bunny directly afterwards lost 16% of the audience Futurama built up and came in with (2.5/5).

Ok, so this is not Futurama news but still well worth noting.
After waiting quite some time now, the Simpsons Season 2 DVDs will go on sale in the US tomorrow. I already got the set a week ago in Germany and must say ... well done. It's sure a classic and the image quality is quite some better than the Season 1 Set, too. The 4 discs feature 22 episodes which each have a selectable second audio track full of commentaries from the writers, directors and of course - Groening. In addition we can look at interviews, Award ceremonies, two music videos (Do the Bartman!), "how an episode is done" clips and a TV spot. A neat little episode guide makes the thing round. So: PACKED!

Buy it online!

• amazon.com for $32.49 (That's 35% off!)
  
• amazon.co.uk for £31.99 (still 20% off!)
  
• amazon.de for €54,99 (Includes English sound, no shipping fees within Germany)
  

We will see a rerun of the season 4 episode Futurestock today at 7PM:

At the annual shareholders meeting, Fry meets a 1980s Wall Street power player and ultimately nominates him to replace Professor Farnsworth as the CEO of Planet Express. The new CEO appoints Fry as Vice Chairman and differences are quickly discovered when the strategy is to sell off the Planet Express Company. A mutinous Fry realizes the bona-fide value of the enterprise and attempts to restore the original regime.

Nice episode in my opinion, watch it, listen to the best quotes, rate it, see if you can add to the capsule (txt-file).

Next week: 30% Iron Chef
Week after: The Day the Earth Stood Stupid

FOX basically ordered our 'buddies-from-the-start' ET to shut down their Simpsons site. Shame on you FOX - 3 hours corner time. Was a damn great site to further the Simpsons saga and bring it to the internet level.

As mentioned on ET, we hope to see some of the fine things returning. Check out The Simpsons Showcase for Simpsons stuff.

I'm very sorry for not updating about this sooner. But it turns out the Futurama staff including Matt Groening will be at the San Diego Comic Con this Saturday in California. Here is th information:

1:00 Futurama-o-rama!–Matt Groening is proud to present Comic- Con’s fourth annual Futurama funfest! Join Matt and, executive producer David X. Cohen, along with an all-star panel for a preview of the upcoming Futurama season. You can pester writers Bill Odenkirk, Patric Verrone, Ken Keeler, and Dan Vebber, match wits with voice actors Billy West, John DiMaggio, Phil Lamarr, and Maurice Lamarche, and bow in reverence to animation producers Claudia Katz and Rich Moore. In addition to the stellar conversation, be prepared to be the first in your quadrant to see an exclusive Futurama video premiere! Room 6BCDEF

Once again, I'm very sorry for not updating with this sooner. I could have attended this event, but forgot about it until just now :/ Hopefully someone can go, take pictures, and tell us what happened at the event tomorrow. For more information, head on over to Comic-Con.org

Our petition was mentioned in a column of the LA Weekly (available at Yahoo! News), which means our cause is still not forgotten by the press, and it shouldn't be forgotten by you either: the Petition to save Futurama is still going on. So if you are one of the few who haven't signed it yet, do it now

Want a blast from the past? Well then, I added the Space Pilot 3000 Capsule from way back in 1999. With all the details about the beginning of Futurama this sure is an interesting read.

Uploaded the sounds and quotes for "The Bird-bot of Ice-catraz" - Futurama's version if a politically correct environmentalism episode. Enjoy.

Free Waterfall Sen: "If rubbin' frozen dirt in your crotch is wrong, hey, I don't wanna be right."


PS: Also updated the Futurama Capsules with your submissions. Thanks.

I added another Jono winamp skin, I forgot to put it up last time because I couldn't find it, but here it is. And Jelle De Herdt amazes us again with one of his great wallpapers. He says he'll make more soon