Same old thing: No Futurama until July 13th, then 5 episodes in a row (Sundays 7PM) and then no more Futurama. The new thing: Next episode to air is "Spanish Fry", in which our protagonist from the past loses his horn to aliens. Click the link for the long description to this Ron 'Fryrish / Pharaoh' Weiner episode.
Being produced as the second-last in the series, it makes me wonder why FOX pulled this one ahead of the 3 missing (seemingly Bender-centric) episodes before the series finale. Especially "Bender should not be allowed on TV" went missing for quite some time now.

Some nice season one episodes this week. I like all these episodes, but I must admit, I've sort of gotten bored with My Three Suns after watching it so often... Though it might be I don't generally like Egypt-style anythings.
Mon 30th: Love's Labour's Lost In Space
Tue 01st: Fear Of a Bot Planet
Wed 02nd: A Fishful of Dollars
Thu 03rd: My Three Suns

In addition to the still hoped for Futurama panel at San Diego Comic Con 2003, it looks like Futurama writer Patric Verrone will be on a Saturday, July 19th, 10:30 AM panel in
room 9 sponsored by the Writers Guild of America's Animation Writers Caucus. The topic will be needed skills and properties for animation writers and editors in today's animation business. Other planned for panel guests are George Krstic (Low Brow, Cartoon Network) and Alan Burnett (Warner Bros. Animation).

Missing 6 more episodes from season 2, "Bender Gets Made" now got added to our Quotes & Sounds section.

Bender: "Oh my god. I'm so excited I wish I could wet my pants!"

Have a look and listen to them.

Out of the early Futurama times, the magnet sets were hard to come by for a longer while. Now eMerchandise restocked these three:

• Bender Magnet Memo Board:
  Slap on refrigerator, take notes, erase, repeat.
• Cast Collection Magnet Set:
  10 cast magnets, from Amy to Zapp.
• Poster Collection Magnet:
  The mini edition of the 9 tin signs.

No idea how many they have. If you don't see a red "In Stock!" at the top of the item descriptions on their site, it's already gone again.

According to The Futon Critic, FOX gave out their summer programming plan. Although it doesn't list episode names, here are the dates (7pm Sundays):

June 22nd: No new Futurama. NASCAR *
June 29th: No Futurama. True Lies
July 06th: No Futurama. Independence Day
July 13th: New Futurama. Episode tba.
July 20th: New Futurama. Episode tba.
July 27th: New Futurama. Episode tba.
Aug. 03rd: New Futurama. Episode tba.
Aug. 10th: New Futurama. Series Finale.

The West will see a repeat of "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" on this Sunday.

Let's hope this holds true so the waiting can have an end.

Starting Tuesday, Cartoon Network will for a last time go back to the 1ACV block before it will suspend Futurama after a July 24th airing of "The Lesser of Two Evils". If you for some reason never saw the series pilot (*cough* get the DVDs), watch it.
Mon 23rd: Where No Fan Has Gone Before
Tue 24th: Space Pilot 3000
Wed 25th: The Series Has Landed
Thu 26th: I, Roomate

In the current issue of the Official XBox magazine in UK there is an extra DVD disk that includes a playable demo of the new Futurama video game.

The level revolves around Fry blasting aliens in a bar. The level lasts 5 minutes because it's a timed based demo. The loading screen is of Zapp with the quotation "Join the Army! What are you, chicken? Buk Buk Buk!"
At this message board, people are reviewing the demo. Keep in mind that they aren't really Futurama fans though.
Thanks to Gary for originally bringing this to my attention, and people at PEEL.

Also, SCi's latest press release on a sponsorship deal with the Sky One airings of Futurama lists the release date for the XBox and PS2 versions as August 1st.

Jeff Russel sent me two interesting wallpapers featuring a 3D modelled Zoidberg head from two different angles. They are available in three sizes on our wallpaper #5 page. Now I want to see the rest of the crew already!

And here we go with our Three Hundred Big Boys update:

• Sounds & Quotes: 10 great lines from this episode to reread and relisten to.
  
• Frame Grabs: For those who missed a scene or just want to see one again.
  
• Reviews: So, what were your thoughts about this episode? Any good? Pretty good? Tell everyone.


• Capsule: Add all the things you noticed while watching the episode go to this capsule's different sections.

And now... contribute! Trivia for this and two other missing episodes will hopefully be added throughout this week.

Sun. 15th: New Futurama "Three Hundred Big Boys"
Sun. 22nd: No new Futurama. NASCAR.
Sun. 29th: No Futurama. True Lies.

The west will get a repeat of "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" on the 22nd. No clue why FOX is showing a movie on the 29th. Some affiliates list movies for July 6th (say hello to a late "Independence Day"...)
We're still missing 5 episodes after tomorrow's show.

Fry, a stock holder for Planet Express? Bender, a talented chef? Leela, a daughter of mutants? Lucy Liu, Bender's girlfriend??? Find out all this and more on this week's Adult Swim Futurama line-up on Cartoon Network at 11PM Eastern/Pacific Time.
Mon 16th: Futurestock
Tue 17th: 30% Iron Chef
Wed 18th: Leela's Homeworld
Thu 19th: Love and Rocket

A little update on the current planning of Sky One over in the United Queendom: With "The Sting", Sunday the 22nd will see the first new episode in a long while (19:00). "The Farnsworth Parabox" and "300 Big Boys" are to follow the next two Sundays from then. After that, 3 weeks of reruns are planned. Each of these 3 new episodes is repeated the next Saturday at 20:00.

However, keep in mind that the further into the future we go, the less stable these schedulings get.

New York Post writer Don Kaplan wrote up a short article about animation for grown-ups and Adult Swim in special. Quoting Cartoon Network programming chief Mike Lazzo on Futurama and Family Guy:

"I believe they were somewhat mishandled when they originally ran [on network TV]. I never knew when it was on. Until we got the show, I didn't realize how good it was."

Wish some other programming chief had talked to him a few years ago...

On the topic of Cartoon Network and Futurama I often get email asking why they couldn't renew Futurama instead of FOX. The main problem is money. Futurama costs too much per episode and to quote Mr Lazzo again "the point is to try and produce these shows inexpensively enough to try and get something to pop like 'Beavis & Butt-head' and 'South Park' did when they were first done as short pieces." Unlike Family Guy, Futurama wouldn't work that well in an inexpensive version.

After spending quite some time with the new Futurama Season 3 DVD set, edel and I sat down to write an extensive review. Hope this answers some questions. And before you ask: No, we don't know when the USA is getting this. Wait for Season 2 first or import it (if you can play PAL/region-2). It's really a great set which could warrant getting your DVD player 'fixed'.

Sorry for the lateness:
Multimedia:

• Sounds & Quotes: The best lines from The Farnsworth Parabox to reread and relisten to.
• Frame Grabs: Missed a scene? No problem you can check out a massive amount of grabs.

And now it's time for you to contribute with in our interactive section:

• Reviews: What did you think of this episode? I'm pretty sure the writer of this episode will read these, but others might be interested, too.
• Capsule: Add all the things you noticed to this capsule's different sections.

I personally thought the episode was one of the best, it had great lines. And what can ever go wrong when there are 2 Zoidbergs

Well, not really, but read on.
I got my Futurama Season 3 DVD set today. First impression is pretty great, but a full review will have to wait till I had more time to go through it. Mid of next week, I guess.
In the meantime, the UK set from amazon.co.uk does include an Australian copyright notice (along with an Alien Language one), which strongly indicates that the set again plays just fine on Australian DVD players. And indeed, aslate from PEEL confirms that the set is both region 2 and region 4.

Sun. 8th: New Futurama "The Farnsworth Parabox"
Sun. 15th:New Futurama "Three Hundred Big Boys"
Sun. 22nd: No Futurama. Driving in circles instead.

Well, had to happen. Three episodes in a row was a record for this season anyway. The Parabox is about a mysterious box of the professor's playing tricks with Leela while the Big Boys shows us how a $300 tax refund works out. The West might have a rerun on the 22nd.

Enjoy this week's episodes. I personally thought Bender as a human in AOI2 was great. Godfellas was also a very humours episode. I don't know why everyone seemed to dislike Pharaoh, I liked that episode a lot and thought it was funny!
Mon 09th: A Pharaoh To Remember
Tue 10th: Anthology of Interest II
Wed 11th: Roswell That Ends Well
Thu 12th: Godfellas

Now we got a 4th possible Futurama Season 2 DVD release date for the USA and the rest of region 1. Amazon.com lists it as August 3rd and takes preorders for the set again. Weirdly enough, that's a Sunday and probably not that reliable. The price is set at $37.49 which is 25% off of the $49.98 list price. Keep in mind that this set will feature all the 19 2ACV episodes and thus the cost per episode is even lower than for the Futurama Season 1 DVD set.
In conclusion: It will probably arrive sometime during the general August time and is well worth the buy.

About a week ago, Futurama comics #13 came out, so it's time to give it $2.50 and a read. Then let us see some feedback.
This comic was written by Ian Boothby of Futurama/Simpsons cross-over fame. I think he'll also be reading the reviews here. The story starts like this:

Things go to hell in a handbasket when Bender loses his job after accidentally poisoning the Planet Express crew. But there are slim pickings on the unemployment line for a former bending unit turned toxic chef. That is until he gets an offer he can't refuse from the robot devil.

The one thing I saw was that in favour of an interview with a Ho, there are no more fan letters/art pieces published. Not even an address listed. Maybe they gave up due to too few submissions. Let's change that! Write all your comic fan letters to (and say CGEF sent you ;) ):

Bongo Comics Group
P.O. Box 1963
Santa Monica, CA 90406-1963

or email them at futuramacomics@bongocomics.com. Make sure to add the legal line "For consideration for publication in Bongo Comics. I agree if you publish my submission it becomes your property," and sign off with your name.

There's some shaking going on with the region-1/North America Futurama Season 2 DVD release date. We currently have 3 possible dates:

August 12th: This comes from FOXTVDVD.com.

August 26th: That's what the FOX TV site claimed previously.

September 2nd: And this is what amazon stated. Not too official.

I take it that FOX didn't change their website without reason, so we can hope for 08/12, but I'll see if I can get any additional word on it. However, the responsible PR company seems to be lost in a DNS-loop right now ... In any way, there's still some time left to clear that up.

Incidentally, if you got the European Season 3 DVD set which has been released a few hours ago, take the time to watch it and then review it yourself.

Also, the (final) Futurama Season 4 DVD set is in the extras adding step right now. (Says who? Me!)

And here we go:
Multimedia:

1. Sounds & Quotes: The best lines from The Sting to reread and relisten to.
2. Frame Grabs: For the magic moments and freeze frame fun you missed.

And now it's time for you to contribute with in our interactive section:

1. Episode Trivia: Test your attention span with these 10 questions
2. Reviews: What did you think of this episode? I'm pretty sure the writer of this episode will read these, but others might be interested, too.
3. Episode Capsule: Submit all goofs, reference, comments, and things you othterwise noticed.
4. PEEL discussion: For all further reaching discussion of this episode, check out the Planet Express Employee Lounge

Me personally? Liked it Liked it more so after watching it again even though this one is not one of the geeky or external reference heavy episodes. It's becoming clearer and clearer now that the series is nearing its end.