Watching Simpsons

There are many things to love about Bender, but irreverence is probably the best. But then again, it’s interesting to step back about, and compare Futurama with it’s sister program, The Simpsons. One cannot remotely compare any of the main characters from one show with the other. There’s only one Zoidberg, Fry, Leela, Hermes, Bender or Professor, just like there’s only one Homer, Bart, Marge, Lisa and Maggie. Good writing and show development is certainly key, but one can also make the case that it’s the voice actor’s personality that also plays a dominating, shaping role.

With that in mind, the BBC has a quick interview with Joe DiMaggio, the man responsible for Bender’s distinctive voice, as well as other characters. He deflects most hard news questions about the forthcoming movies and their plots, but he does offer a few teasers, like this:

Yes but I’m not allowed to say the other plots. But Bender does get a little pirate-y. And there are various things that are gross. I don’t know if anyone remembers the episode with the Slurm Queen when she sucks her own tail? It’s along them lines. My father got disgusted by that. So there’s really gross stuff and it’s really funny.

He also goes on to talk about leaving rude answer machine messages “as” Bender, as well what his favorite Bender-ism might be.

Bender, Futurama, Cartoons, Comedy, Animation

As noted previously, the next DVD will be hitting stores in a matter of months. However, the wait shouldn’t be be very long for the other installments. Over on G4TV.com, there are tentative dates of releases for the other discs. There are prospective titles, too. Basically, they checked Katey Sagal’s entry on imdb.com and found the information that way. Here is the pertinent information from the g4tv post:

# Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder (2009) (V) (post-production) (voice) …. Leela
# Futurama: Bender’s Game (2008) (V) (post-production) (voice) …. Leela
# Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs (2008) (V) (voice) …. Leela
# Futurama: Bender’s Big Score (2007) (V) (voice) …. Turanga Leela

Let’s hope that “Into the wild Green Yonder” isn’t the end of the franchise, though.

Futurama, DVDs, Cartoons, Animation

For new fans of the show, it may be a little bit confusing. Supposedly, there are five seasons of Futurama, and yet, there are only four season sets available on DVD. The answer is simple, and no, it doesn’t mean that there’s a fifth DVD set, and that these episodes are languishing digitally some where. According to gotfuturama.com, those episodes are already available on the already released DVDs. There’s one Season 5 episode included in Season 3, and 15 more on Season 4. Gotfuturama.com also has detailed episode descriptions.

For fans of Futurama, there was a little bit of a wilderness; the show was cancelled, rerun for years, and sold as DVD season sets. Then, Bender’s Big Score was made and released, along with the promise of three more straight to DVD features. While Bender’s Big Score was a satisfying return, it’s not really the same as, say, 22 new episodes. In fact, the feature could be construed, collectively, as four episodes (airing soon on Comedy Central). So, basically, it’s now another long wait before in new Futurama content becomes available. Well, according to some reports floating around on the internet, that wait may only be a couple of months. Animation Magazine is currently reporting a June 24th release date.

The next DVD is entitled “The Beast With a Billion Backs.” For those who’ve already seen “Bender’s Big Score,” they would know that the story ends with the fabric of space and time ripping open. Basically, because of illicit time travel, Bender has copied himself hundreds of times, and that drives the universe to split at the seams. The new feature will pick up there. In H.P. Lovecraft fashion, an other-dimensional beings cross the breach. Of course, the resulting planet-sized creature is not as scary. It has develops strange romantic inclinations. (Zap Branigan lust on a colossal scale?) At any rate, as long as it’s as good as “Bender’s Big Score,” fans will likely be satisfied. However, it might not completely sate the thirst for more Futurama, as it will be an equally long time before the third and the fourth features to be released.

Futurama, Bender’s Big Score, Matt Groening, David X. Cohen

He’s at a con signing promo pictures. For the camera, he does Zoidberg, Fry, the Professor, and Zap. For me, it’s always funny to watch voice actors do their thing in person.

Billy West, Futurama

One of the wonderful things about Futurama is how it’s not like The Simpsons. Sure, Groening’s art is the same in the two shows, although there’s more digital enhancement in Futurama. Yet, as has been noted before, the style of satirical writing is fundamentally different, and using science fiction is definite way to provide distinction. Yet, it’s the little things, both in Sci-Fi and pop culture, that always make the show interesting. David X. Cohen is an ardent genre fan, and it shows. So is Groening. But sometimes, the little things in prior careers do make for interesting trivia.

Take Cohen for example. He used to code for computer games. He did this back in the time before cable modems, internet chat rooms and online gaming. For today’s younger generation, it may come as a shock of what computers were actually like in the 1980’s — back during the era of green screen monitors, dot matrix printers, and large square “floppy disks” that literally were floppy. Computer gaming was a lot different back then. The characters looked vary blocky, and the games themselves were very simple; there were no 3-D environments, no polygon textured faces or landscapes.

At that point in time, David X. Cohen worked for Broderbund, a leading software company and game developer that has long since faded. Back then, Cohen coded for a game called “Zoid.” It never came out. However, that game, years later, when Cohen persued a highly different career, would become an interesting subtle influence. In developing Futurama, Cohen decided to name the doctor after that game. The story’s kind of interesting. Chris Baker, over at Wired, writes:

But the game Zoid achieved a sort of immortality when Cohen and Matt Groening were shaping the concept for the show that would be Futurama. Cohen, an ardent Trekkie, believed that their show should have some sort of doctor character like “Bones” McCoy on Star Trek. But whereas McCoy is continually forced to treat weird aliens, the doctor on Futurama would himself be a weird alien with no understanding of human anatomy.

While he and Groening were in Florida watching a space shuttle launch, Cohen decided to name the doctor character after his old video game. Doctor John A. Zoidberg became a fan favorite on Futurama.

Futurama, Zoidberg, David X. Cohen, Matt Groening

This past Christmas, my in-laws gave me The Simpsons Movie on DVD, and then, we all watched it together. Afterwards, I watched it about three more times, and here are my thoughts in a nutshell. By any stretch, this is not a complete review.

The movie, as it’s written, is interesting because it’s structurally different than what fans are used to. The standard Simpsons episode is usually, without commercials, about 15 minutes or so. There’s usually the set up, which in many cases, has nothing to do with the rest of the episode, and then the rest follows up on it. There isn’t really any time for character complexity on a grander scale.

The movie, on the other hand, allows for multiple story lines at the same time. So, we, as viewers, get to see Bart struggle with his relationship with his father, Marge struggle with her marriage, and Lisa fall in love with somebody other than Millhouse. While this is all well and fine, juggling the sub-plots leaves the movie a little humorless and dragging at points. Or, at least, it seems that way.

Some fans I know, like my wife, for example, complained that there wasn’t enough of the other characters, like Patty and Selma or Comic Book Guy. In that regard, it’s a given – if the writers tried to cram in every Springflielder, then the story arcs would have gotten a little bogged down. And also: every episode, every week, doesn’t cram in every minor character, so why should the movie? In a way, the challenge, for the writers, most have been the colossal expectations fans had. After all, there’s been more than a decade of shows in TV episode format. This certainly was an issue with Futurama: Bender’s Big Score, where the writers knew that eventually, the movie was going to be broken down into episode long segments, so it could air on TV. Still, I kind of liked how the movie tried to get a little deeper into the characters, because that gave Bart, Homer, Marge, and Lisa a little more emotional substance than what viewers are used to on TV. At any rate, it’s sad to know that there’s no ready plans for a sequel anytime soon.

The Simpsons, The Simpsons Movie, Writing

This is eight years old, but chalk this up to the wonder that somethings stay on the internet without getting deleted. Mother Jones, a progressive minded political magazine, did an in depth interview with Matt Groening in 1999. It’s not a silly Hank-Azaria-bites-deer interview either, but one where he spells out his ideas and feelings about The Simpsons and Futurama. At the time, Futurama was about to debut on Fox, so much of the interview revolves around that. It’s also of interest that, in this interview, he does confirm having a knowledge of the old science fiction pulps — which fits, since he’s of the age where kids reading a vast amount of cheaply produces fiction digests was as common as some kids reading comic books, or in this day and age, playing console video games.

I’ve loved science fiction ever since I was a little kid, mainly from looking at the covers of science-fiction magazines and books, and I’ve read quite extensively as an adult. About three or four years ago, I decided to reacquaint myself with literary science-fiction and I went back and read everything from H.G. Wells to the new guys, Neil Stephenson and Rudy Rucker and those guys, and what I was surprised to find was that I’d read so much of it. I’d be reading a novel and think, “Wait a minute, I read this in fourth grade,” but I didn’t remember cause I’d plowed through so much. But a lot of my old favorites I thought really held up, I liked [Robert] Heinlein and [Philip K.] Dick and Cordwainer Smith and Theodore Sturgeon and Robert Sheckley — the funny guys, the guys who have a sense of humor.

Basically, Futurama and the concept behind it was a labor of love. That’s a good thing. After all, after the pioneering success, it would have been very easy, and very cheap, in my view, to spin off characters into a new shows. The Moe Show … The Principal Skinner Show … The Comic Book Guy Show … all of them would be bad, bad, terribly bad ideas. Even more, a standard practice in the entertainment industry is to do variations on a successful concept — that’s why The Family Guy and King of the Hill will always owe a debt to The Simpsons, just as The Simpsons owes a debt to The Flinstones and The Jetsons.

So, it’s good that Groening decided to persue something completely independent of The Simpson. Plus, it’s a good thing that he decided to persue something he’s had an interest in. According to the interview, producer David X. Cohen shared the science fiction love. Even more, the idea of Futurama gave Groening an excuse to conduct “research” into the genre. Cohen and Groening’s enthusiasm helped sell the show nearly immediately:

I spent way too much time — a few years — researching science fiction and making long lists of things I wanted to do and characters and ideas that I wanted to explore. After I assembled a few hundred pages of ideas, I got together with David Cohen, one of the writers and executive producers on “The Simpsons,” who is also a lover of science fiction and has a great knowledge of science and mathematics. He was excited and he had a lot to do with the thrust of the show and the direction, so he and I developed this thing together, and took it to Fox. They’d been begging me for years for another show, and in the meeting — which lasted about three hours because we had so much to talk about, we just knew the show inside and out — they jumped up and down and ordered 13 episodes on the spot. And then, that’s when the honeymoon was over, after that. The second they ordered it, they completely freaked out and were afraid the show was too dark and mean-spirited, and thought they had made a huge mistake and that the only way they could address their anxieties was to try to make me as crazy as possible with their frustrations.

Of course, there are other interesting things Groening talks about in this old interview. There’s his Life in Hell comic strips, the nature of business in Hollywood, the business of satire, and so on. Definitely an interesting read.

The Simpsons, Futurama, Life in Hell, Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Mother Jones

The writers strike, beyond the talk shows, has yet to be felt among the sitcoms. As has been mentioned everywhere else, shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, and Conan O’Brien have to come up with content more often and more quickly then live action and animated comedies and dramas do. Still, I have often asked myself what I would do when the strike ever touches The Simpsons. New episodes are always welcome, but since the show is so old now, watching it in syndication or even off of DVD most often provides a chance to view missed episodes, or even one that have been forgotten.

Yet, that’s never enough. For some, there will always be a thirst for fresh Simpsons and Futurama content. If that’s the case, there’s always Groening’s considerable publishing empire, and those are always a good tool for scratching the intermittent Simpsons itch, especially the Bongo Comics line and collections available at book and comic stores just about anywhere. In truth, reading a Simpsons or Futurama – or other Bongo titles like Radioactive Man – is a lot like reading story boards for episodes that were never made. The hilarity is still there, and to a degree, the comics are not constrained by time limits or television program formatting. But then again, comics are sequential imagery, and in the end, they do not take the place of the animated shows.

That said, there’s a very useful Simpsons blog out there, when it comes to Bongo Comics and all it’s Simpsons and Futurama related titles. When Bongos Collide provides an exhaustive source of info and links. Plus, The Simpsons Channel, a more generalized Simpsons-centered blog, features a monthly round up which comics has been released, giving every episode a short synopsis.

The Simpsons, Futurama, Bongo Comics, Comic Books

Can’t Get Enough of Futurama, which looks to be one a pretty exhaustive, in depth Futurama blog, has an interesting interview with producer David X. Cohen. Here’s Cohen on Bender’s Big Score, as well as the other Futurama movies about to come out:

The goal was to maintain the tone of the show while giving the overall presentation a more cinematic feel. For that reason, we went to widescreen for the first time ever, and mixed the audio in 5.1 surround sound. The writing process was largely the same, however — just supersized. All of the writers on this project were veterans of the series, so I think it will feel pretty consistent… at least, no less consistent than when we were on the air. And the animation is beautiful.

Of course, the movie is a different format then the TV episodes:

Going to feature length was definitely a challenge. But there were benefits, too, since in virtually every one of our original episodes, we had trouble cramming the plot into 22 minutes, because we were almost always going for grand, movie-like stories anyway. So on one hand it was a relief to have more room to maneuver; on the other hand, we were in uncharted territory.

I’d wager the producers of The Simpsons Movie probably faced similar challenges.

With the new Futurama DVD out, it might be good to remind people of the show itself. In many ways, the show is much less restrained than The Simpsons. Because, at it’s core, The Simpsons is also a family comedy, and so the episodes are structured more abround that aspect. This clip, while not really from the show itself, is an ad for Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” It also pretty much sums up what type of jerk Bender is.

Al Gore, Bender, Futurama

Since there’s the new Futurama DVD, it might be good to catch the non-Futurama-watching Groening fans up on who Bender is. Who better to explain Bender than the robot’s creator?

Futurama, Bender, Matt Groening

There’s a joke in The Simpsons where a guy is standing on a cliff, shouts “Why did they cancel Futurama?” And then, he throws himself off the cliff. Of course, there’s a little bit more to the joke, as this wasn’t really a case of Simpsons tit-for-tat feud with The Family Guy or South Park. Groening created and produced the show, the animation style was almost exactly the same, and so on. They both have the same style and spirit of satire, only Futurama seems a little more unleashed. In a way, I like to think of the two shows in the same way The Flintstones and The Jetsons are related.

So, in that Spirit, I think this blog needs a new tag and category. In short, the coverage here will be expanded to include Futurama. And in that department, there’s news as of late. Sure, Fox cancelled the show, but Groening has gone on with a few new projects, the first of which is set for release straight on DVD. A review over at Monsters and Critics explains more, as well as notes that while on hiatus, there has been no shake-ups on the voice acting and writing levels. Apparently, the new feature has all of the flavor and substance of the old show, only with a bit more room then the standard half an hour with commercials format. The new DVD is set for release on November 27. And, according to The Animation Blog, three more DVD movies will follow, and the show will end up back on TV, but at Comedy Central.

The Simpsons, Futurama, Bender, Comedy Central