The Planet Express is fully fueled and ready for another fantastic flight!
Celebrating its 25th anniversary since first debuting on the Fox Network back on March 28, 1999, "Futurama" returns today on the Hulu streaming platform for a 10-episode 12th season of weird and wild exploits in the 31st century.
Created by "The Simpsons"' Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, "Futurama" presents the planet-hopping excursions of a regular pizza delivery dude named Philip J. Fry who unfortunately lands into a cryogenic chamber while on a New Year's Eve delivery job in 1999. Once melted, he wakes up 1,000-years into the future of New York City amid a metropolis of sci-fi marvels where he meets a one-eyed mutant woman named Leela and Bender, a beer-guzzling, wise-cracking robot.
Here's the official Season 12 synopsis:
"On this orbit around the sun, our occasionally heroic crew embarks on mind-bending adventures involving birthday party games to the death, the secrets of Bender's ancestral robot village, A.I. friends (and enemies), impossibly cute beanbags, and the true 5 million-year-old story behind the consciousness-altering substance known as coffee. And, of course, the next chapter in Fry and Leela's fateful, time-twisted romance."
"Futurama" spotlights the outstanding vocal work of John DiMaggio (Bender), Billy West (Fry, Prof. Farnsworth and Dr. Zoidberg), Katey Segal (Leela), Tress MacNeille (Leela’s mom, Linda and Nerdbot, Phil LaMarr (Hermes), Lauren Tom (Amy), and Maurice LaMarche (Calculon, Kif and Morbo).
"It's heart and so much of that goes to Billy West as Fry," Lauren Tom tells Space.com regarding "Futurama's" enduring appeal and timeless qualities. "Fry is so relatable and he's got such a giant heart and an innocence and I feel like the fandom feels like a big family, just like the way our cast members do because we've been doing it for decades. And it would be nothing without our brilliant writers. It's never dumbed-down for the audience and they keep us on our toes."
West believes that a major part of the show's long-lasting appeal is that the characters are all flawed in different ways.
"Matt [Groening] said to us one time that 'The Simpsons' is a cartoon and to him, "Futurama" is real," West recalls. "He thought it was great that we voiced the characters as if they were people that you could actually know, like there was a third dimension to everyone. Everybody gave a thousand percent.
When I first saw the characters, I wanted to do Matt Groening proud, I wanted them to last forever and I wanted them to be like someone you'd know in real life. The thing about the show is that it's a zombie show, it keeps going away and coming back. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or something like that."
In fine tuning their "Futurama" performances over the years, West and Tom point to an organic evolution of the voices that only comes with age as the seasons progress.
"Whenever you watch the beginning of a show, the first few episodes or so, and then you jump to the 60th episode, the voices always sound different. I like evolution," West adds. "I've watched early episodes of "The Simpsons" and Homer was like, 'Mah-Mah-Mah.' Then he developed this cornucopia of emotions and quirks and I love that stuff. That's what happened in 'Futurama,' everybody became what they were supposed to be, including Bender, he sounded different in the beginning.
"I try to keep Fry just as out of it, needy, whiny, complaining, which was me at 25 years old. I was in a band and I had to remember what I sounded like back then. 'Oh man, I broke a string. Now what am I supposed to do?' It just seemed to work for Fry. He's needy and all over the place and he's a project for a girl, which is perfect for Leela who's so strong and decisive. But his heart is in the right place."
Tom was concerned that Amy might sound different when "Futurama" was revived by Hulu last year, simply due to human voices changing slightly as we age, so she asked David X. Cohen about that dilemma when they first came back.
"My voice is a little bit deeper now than it was back in the '90s," she notes. "I asked him if I should try to match that, or just go with the way I sound now. David said to just go with the way I sound now, because they want the characters to have grown some and matured.
In this last season, Amy and Kif had kids and that kind of changes a person. It's nice that in this new season we get to revisit those stories with their kids. I think that will be relatable to any of the fans that are parents. As hard as we try, we can never not pass along our crap. We have to save up our pennies for either bail or therapy for our kids."
"Futurama" Season 12 streams weekly episodes on Hulu beginning on July 29.
