By: Ryan Ball

What?s good for the Family Guy is good for Fry. DVD sales of FOX?s canned primetime toon, Futurama, reportedly have network execs considering a revival of the Emmy-winning sci-fi comedy series from Simpsons creator Matt Groening and scribe David X. Cohen.

Daily Variety reports that FOX has begun discussions of producing a limited number of new Futurama episodes. The rumor mill is also abuzz with the possibility of a direct-to-DVD feature a la Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story.

Futurama centers on Fry (Billy West), a pizza delivery boy who is accidentally cryogenically frozen and thawed out a thousand years later to find himself a fish out of water in a futuristic society. Having joined up with an intergalactic delivery service, he travels the galaxy and gets into wacky adventures with a rag-tag crew of bizarre characters.

The show lasted five seasons on FOX and picked up three Emmys, including Best Animated Series of 2002. Following its cancellation in 2003, it was picked up in reruns on Cartoon Network, where it has been enjoying a successful run during the broadcasters late-night block, [adult swim]. When that contract expires in Dec. of 2007, exclusive rights to the re-broadcasts will go to Comedy Central, which is shelling out $400,000 per episode. It is not yet known which network will get the new episodes should Fox Television put them into production.

Regarding the possible movie and maybe more episodes, I too have heard this, but I ain’t holding my breath. Though I secretly hope that the reason why Matt Groening hasn’t pulled the plug from the Simpsons (which, dear God, really needs it) is to save up money for future Futurama stuff.

And regarding Comic Book: The Movie, no I haven’t seen it, but if they’re featured, I will most definitely check them out. I actually saw the cast live at the San Deigo Con a few years back, right before they were cancelled (or maybe just after). They were a pretty fine (and every funny) bunch.

It isn’t exactly the best film in the world, but it is cute and entertaining.

As for Futurama, I still need to get the boxed DVD sets. =/

Personally, most of my favourite episodes are in Season 3, but the fourth has some gems of its own. I’m happy that they were able to bring things full-circle before being cancelled — even though the cancellation was actually Fox saying “we’ve preempted the show for football SO MANY GODDAMN TIMES that we’ve got an entire season’s worth of shows still unaired!”, which they finally let slip in August without promotion. Yeah.

The commentaries are great — casual, fun, revealing, and one for every episode. The commentary on the third episode of the first season, “I, Roommate”, really says it all with what happened to the show. When early in production they got all sorts of inconsistent, self-contradicting notes from Fox worrying that it was too “spacey” or unrelatable and that viewers wouldn’t be able to follow. So for this episode they decided to give them want it seemed they wanted — a very down-to-earth, sitcomy story. And Fox’s response was “worst. episode. ever.”

At which point Matt Groening, David Cohen, and company pretty much said “Screw you”, and went off and just made the show they wanted to make. And it was wonderful.

The way the television business is these days, there’s an obscene amount of money being made with DVD sales. Enough that from a financial perspective, the broadcasts are like just a big advertisement for the inevitable DVD. Seriously. Of course, in very general terms — things like Firefly, Futurama, and Arrested Development are notable exceptions — the more popular the show is on the air, the better DVD sales. Profits of these sales go to the production company, not the broadcast network. So if the two are the same, and the network actually owns the show, … well there’s a much greater incentive for the network to try and make that show a success over a show that’s made by someone else.