Up next in 10
After being on the air for over 30 years, it's become clear The Simpsons are sort of running on fumes. The Golden Years of the Simpsons are in the past, and the animated sitcom sees no signs of slowing down. On the other hand, Futurama is currently back for it's 3rd reboot after cancellation. With all this time off, the Futurama team was able to rework elements of the show to sustain it's longevity. The Simpsons however, without a gap in episodes ever, has never been able to take a step back and see what's not working. How has this helped Futurama maintain a quality over The Simpsons?
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
That's it for our spinoff showcase
0:02
But what about the show that started it all? How do you keep The Simpsons fresh and funny after eight long years
0:09
When The Simpsons made this joke about the show potentially growing stale, it was in its eighth season
0:14
which was already a record-breaking run for a primetime cartoon. Of course, what no one knew then was that the series was really just getting started
0:21
And while it's generally agreed the show has spent most of its later years running on creative fumes
0:25
Good news, everyone! The Simpsons' sibling series, Futurama, has managed to stay fresh and funny, and ironically, that's because it keeps getting cancelled
0:35
Why did they cancel Futurama? After making their debut in a series of shorts on The Tracy Ullman Show in 1987
0:44
The Simpsons received their own series on the Fox network just two years later. Created by cartoonist Matt Groening, the show initially told relatively grounded stories about a blue-collar family
0:54
in a town that might as well have been located anywhere in America, despite, or perhaps because of, some of Bart's then-controversial antics
1:01
quickly became a massive hit and an unprecedented pop culture juggernaut. Over the course of its first decade
1:07
The Simpsons would evolve its sense of humor a number of times, becoming more comedic, more imaginative, and more subversive
1:14
And while there is no consensus on exactly what season constitute The Simpsons' golden age
1:19
fans do seem to overwhelmingly agree that it happened somewhere in those first 10 years
1:23
The two and a half decades since, however, have been, to put it kindly, a bit rougher
1:28
Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong
1:32
The quality of the writing has long since deteriorated. Plots have generally become less grounded
1:36
while characters have generally been allowed to lapse into caricatures of their golden age selves
1:41
And while good stretches and episodes have popped up here and there, pretty much everyone agrees the show just isn't what it once was
1:48
The 90s? Never heard of it. Oh, it was a wonderful time
1:52
The Iraq War was over once and for all. A struggling Matt Groening created Futurama
1:57
Futurama first hit the airwaves in 1999. Created by Groening, along with Simpsons writer-producer David X. Cohen
2:04
the series followed the adventures of Philip J Fry a pizza delivery boy who becomes cryogenically frozen and winds up in the year 3000 Trapped in the future Fry becomes best friends with a
2:14
troublemaking robot named Bender, falls in love with the dashing cycloptic pilot Tarongalila
2:19
and gets a job working for Planet Express, owned by his nephew, mad scientist
2:23
Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. Are we gonna fly through space, fighting monsters and teaching alien women to love? If by that you mean transporting cargo
2:32
Oh, then yes. Unlike The Simpsons, Futurama dove headfirst into the bizarre and the fantastical
2:38
and its sci-fi setting allowed for the existence of basically anything the writer's imaginations could conjure up
2:43
It was a great way to differentiate Futurama from The Simpsons, even while the show managed to retain a somewhat familiar tone and aesthetic
2:50
Futurama quickly became a name for itself. It was a huge success for a primetime adult cartoon, but it wasn't quite the success that The Simpsons was
2:58
So in 2004, it came to a close in a now-classic episode called The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings
3:05
which ended with Fry using a holophone to create a primitive but heartfelt scene for Fry and Lila
3:10
kissing and walking off into the distance together. The music's bad and you should feel bad
3:16
This probably would have been the end of Futurama, but in 2003, the Cartoon Network acquired the rights to show reruns of Family Guy and Futurama
3:24
and the shows were a huge success for the network, rekindling interest in both series
3:29
Comedy Central eventually took over those syndication rights and in doing so, made a deal to revive Family Guy
3:35
for a direct-to-DVD film. When that was successful, the network also decided to pull Philip J. Fry
3:40
out of the deep freeze once again and produce a series of four direct-to-DVD Futurama movies
3:46
As far as movies go, the Futurama releases were actually more like four episodes of the show
3:51
that have been edited together to achieve a feature-length runtime. This was done by design
3:55
so that the segments could later be carved up and aired as a 16-episode fifth season
4:00
But the new structure also changed the way the writers approached the stories. Knowing every four-episode arc would have to double as a movie
4:07
the storylines became more serialized. Situations and characters were given more room to breathe
4:11
and allowed to spill over from one episode to another in a way the original series rarely did The change in format gave
4:26
the installments from season 5 a distinctly different pace and vibe than the ones from
4:31
the original run. The reactions to that aspect were mixed, but there was also a big upside
4:37
Despite its inherent goofiness and cynicism, Futurama always had a deeply sentimental heart
4:42
and the moments that seemed to resonate loudest with the fans were the emotional ones
4:46
Like when Fry moves the stars for Leela. Leela learns her origin story or Seymour the dog waits for Fry outside of Panucci's pizza
4:53
It was this sentimental side they seemed most interested in expanding. The final movie of the soon-to-be season 5, Into the Wild Green Yonder
5:01
was written to serve as a series finale in case the show wasn't renewed
5:04
and ended with Leela finally returning Fry's feelings for her. Maybe I waited too long to say this, but I love you too
5:12
Wormhole! But after the success of season five, the show was renewed for two more seasons
5:19
which would drop the direct-to-DVD movie format and return to standalone episodes
5:23
And while these episodes reset Fry and Leela back to their will-they-won't-they status quo
5:27
they otherwise retained season five's more emotional mode of storytelling. That is, right up until 2013, when Futurama received its second cancellation
5:37
This time, the series ended with Fry and Leela finding happiness and growing old together in a near-perfect series finale called Meanwhile
5:44
We won't remember anything that's happened. What do you say? Want to go around again
5:51
I do. And though the Planet Express crew would make an appearance in the 2014 crossover episode of The Simpsons
5:58
Good news, everyone! That means it's bad. the season 7 finale was the last fans would see a Fry and the Planet Express crew
6:06
At least, it was until Hulu surprisingly decided to revive Futurama for a third time
6:12
Well, whatever happens, the important thing is it will never ever happen again. Robots
6:19
Nah, I'm just yanking your ass! We're back, baby! With a 20 episode 8 season that started dropping to very favorable reviews in July of 2023 The reboot picks up right where Meanwhile left off Professor Farnsworth literally reboots the Futurama universe
6:34
putting everything else back the way it normally was on the show. Well, close to how it normally was
6:39
Because while all the characters' personalities remain true to their previous incarnations
6:43
in this reboot, everyone has grown a little. Maybe not Bender, but Fry and Leela, for example, remember they're in love
6:50
Hermes even refers to Lila as Fry's girlfriend, and at one point, the couple moves in together
6:55
Possibly reacting to the widely held sentiment that Fry and Lila's incessantly tentative romantic dynamic had grown stale
7:01
this version of Fry and Lila had learned from their experiences in previous seasons
7:05
They genuinely seem to be more mature as a couple and as individuals, and they're not the only ones who have grown
7:11
For example, Amy, who began the process of reuniting with her estranged husband
7:15
way back in season 5, now has kids with him and becomes a loving mother to her children
7:20
Evolving these relationships has not only kept the characters feeling fresh, but it's given the writers new situations to mine for character-based comedy
7:28
So I'll just write the scripts. Any idiot can be a TV writer. The bottom line is that over the long haul
7:33
the two cancellations actually seem to have improved the show and its storytelling
7:38
And of course, they gave fans a chance to miss the characters and grow nostalgic for their world and their adventures
7:44
Sad news, everyone. Oh good, you're already crying. So what does this all mean for The Simpsons
7:51
Well, even today, very few shows get to come back from cancellation once, much less twice
7:56
So from a business perspective, it's totally understandable that long-running series like The Simpsons
8:01
aren't volunteering to be canceled in hopes that they'll come back a few years later with a rejuvenated creative mojo
8:06
Really excited to show you guys the pilot for our new series. Wow, Fox has really streamlined the process
8:15
But that's why Futurama is such a fascinating case study, because its odd and unique history suggests maybe they should
8:22
At least from a creative perspective, Futurama offers an incredibly rare glimpse at all the positive effects taking a break can have on a show's creative team and audience
8:31
Which is to say, even in Springfield, absence will probably make the heart grow fonder
#Cartoons
#TV Shows & Programs