Good news, everyone!  Those asinine morons who cancelled us were themselves fired for incompetence. – Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, Futurama: Bender’s Big Score

Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth

Seven years ago, the fine folks at FOX cancelled one of my favorite animated series ever: Futurama. I could talk about how the show played on random nights determined by throwing darts onto a calendar, but I wont bore you with that. I could mention other excellent shows also cancelled by FOX *cough* Arrested Development *cough*, but again that would be boring and everyone else already has.

What I will tell you is this: They’re back baby! After years of watching the first four seasons more times than I can count, Comedy Central has ordered a new season of Futurama thanks to good ratings on Adult Swim and excellent DVD sales.

Futurama is an animated comedy about life in the year 3000 from Matt Goening and David X. Cohen of Simpsons fame. The show follows the life of Phillip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from the year 1999 who was accidentally frozen and thawed in the year 3000. Fry connects with his great (x30) nephew, mad scientist, Hubert J. Farnsworth and joins the crew of his interplanetary delivery company–Planet Express.

As a child, I loved Looney Tunes and my favorite episodes were always the ones about the world of tomorrow. Impossible and wacky inventions and visions of the future, like those of the Looney Tunes shorts, are what Futurama is about. Beer drinking robots, talking heads in jars, giant tubes that whisk you away to anywhere in the city and, my favorite invention, the fing-longer (extends the reach of your finger) are some of the creations dreamed up by the writers.

The Fing-longer

New Futurama episodes began on June 24, 2010 and air on Thursdays at 10/9 central on Comedy Central. So far there have been three new episodes–Rebirth, In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela, and Attack of the Killer App–and I have been thoroughly pleased with all of them. Understandably, the first two episodes has to reintroduce the characters and try to summarize the events of the first four seasons and I enjoyed them, but the third new episode, Attack of the Killer App, is Futurama back at top form.

If you’ve never seen Futurama before, shame on you; watch it! If you have, it’s back and just as good as ever, so be sure to watch it so it will stay on the air for years to come.

Here’s a clip from the first new episode: