It’s been a fruitfully rough decade for fans of Futurama, as we got to see the show come back in feature-length form for a while before Comedy Central gave it more glorious season, eventually canceling it once again. New hope for the series’ return came when Matt Groening combined his two greatest achievements in last year’s Simpsons/Futurama crossover ”Simpsorama”. Is there a chance we’ll get another one in the future? Groening’s answer is predictably wishy-washy, but also more encouraging than one would think.
During this year’s Simpsons panel at Comic-Con, which featured guest panelist Guillermo del Toro, Groening was asked about the possibility of the two animated worlds coming together again, and he took it a step further with his answer.
It’s possible. It’s possible. What’s amazing about Futurama…Here’s a political answer. You know, the fans of Futurama are still watching the show on Netflix. You know how everything gets rebooted? Futurama will get rebooted someday. We’ll see.
Rather than simply focusing his answer on “The Futuramans,” or whatever they would call the second crossover episode, Groening opened things up to allow for good news (everyone) about the likelihood of another standalone iteration of the brilliant futuristic comedy. Considering people probably ask him questions like this all the time, it would have been easy for Groening to just stop the answer after “It’s possible,” since anything is obviously possible in the world of animation. But he got everyone’s hopes up by saying that new Furturama is almost inevitable. (Okay, maybe I’m reading too much into it, but my hopes will never die, kind of like Seymour.)
I’m not sure what he means by saying it’ll be “rebooted,” but he certainly doesn’t mean that an all-new bunch of oddball characters will get introduced, though I’d be just as interested in a spinoff focused on Zoidberg returning to the medical field. It seems like it’s only the networks that are iffy about bringing the show back, as fans have been clamoring ever since it got the axe from Comedy Central, and the stars have been equally receptive to the prospect of the show returning to TV.
But if we get another Simpsons/Futurama crossover in the meantime, that would temporarily be just as fabulous. Considering the next season of The Simpsons is presumably all mapped out and completed in one form or another, we know it won’t happen soon. But Season 28 could easily put Bender and Homer back together for more murderous hijinks. Make it happen, powers that be!
Season 27 of The Simpsons will be hitting Fox this fall, complete with Harry Shearer, whose holdout recently came to an end. If Harry Shearer can come back, so can Futurama, right?
