Tagged: Comedy Central

Back to the Futurama

Back to the Futurama

In the future, there will be no graves and nothing will stay dead. Motor-shock is coming.

The first original Futurama production since the series was canceled in 2003 will be a feature-length film, Futurama: Bender’s Big Score that will go directly to DVD and be available on November 27th. The new film features the show’s original cast and crew, and its release marks the second time that a Fox cartoon series has spawned a direct-to-DVD film after cancellation (Family Guy: Stewie Griffin, the Untold Story was the first). Previews were shown at SDCC with the crowd going nuts, as you’d expect.

Fox is planning to release three additional Futurama direct-to-DVD features during 2008, Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs, Futurama: Bender’s Game, and Futurama: Into the Wild, Green Yonder.  In addition to the original cast each Futurama film will feature guest stars.  Al Gore, Sarah Silverman and Coolio appear in Bender’s Big Score.

The release of the direct-to-DVD features doesn’t affect the previously announced plans to revive Futurama in episodic form on Comedy Central in 2008 (see "Futurama Revived"). The producers of the series plan on chopping up the features, adding new material and airing the resulting reconfigured new 22-minute episodes on Comedy Central during 2008 along with reruns of the original 72 episodes, much as they did with Stewie Griffin, the Untold Story. Click here to see a faux trailer.

Bring on the funny!

Bring on the funny!

By now you’ve heard about all the new teevee shows announced by the networks. Here’s some new Comedy Central shows you might be able to look forward to, as a while bunch of new shows are going to pilot:

Root of All Evil, a courtroom show in which comedians argue that their client is the root of all evil. The show would pit Paris Hilton against Dick Cheney, or chick flicks against video games. Lewis Back is the judge.

Held Up, in which a bank teller is held hostage by two teams of robbers and a comic version of the Stockholm syndrome ensues.

An animated Larry the Cable Guy show, as if Larry wasn’t animated enough. Here he’s the co-owner of a cable TV channel whose other owner would prefer to program classier fare.

Michael Ian Black Doesn’t Understand, starring you-know-who in a sketch show/

Night Writer from one-time Saturday Night Live head writer T. Sean Shannon.

The Watch List, which features material from up-and-coming Middle Eastern-American comedians.

According to TV Week, Comedy Central also has production deals in the works for David Alan Grier and JoKoy.

Viacom sues YouTube for $1 bil

Viacom sues YouTube for $1 bil

Looking for that video of Stephen Colbert accepting the mantle of Captain America last night (apparently Marvel has just discovered the shield missing), or decrying the death of Steve Rogers in his Word segment from last Thursday?  Don’t bother going to YouTube for ’em.  Comedy Central’s parent company Viacom announced today that it has sued YouTube and its parent company Google, seeking more than $1 billion in copyright infringement damages.

The lawsuit was not exactly unexpected — last month Viacom demanded that YouTube remove more than 100,000 unauthorized clips after several months of talks between the companies broke down.

Considering the fight is about who can make more money "out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works," so far it looks like, whoever wins, the fans might still be the losers.

Back to the Futurama

Back to the Futurama

Cartoonist Matt Groening confirmed the rumor the upcoming release of four brand new direct-to-DVD 90 minute movies based upon his popular Futurama teevee series. The entire original cast will be returning, including Katey Sagal, Billy West, John Di Maggio and Maurice LaMarche, and the original animators and animation house have also returned for the effort.

The videos will be released starting later this year and will each be sliced into standard-length teevee episodes for broadcast on Comedy Central, to be aired in 2008. There is a possibility that the show’s original broadcast outlet, the Fox Network, might air these shows as well.

Guest-stars abound in these D2DVDs, with Sarah Silverman and Al Gore already signed for speaking roles. Each DVD will also include the usual bulk of bells and whistles.