FUTURAMA cast still fired? (Plus spoilers!)

Recently Fox announced that when Futurama returns with new episodes on Comedy Central, it will have an all-new voice cast. Many observers assumed this was just a PR stunt, or a sleazy move that Fox was pulling to try and scare the Futurama cast into accepting less money. Then there were some press announcements stating that the show's fate was going to be decided in front of a live audience during a Futurama panel at Comic-Con, and the whole thing started to sound like it had to be a joke.

Well, now the Futurama panel at Comic-Con has come and gone, and nobody's laughing. The Onion AV Club has the gory details:

The panel opened with a clip of Hypnotoad, speaking in an unfamiliar voice, telling the audience, “All is going well at Futurama. You will not notice that the voice cast is not here today.” Anyone hoping it was set up for a revelation that all actually was well with Futurama set themselves up for disappointment. (Matt) Groening issued an inspirational affirmation and made some vague remarks about FOX before a segue into a fake making-of-Futurama documentary. The central gag, that actress Lauren Tom is secretly being behind all aspects of the show’s production from script to ADR work landed with a thud.

Actually, that bit with Lauren Tom was a so-so extra on one of the Futurama movie DVDs. No wonder the audience was quiet; the bit itself wasn't great, a lot of people had probably seen it already, and it seems like kind of poor taste to show it when Tom could well be the only original cast member who didn't just get axed from the show.

Before the panel wrapped up, there were a few spoilers for upcoming episodes.

The topic of the voice cast was verboten during the fan Q&A session that followed, which featured some spoilers about upcoming episodes, including one involving an Amy/Bender marriage that sparks an anti-robosexual marriage movement and a push for something called Proposition Infinity. Cohen closed by asking the crowd, “Keep your fingers crossed. What’s going right now is business.” Clearly they wanted their actors back and put the blame for their absence elsewhere.

I really, really want to see some new Futurama. But the original cast is such an important part of the show, I think it could really suffer without them. Maybe you could get by without Katey Sagal. Maybe you could get by without John DiMaggio. But Billy West is the voice of Fry, Farnsworth, Zoidberg and Zapp Brannigan. The guy is half the cast!

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