Toon Zone Talkback - "Futurama" Voice Cast *WILL* Return for New Episodes in 2010

Uh oh...

Just when I was getting really excited for the revived Futurama, total bummer news emerges: The voice actors are going to be different. Who's going to Zoid my Zoidberg?
Twentieth Century Fox, which is still producing the series even though new episodes will air on Comedy Central, is recasting the major voice roles for the show. That means no more Billy West (Fry, Professor, and Ziodberg), Katey Sagal (Leela), John DiMaggio (Bender), Maurice LaMarche (Kif Kroker, among others), or Tress MacNeil (Mom, and several others). Worst!
Fox released a statement saying "We love the Futurama voice performers and absolutely wanted to use them, but unfortunately, we could not meet their salary demands. While replacing these talented actors will be difficult, the show must go on. We are confident that we will find terrific new performers to give voice to Matt and David's brilliantly subversive characters."
 
My guess is they had the panel planned a while back, likely before the dispute reared its ugly head. It wouldn't surprise me if the schedule is altered somewhat depending on the direction this situation takes.
 
Toon Zone Talkback - "Futurama" Voice Cast *WILL* Return for New Episodes in 2010

That's one of my big issues with replacing established voice actors with soundalikes. More often than not, the new actors expend too much effort on trying to imitate the voice of their predecessor and not enough effort on, y'know, acting. It happened on "Pok?mon", and it'd most likely happen on "Futurama" too.
 
Before anybody asks, this is the source.

This sucks. The voices themselves and the delivery of the VAs is part of what makes the show hilarious, and it'll be extremely difficult to replace them. I won't pre-emptively bash whoever they cast, but I'm not optimistic. Hopefully they can still reach an agreement for the original actors.
 
It also happened to DBZ when FUNi decided to do their voice work in-house, that is before the actors, Director, or whoever decided to say "Forget the Canadian voices, let's do our own take on the characters." It was the only time it worked for them since I am mixed on some of Ocean and FUNi voices myself, that and because they became the definite DBZ voices in English, for the time being. But considering that I watched the FUNi crew first then the Ocean through repeats, that might not be a good example.

As for the topic on hand, if I do watch it, it will feel more like the earlier seasons of DBZ and the Later of Pokemon if the new voices go through, not the same thing. But however DBZ worked because as stated earlier, the VA stopped mimicking the old voice and did their own take on them.
 
It's official. FOX has just crossed that line between everyday villainy and cartoonish supervillainy. I wonder if this means the whole panel is cancelled?
 
He's experienced much more about the inner machinery of Hollywood than any of us have, so....I think I'm gonna take his word. At least, he better be right.
 
I already had my doubts as to whether this revival would work. Without the original voices, there's just no way it could compare to the original.
 
So why the hell is this show continuing? There's absolutely no point if the voices actors for FIVE of the main characters (as well as several other secondary characters) aren't going to be in it?

No thank you. Pass. Never. Ain't happening. That's as ridiculous as continuing South Park without Trey Parker, Family Guy without Seth McFarlane or the Simpsons without Julie Kavner, Hank Azaria and Dan Castellaneta. You just don't do it. Period.

RIP Futurama: 1999-2009. This new pile of nonsense will get the title FINO (Futurama in Name Only) as far as I'm concerned.
 
It wasn't that simple. Cartoon Network didn't let Futuruma expire, Comedy Central just bid *A LOT* for it.

With all the money Viacom now fronted for this project, I cant see it going back to Adult Swim, even though its a statistical truth that Futuruma did A LOT better over there.

Honestly, I think there's more going on here then whats being made public. It feels like Fox is asking them to do something exuberant and they are asking for a little more then fair compensation.
 
Two factors to consider as well:

1) As has been mentioned, the money Comedy Central into these cable-only episodes may be less than what Fox put into the broadcasted episodes, which could explain the attempt to offer less money for the original actors.

2) The actors have good grounds to argue for more money than what has been offered, seeing as MTV Networks has seen fit not only to air the show on Comedy Central but on MTV as well.
 
I understand Katey Segal, but why everyone else? They're voice actors themselves, they shouldn't be concerned about money problems this much. Why now?
 
Man Now I wish I could go to the panel, if nothing else to voice my "concern" for the project. Since I've never been to a panel though, I can't say whither my actions would be civil or not.

Fox is just playing fast and loose with things now. It's like they are actually trying to fail.
 
This is getting ugly. VERY ugly. Not only do they pull numbers out of hammerspace to make the cast look bad, they kick them out of thier own panel, where they could be celebrating the renewal of the show with the fans. At least let the vast say goodbye, FOX.

Thoughts?
Tomato
 
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