Voice actor John DiMaggio is open to reprising his role as the cynical robot Bender in a Futurama reunion. Futurama follows pizza delivery boy Philip J. Fry (Billy West) after he accidentally cryogenically freezes himself and wakes up in the 31st century. He meets pilot Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal), and with the help of the robot Bender (DiMaggio), they deliver packages across the galaxy for Professor Farnsworth (Billy West).
Futurama premiered in 1999 and was created by Matt Groening, who previously worked on The Simpsons. The show is no stranger to cancellations and spin-offs. The science-fiction adult animation was canceled by Fox after four seasons but was renewed by Comedy Central after reruns performed successfully on Adult Swim. Comedy Central supported four movies and two seasons before deciding to officially cancel the series a second time in 2013. A 2017 podcast episode “Radiorama” was created to promote the mobile game Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow and invited the original cast to reprise their roles. Since then, the Futurama franchise has been silent.
DiMaggio recently sat down with ComicBook to discuss his Audible Original Vroom, Vroom, written by Josh Koenigsberg. Futurama eventually got brought up and DiMaggio expressed interest in returning as bender for another cast reunion, saying, “if you build it, they’ll come… I wish we could do another podcast sort of thing that we did with Chris Hardwick for the video game app, which was a lot of fun.” There is little information from Groening or the other cast members whether they would also be interested in a Futurama reunion.
If DiMaggio were to return as Bender in a Futurama podcast with a ready platform like Audible, it would be much cheaper than producing an animated episode. Futurama could always return on other networks, but the reunion doesn’t necessarily need to be a podcast or even have new material. Netflix Is A Joke distributed Big Mouth’s live table read on their YouTube account, and NBC just did the same thing with The Good Place's finale table read. With many productions being shutdown for COVID-19, fans are just excited to get anything new from their favorite shows, regardless of when it was recorded.
Reuniting during the pandemic is strategic because the pandemic has shifted the entertainment landscape and how audiences consume media. Fewer movies and TV shows are being produced because of the economic situation most production companies are in. Therefore, low-budget zoom reunions and podcasts with endearing characters from discontinued shows are smart. Also, these reunions sometimes benefit charities and relief funds, so a Futurama cast reunion could be good in more than one way.
Source: ComicBook