‘Futurama’ Is Coming Back Yet Again, But This Time Minus A Key Vocal Talent

Good news sometimes comes alongside bad news. And so it goes with this item. The good news: Futurama, Matt Groening’s sci-fi comedy spectacular, is coming back yet again. The bad news: It will return minus one of the key vocal talents that made it so pure.

As per Deadline, when the show returns, it will do so with most of its original cast in-tact. But there’s one, very significant exception: John DiMaggio, who voiced, among others, Bender, the fun-loving alcoholic robot, is sitting this one out. Negotiations between the esteemed voice actor — whose CV also includes Samurai Jack, Kim Possible, Teen Titans, and more — and the studio, 20th Century Animation, reportedly came to a “standstill,” though there is hope that he’ll return after all.

Nevertheless, everyone else is back, including Billy West, whose duties included the ensemble’s central character Philip Fry, an unremarkable late ‘90s pizza delivery man who is unwittingly frozen for 1,000 years, only to awaken in “New New York” and start working for an elderly descendant, mad scientist Professor Farnsworth (also West).

West — who also voiced depresso lobster-like doctor Zoidberg — will be joined by the likes of Katey Segal (Turanga Leela), Lauren Tom (Amy Wong), Phil La Marr (Hermes Conrad), and more. This will be the third iteration of Futurama, which debuted on Fox in 1998, was cancelled in 2003, was revived on Comedy Central in 2008 (beginning with three DTV feature-length specials), and ended again in 2013. Its new home will be Hulu, which also exhumed Animaniacs in 2020. Here’s hoping they can get real Bender back, and not only because no one can say the word “pimpmobile” quite like John DiMaggio.