Summary
Futuramaseason 12 sees the Planet Express crew grace the small screen once again just in time for the series’ 25th anniversary. First airing in 1999,Futuramahas had a journey unlike any other television series, having been cancelled and revived so many times that, for many fans, any new episode feels like a minor miracle. Luckily Hulu, the series’ latest home, has ordered episodes of the show that will take it through season 14.
Futuramaseason 12 episodeswill drop weekly on Hulu, giving audiences plenty of time to enjoy the latest adventures of Fry, Leela, Hermes, and the rest. The season will mix some topical comedy with classicFuturamahumor, with clips released by Hulu revealing a glib take on the NFT phenomenon for one. The main season 12 trailer also promises the return of classic side characters like Zapp Brannigan, Lrrr and Ndnd, and Mom.
Futurama Season 12 Trailer
Futurama returns with 10 new episodes in season 12 of the hit animated sci-fi show.
Best of all, theFuturamaseason 12 castfeatures all the main players who have given the series its inimitable identity. Two such returning actors are Billy West and Lauren Tom. West is known for portraying a slew of characters including Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Zoidberg, and Zapp Brannigan, while Tom voices Amy Wong and her mother, Inez. West and Tom reflected on the wild journeyFuturamahas taken and shared their favorite things about being a part of the series in conversation withScreen Rant.
Billy West & Lauren Tom On Their Journeys With Futurama
Screen Rant: I’ve never seen a show go through what Futurama has gone through. I know neither of you struggle with keeping your calendar full, but what is it like, emotionally, to have this thing that’s so beloved go away and come back and go away and come back?
Billy West: It’s a blessing. Who knew in the beginning that it was the gift that was truly going to keep on giving? And that’s because of the fans. The fans, I do believe, were responsible for bringing it back. I happen to know for a fact that there were campaigns, originally. I even signed the petition.
Lauren Tom: We’re just so grateful. I remember reading a quote once that said, “If you want to make yourself happy, lose something and find it again.” That’s what it has felt like. When I think about… we’re all going to be losing people that we love, and so that’s really painful. To be able to keep coming back like this is such a joy, and it means so much more because we kept getting canceled.
Billy West: I made sure that I told everybody in the cast that you just don’t do stuff like this a lot of times. You always forget, the years go by, and you go, “Did I say stuff that I really felt to people I know?” I made sure I either called up everybody or just said to them on the side, “I want you to know that you’re important to me and I love you.”
Lauren Tom: It’s so true. Billy does that every session that we see him. He’s telling us how much he loves us and everything like that. We know, Billy. We love you, too.
How much have you two either wanted to evolve the voices of these characters over time, or had to as your voices have changed?
Billy West: My plans go way beyond that stuff. I aim high. I sit around and think, “When are they going to have a Futurama ride at Disneyland?”
Lauren Tom: When we first started—back when we first came back last year—I asked David, “Is it okay that my voice is a little bit lower now than it was in the ’90s when we started?” And he said, “I don’t think you should try to match what we did in the ’90s. Just let it be a little bit deeper, just the way that Amy has grown a little bit, too.” I think it’s okay to evolve with our characters as people. And the writers, too—we’ve all grown up together. I think that’s taken the pressure off. When things can be the most real and authentic, I think that’s when we create some good art.
This show you started on a network, you’ve been to cable, you’ve done movies, you did a podcast, you’re on streaming. How much has the physical process of making the show changed over the years, if at all?
Lauren Tom: Well, Covid… when we had to do it in my husband’s closet, that was really no fun. That was the hardest part. We didn’t get to be together, and most of the fun is being able to play off of each other and improv a little bit. We stick close to the script, but it’s nice to feed off each other’s energies, because that’s what acting is. You’ve got to have someone to work off of, so it’s hard to do it in your own little booth.
Billy West: I tend to be silly in between takes. You’d have to be there to hear some of the stuff that Johnny DiMaggio says, and Dave Herman, and Maurice, Phil LaMarr—all of them. Tress MacNeille.
Lauren Tom: And just being able to eat lunch together. Sometimes, if someone wasn’t called in, they’d come in for lunch anyway, because we just want to see each other.
West Compares Voice Acting To Music
Billy, in learning more about you, it blew my mind to discover your musical ability. You even briefly attended Berklee College of Music. How much do you feel like the act of finding and performing a character’s voice relates to singing and musical ability?
Billy West: [It’s] nothing but. If you analyze them, every character has a musicality. Even if you can’t hear the words. You’re familiar with the character Yogi Bear? His musical cadence [is very specific]. It doesn’t matter what the words are, but there’s this melody. And every character, to some degree, has a melody and a cadence. That’s how you remember the characters. I can’t just pull them out of my rear end on demand. I have to remember the musicality of how they went, and that way I won’t get mixed up.
Amy’s Motherhood Journey Is One Of Tom’s Favorite New Futurama Developments
Lauren, there have been so many episodes of the show at this point, but we’re still seeing new things. I loved seeing Amy become a mom last season. How much do developments like that keep the character interesting to you?
Lauren Tom: That was my favorite thing about last season, and it keeps going in this season too. It’s about the challenges that we all face as parents, how to raise good kids that aren’t spoiled, and “How do you do that if you’re super wealthy like Amy?” I would love to see them continue on in that way—to let our characters continue to age and face the challenges that we’re all going to face as we get older and as we say goodbye to the things that we used to have.
It makes it more authentic, and it makes it deeper, more challenging, and fun as actors. And, I think, for the audience too, because they’ve grown up with us. I think it’s nice to see that the people can plug in at any age. I got so much street cred with my kids for being in Futurama when they were little, and that goes all the way up to people that are our age, too. It’s really cool that we can touch so many different age groups.
The Futurama Quotes West & Tom Say The Most
There are quotes and lines fromFuturamathat are just burned into my mind and part of my language now. How often do these quotes [show up in your own lives?]
Lauren Tom: Well, sometimes when my kids are acting a little bit too entitled, I’ll say, “What’s rent?” And they can relate to that. It doesn’t stop them from asking for whatever it is they want.
Billy West: So many of these things become memes. There are a million memes that come out of the show. One of my favorites is when the professor said, “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.” I said, “Dang. I say that every day.”
Lauren Tom: Also, our family always says, “Good news, everyone,” when we have something to share, for sure.
“Keep A Paramedic In The Lobby”: West Talks Returning For The Ren & Stimpy Reboot
Billy, people are also very much looking forward to the return ofRen & Stimpy, which I know is coming at some point in the near-ish future.
Billy West: Yeah. There’s going to be an announcement.
Can you give any sort of hint as to how it might look and feel compared to the original run?
Billy West: I’ve seen a few things. It looks beautiful, and I threw my heart and soul into it, except I was a young guy when I did that show. I told them now, “You’d better keep a paramedic in the lobby.” I’m 72. There’s a whole lot of screaming and yelling.
West & Tom On Futurama’s Lasting Success
This show is so beloved. What makesFuturamaso special that it has kept people so invested in it for so long?
Billy West: The richness of those characters. All of them are so developed. Matt Groening sees The Simpsons as a cartoon, but he said, “Futurama is real.” In other words, they could be real people that you could know. I got what he was saying, because we try to put that third dimension on two-dimensional characters and make them resonate.
Lauren Tom: I feel like it’s aspirational in the sense that each of the characters represents a part of our own selves that we wish we could be more like. Bender being able to say whatever is in his mind [without caring] what others think must be very freeing. Leela is a kickass, take-no-prisoners, strong woman, and then Amy’s just fun loving—who doesn’t like a party?—wnd she doesn’t overthink things very much. She’s just very present. [There’s] Fry’s innocence and his heart, he’s kind of the soul of the whole show, and then there’s the Professor being so smart. I feel like everyone’s got their flaws, but they’ve also got a real strength that I think that people can relate to or look up to in a way.
Lauren Tom: Aww, I love him.
Billy West: He’s so flawed. He’s so deliciously stupid.
Lauren Tom: And we’ve all got people like that in our lives, too.
Billy West (as Zapp Brannigan): Inform the men. I made it with a woman.
Lauren Tom: I just think the show connects people. We all feel more connected to one another.
About Futurama Season 12
Following Hulu’s critically acclaimed 2023 revival of Futurama, the epic sci-fi series from Matt Groening and David X. Cohen returns in 2024 with ten all-new episodes. On this orbit around the sun, our occasionally heroic crew embarks on mind-bending adventures involving birthday party games to the death, the secrets of Bender’s ancestral robot village, A.I. friends (and enemies), impossibly cute beanbags, and the true 5 million-year-old story behind the consciousness-altering substance known as coffee. And, of course, the next chapter in Fry and Leela’s fateful, time-twisted romance.
Futurama
Cast
Futurama is an animated science fiction series that follows Philip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from late-20th-century New York City. He is accidentally cryogenically frozen for a thousand years and becomes an employee at Planet Express, a delivery service in the retro-futuristic 31st century.
