from left to right: David X Cohen, Billy West, Maurice LaMarche, Phil Lamar, David Herman and a funny young actress I don’t remember.
Most of Futurama‘s principal cast came to Austin to do a live table read (“The Six Million Dollar Mon”) which in turn was to promote Hulu and SyFy being the new networks to carry the beloved program. They did the read a little differently though. Most of the episode’s first act was shown on a screen behind the actors, then they jumped in and returned to the projection for the last half of the third act. Watching and listening to Billy West while he went back and forth between Zoidberg, Fry and the Professor was incredible. None of the ladies (Lauren Tom, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille and Dawnn Lewis) could make it so a very nice, talented lady who’s name I rudely forgot (and can’t find) filled in for Leela, Amy and LaBarbara. They changed up a couple past jokes to more contemporary references too. Maurice filled in for Bender and did it pretty well.
After the table read came the Q&A. Very interesting answers on whys and hows with the voice actors.
- Maurice LaMarche did try doing Kif with a Leonard Nimoy sound but it sounded too low and wasn’t working for the jokes.
- David Herman’s Roberto is derived from all the junkies/snitches in Seventies’ police shows.
- Phil Lamar made a joke about how the crew goes to lunch whenever Billy has a conversation scene between Fry, Zoidberg, Captain Brannigan and the Professor.
- Billy West explained Zoidberg’s origins…character actor Lou Jacobi, primarily from The Diary of Anne Frank yet I would throw in My Favorite Year.
I was really surprised how shy the crowd was in asking questions, therefore yours truly went second and got complimented by David X Cohen for my Mars U shirt. Having done my homework, I inquired how did last year’s podcast episode come about via Chris Hardwick’s (old) show? Thankfully, most of the audience didn’t know this existed. David went on to explain the opportunity to make a 40-minute podcast (equal to two episodes) happened through the marketing budget for a iOS/Android game Futurama: the Worlds of Tomorrow. They all had a great time reuniting the team and they didn’t have any trouble with the limitations of an audio only adventure.
To be continued…