Futurama executives have revealed their favourite celebrity guest stars and hinted some big names for the upcoming season.
The animated sitcom, created by Matt Groening and David X Cohen, initially aired in 1999 and returned for a new season early this year after a 10-year absence.
Snoop Dogg, Lucy Liu, Sir Patrick Stewart, and John Goodman have all made guest appearances in the series, joining Bender (John DiMaggio), Fry (Billy West), Leela (Katey Sagal), and the group for an adventure.
Cohen discussed his most memorable appearances at New York Comic Con 2023, noting that the late Stephen Hawking went over and above to record his voice.
‘Two of my personal favorite guest stars – we had Stephen Hawking on for real,’ he told the crowd at the Javits Center. ‘He was on three or four times, actually.
‘That one was a super cool experience for me, because he was a visiting professor at CalTech at the time, and he wanted to record it. He could’ve just emailed us a file of his voice but he wanted to record it like our other guest stars did.
‘So we went to his house, we set up microphones and he had this cool set up in his living room where he had mirrors on every surface, just so he could see what everybody was doing, and he recorded his lines into the mic for us. That was super exciting.
‘I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this but since we’re on the subject of celebrity physicists, we have Neil DeGrasse Tyson coming in next season.’
Futurama made a triumphant return to television in July, following a decade-long hiatus, with taking up the sitcom.
The animated series will return for ten more episodes next year, along with some additional surprises.
During a Q&A with the audience, the panel, which also included Claudia Katz, Peter Avanzino, Crystal Chesney Thompson, and Edmund Fong, was questioned about previous guest stars and if they were surprised that certain celebrities decided to participate.
‘All of them,’ they laughed, before Cohen continued: ‘Sigourney Weaver, that was a big one, I was surprised by it.
‘Like a bunch of the guests we’ve had on, she said, “Well, my nieces and nephews told me to do it”. It’s usually someone who has relatives in our demographic who surprise us. Larry Bird, that was a big, unexpected moment.’
When someone mentioned Emilia Clarke’s stint as Marianne in season seven, he said: ‘That one was not a surprise. We had seen an article in which she was interviewed and said she liked Futurama. We put in a call and said, “We’re going to see if you really like Futurama!”’
Teasing their wish list for those Wish list guest celebs as heads in jars, he told the crowd: ‘We have a big, big head in a jar guest star [in the] next 10 episodes, but I won’t say who it is.’
‘I love Margot Robbie, that would be really fun,’ Katz agreed.
‘We have a couple next year actually,’ Cohen added. ‘It’s usually just, “Who do you want to meet?” We had Beck on because we like Beck. I guess I’d like to have Jimmy Page.’
Futurama is available to watch on and Disney+.
