Comic-Con 2012: ‘Futurama’ Panel

The Comic-Con 2012 'Futurama' panel brought together the actors behind your favorite characters to talk about the Emmy Award-winning series and reveal some never-be-seen footage. Plus, attendees were told to dress up in 'Futurama' cosplay to win some some "slightly valuable prizes."

Good news, everyone! We were on hand in ballroom 20 for the ‘Futurama’ panel, which featured creator and showrunners Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, as well as the entire cast! So, what did we see?

The first piece of footage we saw was from the upcoming episode “Fun on the Bun," which sees the crew headed to Oktoberfest! However, the famed German holiday isn’t what it used to be, and has become a festival of extreme elegance rather than the rowdy rager Fry remembers. Bored, and looking for a drink, Fry swills of the beer spittoon, and causes enough of a drunk scene for Leela to break up with him! Wait, they were dating?

Meanwhile, Bender wants to get into the sausage-making competition against Elzar, but lacks anything original to his pork dish. What better solution then, than to find a long-frozen mammoth out in the frozen wastes to cook! Then, Fry manages to get caught in the sausage-making machine, while Bender looks on, and later inadvertently serves Fry sausage to Leela. After finding his hair and clothes on the bun, Leela screams in horror! Oh no!.

Some other Tidbits from the panel:

• Upcoming episodes will see Amy in a skimpy butterfly costume, getting addicted to steroids, and hooking up with Fry in front of Kif! (More on this later.)
• Bender will go fox-hunting with Patrick Stewart in “31st Century Fox,” before finding a small robot fox.
• The Donbot will try to kill Zoidberg, for stealing eight million dollars!
• Later, the crew will be shocked to discover that Professor Farnsworth’s parents are actually alive!
• Originally, Chris Travers (the candidate from “Decision 3012”) was going to be revealed as having been born female, but the writers didn’t think that people were ready for a trans-gendered time-traveling presidential Candidate.
• Zoidberg will be getting some action next year, with a woman who has no sense of smell!
• Great stuff for those present at the panel, including a costume contest, Billy West reading Fry Memes through a giant cutout, and Matt Groening winning the icon award!
• Finally, we saw a sizzle reel of the remaining episodes this season, where we saw such things as Zoidberg spending the Donbot’s money in luxurious ways, Leela and Amy bulking up as part of their steroid-induced training for the butterfly sport (and bullying everyone), and what seemed to be the whole crew transformed into sea creatures! We also saw Hermes being re-built as a robot, Fry becoming feral, and Fry trying to overhear a secret between Bender and Hermes (ignoring Amy and Leela in the shower in need of a rubdown.)

Keep watching ‘Futurama’ on Comedy Central, and keep it here for all the latest on the new season!