The lesson is that you should never, ever give a network executive control of your fate.
Those kinds of macabre twists would be Futurama’s undoing. Fox was expecting something familiar, The Simpsons in space. Executives certainly were not prepared for the bizarre contours of Groening and Cohen’s brave new world. “The network’s attitude quickly went from tremendous excitement to great fear,” Groening says. “They were very troubled by the suicide booth. They didn’t like the ‘All-Tentacle Massage’ parlor.”
How can you not like the ‘All-Tentacle Massage’ parlor? Obviously, Groening and Co. should have just sent the execs a two hour preview clip of HypnoToad, and gone ahead and done whatever they wanted.
At least the good news is that Futurama is coming back for one more year.