Futurama Cancelled by Comedy Central

Comedy Central announced today that they will not renew the fan-favorite animated comedy Futurama. This means that the 31st-century-set animated comedy will end its 140-episode run on Sept. 4. The final 13 episodes (the second half of Season 7) will begin airing on June 19 at 10 p.m. After four seasons on FOX, the show was cancelled in 2003, only to be brought back--first as a series of direct-to-video movies and then as a TV series again--on Comedy Central. The movies were chopped up into a season, and then two additional seasons optioned, making for a total of seven. "That's a helluva run that few shows achieve, and especially given the fact that it came back to life, it's really an amazing story," said Comedy Central EVP of Programming Dave Bernath. "I'm more thankful and feel a sense of gratitude toward the whole process — and that we found a way to keep going for 52 more episodes — than I really am even thinking about the ending. It's a blessing that it came back and lasted so long." "We've been in this situation before and it's tempting when you're doing episodes that are as good or better than anything you've ever done to continue doing it," series creator Matt Groening told Entertainment Weekly. "We're catching our breath and seeing what the fans have to say. The experience of this show has been so much fun from the very beginning to now — everybody is so happy to work on this show — that it'd be a shame if we all went our separate ways.We would love to continue. We have many more stories to tell. But if we don't, this is a really great way to go out… I think these episodes are the best ones we've ever done." Groening told EW that while he and the other producers are entertaining the notion of looking for a new home for the show (viewers at home will be screaming "Netflix!" before the end of this sentence), no serious talks are underway, at least yet.