Cartoon Network Inks 'Futurama' Rerun Rights Tue Sep 10, 2:48 AM ET By John Dempsey NEW YORK (Variety) - The Cartoon Network is spending about $10 million to buy the cable-TV rights to the 72 half-hours of Twentieth TV's primetime animated series "Futurama." Cartoon will schedule "Futurama" somewhere in its weekly Adult Swim animated block from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Sundays, starting in January. Established a year ago, the three-hour Sunday Adult Swim block has vaulted into the top 10 among all cable networks in the time period among men 18-to-34, the demographic target of the programming. A Sunday-night success on the Fox Network since it debuted in March 1999, "Futurama" has slipped in the ratings in the last year or so. Fox hasn't made it official, but the show is unlikely to come back after it burns off its final original episodes during the 2002-03 season, where it's scheduled Sundays at 7 p.m. Each half-hour of "Futurama," created by Matt Groening ("The Simpsons ( news - Y! TV)") and David X. Cohen, costs well over $500,000 to produce. Cartoon has the cable rights to "Futurama" for five years. But the deal is not exclusive: Syndicator Twentieth Television reserves the right to sell it in syndication if TV stations should show an interest at some point in buying the rerun episodes. Previously, Cartoon had bought limited-run off-network animated series for Adult Swim such as "The Oblongs" and "Mission Hill," two shows that failed to capture a primetime audience on the WB Network, and "Home Movies," canceled after 13 episodes by UPN. Cartoon has commissioned another 13 half-hours of "Home Movies." link to story This is very good news.
I guess this is pretty cool. I usually don't watch AS though. Only shows I might have watched were the Brak Show, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast. (is that an AS show.) But maybe I'll watch more now...
Cartoon Network - now pick up "Family Guy," whether in rerun or new episode form, and you've got yourself a viewer.
Hey that would be pretty cool too. Now if they picked up Dark Angel and then that will be MY channel.
Now if only FOX would release Futurama Season box sets on DVD in the US (they are doing so in the UK).
Yeah!! way to go Cartoon Network!! and while your at it...pick up Family Guy for some new episodes!!!
What a great show - I thought that with the number of computer/Star Trek/sci-fi geeks in our country this show could have done well enough if Fox would have given it a better time slot than "maybe we'll show it after the football game is over". Anyway,
Now you can UNcensor all of those old Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny cartoons...and bring back my Speedy Gonzales!! BTW. who owns the rights to the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons? The first few seasons of that show was one of the greatest cartoon series of all time...
What? Why are we always the last to get things? I will be watching the Cartoon Network a lot more now, while I snack on my Popplers and drink some Slurm.
