- published: 23 Jun 2013
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Futurama is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening and developed by Groening and David X. Cohen for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of a late 20th-century New York City pizza delivery boy, Philip J. Fry, who, after being unwittingly cryogenically frozen for one thousand years, finds employment at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery company in the retro-futuristic 31st century. The series was envisioned by Groening in the late 1990s while working on The Simpsons, later bringing Cohen aboard to develop storylines and characters to pitch the show to Fox.
In the United States, the series aired on Fox from March 28, 1999 to August 10, 2003 before ceasing production. Futurama was then aired in reruns on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim from 2003 to 2007, until the network's contract expired. It was revived in 2007 as four direct-to-video films; the last of the four was released in early 2009. Comedy Central entered into an agreement with 20th Century Fox Television to syndicate the existing episodes and air the films as 16 new, half-hour episodes.
William Richard "Billy" West (born April 16, 1950) is an American voice actor. Born in Detroit but raised in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, Billy launched his career in the early 1980s performing daily comedic routines on Boston's WBCN. He left the radio station to work on the short-lived revival of Beany and Cecil. He was also a writer and castmember on The Howard Stern Show during the early to mid 1990s, where he gained nationwide fame with his impersonations of Larry Fine and late Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott. West is best known for his voice-work on Ren & Stimpy, Doug and Futurama. His favorite characters are Philip J. Fry (Futurama) and Stimpy (Ren and Stimpy), both of which he originated. West's most notable film work was in Space Jam (1996) providing the voice of both Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd. He has provided the same voices for other Looney Tunes films and video games. West has been very outspoken over his displeasure about the influx of movie star actors providing voice-over for films and major shows. West is also a guitarist and singer-songwriter with a band called Billy West and The Grief Counselors.
Catherine Louise "Katey" Sagal (born January 19, 1954) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She first achieved widespread fame as Peggy Bundy on the long-running Fox comedy series Married... with Children, for which she was nominated for four Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Television Series and two American Comedy Awards during the show's run.
Sagal also voices the character of Leela on the animated series Futurama and its related direct-to-DVD movies since 1999. She is also known for starring on the show 8 Simple Rules in the role of Cate Hennessy, where she worked with John Ritter until his death, leading to Sagal taking over as the series' lead for the remainder of the show's run.
Since 2008, she has played the role of matriarch Gemma Teller Morrow in the FX drama series Sons of Anarchy, for which she won a Golden Globe in 2011. She has been married to the show's creator, Kurt Sutter, since 2004.
Sagal was born in California to a show business family of five children, including younger sisters Jean and Liz Sagal, a pair of twin actresses, and actor Joe Sagal. Her mother, Sara Zwilling, a writer and producer, died of heart disease, and her father, Boris Sagal, a director, died in an accident on the set of the television movie World War III. Sagal and her siblings grew up in Brentwood, Los Angeles.