While Matt Groening’s involvement in the projects he’s known for tends to be fairly limited after the initial concept, those concepts are routinely absolute bangers – everyone knows The Simpsons, most know Futurama (although Olive, The Other Reindeer seems to have sadly fallen by the wayside), so now, the best part of twenty years on from the release of Futurama, there’s every reason to be eagerly anticipating Disenchantment.
Another Netflix original, where The Simpsons was contemporary and Futurama was sci-fi, Disenchantment is fantasy, set in the twinkly medieval kingdom of Beanlandia – a setting which, given the involvement of John DiMaggio (Futurama’s Bender) is likely to draw comparisons with wibbly-wobbly fantasy series Adventure Time. Given that the main character is a hard-drinking princess named Bean, it certainly feels similar in tone – while Disenchantment is billed as adult animated comedy and Adventure Time was ostensibly for all ages, the latter always clearly had one eye on the twentysomething cartoon-lover demographic. Which is, after all, a demographic forged in large part by Groening’s work.
The man himself described the series earlier this year as ‘about life and death, love and sex, and how to keep laughing in a world full of suffering and idiots, despite what the elders and wizards and other jerks tell you.’ This certainly seems to fit with his general ethos, as the crux of The Simpsons – at least, in its golden years – was that it was a world where every traditional authority figure had been systematically discredited, or at least was represented by someone whose very existence was damning. There was government (Mayor Quimby), the law (Chief Wiggum, Lionel Hutz, the Roy Cohn-esque blue-haired-lawyer), education (the entire staff of Springfield elementary) – even the media (Kent Brockman, Krusty). Futurama, for its part, extended this to the military with the fabulous Zapp ‘the man with no name’ Brannigan.
Disenchantment is set to star Abbi Jacobson (Broad City) as Bean, with Nat Faxon (The Way, Way Back) and Eric Andre (The Eric Andre Show) as her trusty companions Elfo the elf and Luci the demon. It will also feature DiMaggio’s fellow Futurama alumni Billy West, Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille and David Herman – as well as The Mighty Boosh stars Matt Berry, Rich Fulcher, and Noel Fielding.
The first 10 episodes will drop on August the 17th, although Netflix – apparently as confident in the show’s powers as any Groening fanboy – have ordered 20 in total. The art is the inimitable, and at this point comfortingly familiar, overbite-and-bug-eyes style that began in Groening’s newspaper comic Life In Hell and is now recognisable the world over. The animation, meanwhile, is by Rough Draft Studios, who, having animated Futurama, are more than familiar with this style.
Disenchantment is likely a safe bet for Netflix, given that Groening’s previous projects have been long-runners with strong fan followings – The Simpsons’ 30th season will begin later this year, and in April edged out the venerable Gunsmoke to take the crown for America’s longest-running primetime television series with its 636th episode. Futurama, while not quite as long-running, clocked a healthy seven seasons, three of which came after the revival its fans had clamoured for, and four made-for-TV movies in the interim.
Normally, here’s where I would get my hatchet out and talk in pseudo-polite terms about how both those shows suffered diminishing returns over the years – I might say, for instance, that of The Simpsons’ 30 seasons nearly a third were good – but Disenchanted isn’t even out yet, and at the very least should be granted the chance to stand on its own feet rather than being judged for the sins of its ancestors.
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