Brian informed me a few weeks ago that he had heard from David X. Cohen that Futurama was coming back. Then again, Cohen, executive producer and co-creator of the best cartoon series that was never respected by Fox, has said that a lot.

But there may yet be hope! After Family Guy was canceled by Fox, it was picked up by Cartoon Network for its Adult Swim block of programming and soon became one of Adult Swim's highest-rated shows. Family Guy also blew Fox executives away with its tremendous DVD sales. All of these factors prompted Fox to un-cancel Family Guy, the first time a show has been completely canceled and then brought back.

Futurama had a similar history. After four seasons of placing the show in the 7:00 time slot -- something for which the show was not designed -- and routinely pre-empting it and not promoting it, Futurama was canceled. It was also ported to Cartoon Network and soon became Adult Swim's highest-rated show. Futurama fans thought that a similar miracle could happen to their show, but they have been waiting longer than Family Guy fans had to wait to get their show back on the air.

Variety, the entertainment industry trade daily, reports today that Futurama might be coming back. If you can get through the trade jargon ("cabler" apparently means "cable network," but I have no idea what "skein" means), then it's a hopeful article. If you can't get through the trade jargon, click on the underlined words in the article and you will be directed to the appropriate entry in Variety's dictionary of entertainment industry slang. (Turns out "skein" means "TV series" for some reason.)

But you shouldn't get your hopes up just yet. Futurama is much more of a niche show, and Fox never liked it because co-creator Matt Groening retained more creative control over it than The Simpsons, Groening's other show. Networks hate not being in control, and in DVD audio commentaries, Groening suggests that lack of control is one of the reasons why the show was canceled.