The fact that "Futurama" is the best animated series to hit prime-time television since "The Simpsons" should come as no surprise. It's the first new show "Simpsons" creator Matt Groening has created and produced in 11 years.
And there are similarities in style, tone and the way the characters look."That's only way I can draw, is with big eyeballs and no chins," Groening said in an interview with TV critics.
"Futurama" is, of course, set in the future. A thousand years in the future. But it's an idea that Groening has been kicking around ever since he was a boy.
"My older brother had a pile of science-fiction magazines and books, and I loved those covers. I just thought it would be really cool, as a kid, if those covers could come to life," Groening said. "And, in part, 'Futurama' is based on that early impulse."
Groening and fellow executive producer David X. Cohen have been developing the show for three years.
"There's certain conceptions of the future, which I think are more interesting than others," Groening said. "I love the look of the 1940s and '50s and early '60s (science fiction). In the 1970s, things got kind of grim and in 1980s, it was, like, dark and drippy. You know, pipes were always dripping in 'Blade Runner' and everything.
"We decided what we wanted to do was a kind of a 'Jetsons' universe with dripping pipes, basically."
"Futurama's" central character, Fry (voiced by Billy West) is sort of an everyman. He's a not-too-bright, 25-year-old pizza delivery boy who is accidentally frozen on New Year's Eve, 1999 -- and awakens on New Year's Eve, 2999.
Fry hooks up with a couple of other misfits -- Leela (Katey Sagal of "Married . . . With Children") is a beautiful-but-tough one-eyed alien, and Bencer (John DiMaggio) is an antisocial robot.
"The idea behind Bender the Robot is that he shoplifts, he drinks, he smokes, he's very corrupt, and I thought this way, parents can't accuse me of providing a bad role model. He's a robot," Groening said.
The three of them end up working for Planet Express Corporation, flying a spaceship that belongs to Fry's great-great-etc.-etc.-nephew, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, a 149-year-old scientist.
They're operating in a world where science has made great advances but people haven't necessarily changed much.
"There are a lot of things that are different about the future, and there are a lot of things that are the same. The NRA is still around, but they're now crusading for the right to bear death rays," Groening said.
And "gadgets don't work right" in the future all the time. People get around New New York City (built on the ruins of New York City) by pneumatic tube. "It's very fast but you end up often hitting a brick wall," Groening said.
The pilot episode has to set all of this up and contains some very funny bits -- not the least of which is the heads-in-a-jar ploy.
"Heads in a jar is sort of our excuse for being able to use celebrity cameos," Cohen said. "Basically, any celebrity who wants to do 'Futurama' is more than welcome on the show, but they have to agree to play their disembodied head preserved in sort of a jar of Oil of Olay that keeps them young in the future."
In the pilot, we see the disembodied heads of Dick Clark (hosting "New Year's Rockin' Eve 3000, of course), Leonard Nimoy and Richard Nixon, whose temperament hasn't improved much in a thousand years. (And, if you look closely, you'll also see Groening's disembodied head.)
"Futurama" isn't perfect. (And some of the language is a bit adult for younger kids.) But it is promising.
This is a show that could be with us as long as "The Simpsons."
NOT TO WORRY: Although a lot will have changed by the year 3000, Groening assures us that television will still be around.
"In the future, one of the great things is there's going to be 5,000 networks," he said, "but UPN will still be in last place."
And, as it turns out, "The Simpsons" will still be in production.
"But the fans on the Internet are complaining that the last 500 years aren't as good as the first 500 years," Groening said.
"Futurama" debuts Sunday at 7:30 p.m. on Fox/Ch. 13. It will also air on Sunday, April 4, before moving to its regular time slot on Tuesday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m.