If you thought this event was passing without us taking some kind of notice, you were sadly mistaken.
Have a taste of the AV Club Interview with Futurama executive producer and head writer David X. Cohen.
AVC: In the first two episodes, as with the movies, it seems like the writing staff is having fun not being beholden to network censors.
DC: [Laughs.] Notice that there were some pretty small fig leaves on Leela and Zapp in that second episode?
AVC: Yeah, that made me think of a commentary track where you guys are talking about having to make Leela’s outfit longer, or show less cleavage.
DC: Right.
AVC: Obviously that’s not as much of a concern for you anymore.
DC: Yeah, the Comedy Central broadcast standards are definitely looser than Fox’s. So it’s become an interesting challenge for us, because we have to be our own censors a lot of the time. And for me, an important thing is that I do think it should feel like the same series as before. Just because perhaps we could show more skin and say more words, I don’t necessarily want to do so. So I like to think we may have pushed that edge a little bit—just a little bit more than we used to, but I don’t think there’s any one particular thing we couldn’t have done in the old days. And that’s very intentional. We have not greatly expanded our vocabulary, for example. So I would say on the whole, there’s just a bit more episodes that are PG-15 instead of PG-13, but nothing radical. It’s not at the South Park extreme.
AVC: Just a lot of nudity.
DC: Yeah. Nudity never hurt anybody.
Calm yourselves parents who’ve forgotten the unique fun of clever, risque television. Cohen talks about more than self-censors and naked Leela. He also waxes about the direct to DVD Futurama marathon events and what’s it’s like to rise from the dead more times than a Romero zombie.
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