Saturday, August 14th I was at the San Diego ComicCon and heard a panel discussion from the staff at Futurama (Rough Cut Animation), it was preceded by the debut episode from season two (production code 1ACV10). Matt Groening, Billy West and John DiMaggio were scheduled but weren't there, Matt's vacation conflicted with his attending. Present was Eric Kaplan, Eric Horsted, Rich Moore, Claudia Katz and Phil Lamar.
Special Guest Stars This Season: Rich Little, Conan O'Brien, Bob Barker, Donavan, Pamela Anderson (again), and John Goodman in a special Christmas episode.
Futurama Theme: It was originally supposed to be a song from a French Rock Opera, but they couldn't secure the rights to it.
Original Vision: At first Matt Groening wanted to have cartoon characters from the past put into a setting of space in the future, but licensing problems made that not viable. Someone on the panel joked about seeing Mickey Mouse once his public domain rights elapsed.
Shows References: Most of the shows references come from Sci-Fi novels, not movies or tv shows. They hired writers that had Sci-Fi backgrounds for this reason.
Leela: She doesn't know anything about her race-Cyclops-but that will change soon. When it does "eight other mysteries will be reveled."
Animation: 80-90% of it starts out as hand drawn, but then computer and 3D animation is used, and it all gets transferred to digital, in the end the show is 100% digital. He 3D and computer animation is "dumbed down" to blend in with the hand drawn elements.
More On Already Reported: The fifth episode of the season, Bender and Nibble go at it, and the loser gets flushed down the toilet. It was inferred that this would be Nibble. The secondary characters will be more developed, more episodes will be developed around them. Expect Futurama toys and merchandise, but released in a purposely slow manner.