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It's easy to forget that Matt Groening helped usher in the idea that cartoons were for adults as much as they were for children—The Simpsons debut was almost 30 years ago. Today, the adult cartoon universe includes the likes of South Park, Bob's Burgers and BoJack Horseman, all of which owe something to the spirit brought forth by Groening (though South Park fans are tired of hearing about this).
Now, Groening is returning to the game, about four years after the end of Futurama's second run on Comedy Central. As reported at Deadline, Netflix has picked up Disenchantment, which Groening had been developing for the streaming service for a year and a half. Netflix has ordered 20 episodes of the animated comedy/fantasy series, and they're planning for a 2018 release.
Disenchantment may turn out to be the flip-side to Futurama's bright and zany space scape, as it'll be set in a medieval kingdom called Dreamland. According to Bleeding Cool, the series will revolve around a young princess named Bean, who apparently has a penchant for liquor. She'll be accompanied by the usual rogues gallery of elves, demons, sprites, trolls, and humans with subpar IQs. Groening says the show is, ultimately, about optimism (or a form of it, at least). "Ultimately, Disenchantment will be 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," Groening said in a statement, according to Bleeding Cool.
“The series will bear his trademark animation style and biting wit, and we think it’s a perfect fit for our many Netflix animation fans,” Cindy Holland, VP Original Content at Netflix, said in a statement.
The voice-acting cast itself is enough to generate intrigue, as stars will include Broad City's Abbi Jacobson (who plays Bean), Eric Andre, and Nat Faxon (who, fun fact, won an Oscar for co-writing George Clooney's The Descendants). Tress MacNeille and David Herman, who you've probably heard from Futurama (among other works), are also slated to be along for the ride.
Jacobson, as evidenced by this tweet, is all-in for the new project:
