We're down to the final 8 of the bet cartoon ever contest. As we gear up, let's take a look at the competitors in the first round: Futurama against Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
It wasn't an easy road to the top for Futurama. As Matt Groening's second big cartoon project, it seemed that the show would be doomed to live in the shadow of his other, long-running show. It even seemed the people at Fox wanted the show to fail, sticking the show in a poor time slot.
Ms. T. Leela was kind enough to speak to us about it. "I don't know what their problem was. I mean, they kept putting us off for football. Nobody watches that anymore. I mean, the sport was already kind of fruity already, but then the tentacle mutants wanted to play, and...anyway, yeah. Those morons at Fox wouldn't know quality programming if it crapped in their eye."
Futurama came into the quarterfinals as the top seed. In the first round it handily defeated the classic Tom and Jerry as well as the quirky superhero parody The Tick, and still beat second-place Tiny Toons by a good margin. It had a closer battle against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Round 2, but still easily beat Dragon Ball and Powerpuff Girls.
Mr. P. Fry from Futurama spoke about the victory: "I love the turtles! They're so...radicool and cowabungawesome and stuff! We all talked that way in the 1980s. What was the question again?" (after this, our interviewer declided to speak with Mr. Fry further). The third round is where Futurama really shined, outperforming fellow "uncancelled" phenom Family Guy and winning a rematch with Tiny Toons, as well as beating second place Space Ghost by a significant margain.
Space Ghost Coast To Coast also comes from humble origins. Mr. Ghost spoke with us: "I had my own cartoon back in the sixties or so. It didn't do so well. I was great, of course, but my co-stars were a couple of kids with no super-powers at all. And a monkey! What kind of serious cartoon has a monkey in it anyways? Anyways, when it was canceled, I took a break for a while. Enjoyed life, cruised the stars. Then some guy from Cartoon Network...they bought all the old cartoons, and one of the bigwigs just loved me and wanted me to do a talk show. I said fine, so long as you don't stick me with a bunch of kids and a monkey again. You know, in hindsight, I think I'd rather have worked with the monkey".
The show was a hit, and in the first round advanced in second place behind fellow superheroes X-Men, and ahead of The Jetsons and Real Monsters. In round 2, it against took second place behind #5 seed Animaniacs, but taking out ReBoot and Voltron. Another second place finish in Round 3 put Space Ghost CtC into the finals as the #8 seed and into a rematch with Futurama, but despite the underdog status, Space Ghost is confident he can do well.
"You know, some people don't think my show should be in this at all. And those people would be Zorak and Moltar. But you know what? We're on Cartoon Network. They wouldn't air a show if it wasn't a cartoon, right? By the way, just to show I'm a nice guy, I sent an invitation for Futurama to be on my show. I got a reply from them requesting that I bite their shiny metal ass. I sent word back that I'm not sure I can do that on the show, but it's late night, so I'll see if we can slip it past the censors. They haven't sent anything back...just between you and me, I think Comedy Central is blocking the interview.".
Good luck to both shows, and let's hope it's a good match. Results in 2 days.
(for those wondering about tiebreakers, I'm not voting, so I'll be breaking ties if necessary)
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