John DiMaggio’s pay dispute with Disney did not end happily ever after.
Earlier this year, Deadline reported that Futurama would return (for something like the 12th time) with new episodes on Hulu, minus one key member of the cast: DiMaggio, who voices surly, alcoholic robot Bender. At one point, there was even talk of replacing the voice actor, which caused a riot among fans of Futurama, animation, and everyone with the common sense to not side with multi-billion dollar corporations. Eventually, the dispute was resolved with DiMaggio tweeting, “I’M BACK, BABY,” but as he revealed at the Phoenix Fan Fusion convention over the weekend, he returned without a pay raise.
“People are like, ‘I’m so glad you got more money!’ I didn’t get more money,” DiMaggio said, according to Slashfilm. But what I did get was a lot of respect, and a lot of head nods from people who are like, ‘Yo bro, I see you and thank you.'” He called “trying to get money out of Disney is like trying to get blood from a stone — you ain’t gonna get it.”
There was also talk of testicles:
“But listen, this was the best thing about that fight: I had Disney, Hulu, I was holding on to their collective testicles so hard that they couldn’t, y’know, there was nowhere for them to go. But there was also nowhere for me to go, and who wants to hold on to those for that long?”
Ultimately, DiMaggio (who wanted a raise for the entire cast, not just himself) decided that he would rather “[have] a nice Thanksgiving dinner” than “[stand] across the street in the freezing rain watching everybody eat.” Those nachos don’t pay for themselves.
Futurama returns in 2023.
(Via Slashfilm)
