John DiMaggio didn’t get the Futurama pay raise he was holding out for

Matt Groening’s animated sci-fi comedy Futurama started waaaaay back in 1999. it was cancelled three times and revived another three; at this point, that’s the show’s trademark.

But ahead of the latest upcoming revival on Hulu, something was different: star John DiMaggio — who plays the foul-mouthed Bender, the series’ most iconic character — refused to sign on unless he and the rest of the returning cast were paid more money. “It’s about self respect,” he said in a statement. “And honestly, being tired of an industry that’s become far too corporate and takes advantage of artists’ time & talent.”

Eventually, he did sign on to return, which a lot of people assumed meant that he got the money he was fighting for…but he didn’t.

Despite “holding on to [Disney and Hulu’s] collective testicles,” John DiMaggio couldn’t get a raise

DiMaggio outlined the outcome of his fight with Hulu at at Phoenix Fan Fusion over the weekend, per /Film. “People are like, ‘I’m so glad you got more money!’ I didn’t get more money,” he said. “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.’”

At the end of the day, DiMaggio said that “trying to get money out of Disney is like trying to get blood from a stone—you ain’t gonna get it!” (Disney operates Hulu, if you didn’t know.) After talking with his agent, he had to decide whether “we want to be in the house having a nice Thanksgiving dinner, or… standing across the street in the freezing rain watching everybody eat stuffing.”

"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?"

It’s cool that DiMaggio feels good about how things turned out, but it’s a little dispiriting to know that it didn’t really change anything. I am fully in favor of battering Disney’s testicles as much as possible, but ideally it gets them to tap out.

In fact, had DiMaggio persisted, he even knew what Disney was planning: they were “planning on using guest stars, [and] they were going to replace Bender’s voice each episode.” You can’t fight the House of Mouse.

Ah well. Disney’s new Futurama will be airing on Hulu sometime in the future, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it even if they wanted to.

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h/t The A.V. Club