David X. Cohen

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Lore & Background

Cohen's creative imprint is most visible in the show's tendency to treat absurd situations with rigorous logical consequences. He contributed the concept for one of the robots in the robot strip club, which he called "his one artistic contribution to the show" — the robot's waist gyrated using a planetary gear, and co-creator Matt Groening noted that Cohen was very particular about how animators used his design. (The final artistic drawing was executed by the show's professional artists; the claim that Cohen's original sketch is still framed in his office is unconfirmed.) Cohen makes brief cartoon cameo appearances, first in the Futurama episode "The Series Has Landed" alongside several other show staff, and second in "I Dated a Robot" as a member of the eBay audience. His most notable academic publication concerned the theoretical computer science problem of pancake sorting.

In Their Own Story

In the quiet hum of the writers' room, far removed from the neon lights of New New York, a single equation is sketched on a whiteboard. It begins as a joke about a robot's logic circuit but spirals into an epic saga involving time dilation and existential dread. The writer pauses, realizing that this mathematical curiosity could be the key to saving Fry's heart. With a grin, he knows the audience will laugh at the science, but cry for the character.

Reader's Guide

David X. Cohen joined Matt Groening's team after the success of The Simpsons, bringing a distinct academic flair to animation writing. After three years of graduate school, Cohen took a leave of absence and started writing sample TV scripts, landing a job writing two of the earliest Beavis and Butt-Head episodes in 1992. In 1993, he began working on The Simpsons, writing or co-writing thirteen episodes. Nearly five years later, Cohen teamed with Matt Groening to develop Futurama, where he served as writer or co-writer of seven episodes and executive producer, head writer, and showrunner of the series' entire run. After spending a few years researching science fiction, Groening got together with Cohen in 1996 and developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000. By the time they pitched the series to Fox in April 1998, Groening and Cohen had composed many characters and storylines; Groening claimed they had "gone overboard" in their discussions. The show premiered on March 28, 1999. After four years on the air, the series was canceled by Fox, but strong DVD sales and stable ratings on Adult Swim brought Futurama back to life. Comedy Central picked up the show for 26 new half-hour episodes that began airing in mid-2010. Cohen told Newsday in August 2009 that the reported 26-episode order means "[i]t will be up to 26. I can't guarantee it will be 26. But I think there's a pretty good chance it'll be exactly 26."

Did You Know?

• Cohen changed his middle initial to 'X' around the time Futurama debuted because he wanted a distinctive sci-fi-sounding name — contrary to popular myth, the Writers' Guild does not prohibit duplicate names, and the othe
• He chose 'X' because it sounded 'sci-fi-ish' and has jokingly said it would make him 'the David Cohen people would remember.'
• Cohen included a period after the X 'so people don't think it's some mathematical formula: David times Cohen or something.'
• In high school, Cohen wrote an Apple II compiler and video game in MOS 6502 assembly language, and unsuccessfully tried to publish the game through Broderbund.
• Cohen graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. in physics and from the University of California, Berkeley with an M.S. in computer science.