As we await Matt Groening's next fully fledged animated series and hope it lives up to whichever eras of Futurama or The Simpsons you worship, the nerds at Groening and Co. have given its fans a morsel: a brand-new Futurama episode.

But there's a catch. It's not animated.

Head to the Nerdist, either via YouTube (above) or your favorite podcast-feed aggregator, to listen to "Radiorama," the series' first (and possibly last) audio-only, radio-drama episode. The episode is introduced by comedian and Nerdist creator Chris Hardwick, who explains that he has been nagging Futurama co-creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen about a possible collaboration for roughly two years.

"It's Futurama, the show that never dies—but is so sick that it lost its video," a narrator declares in an intro that tries to recreate the animated series' opening, ad-filled flight near Planet Express headquarters. The 44-minute episode, which was written by original series staffers and features the entire Futurama voice-acting crew, sees the Express staff visit the series' silly show-within-a-show All My Circuits. Conveniently enough, the episode of All My Circuits being taped is that series' first podcast-only episode as well.

Sound-effect gags, jokes about things that Leela can't see owing to her single eye, and other audio-specific goofiness round out this finely produced radio drama. The Futurama-y gimmick of this episode: a technological catastrophe has loosed audio snippets from a point in the early 21st century when the number of podcasts had reached oversaturation. Hardwick, as the episode's villain, estimates the number of unheard podcasts he has loosed at roughly 58 billion.

Be warned: to enjoy this satisfying episode, you'll have to slog through a few ads for the new, free-to-play Futurama smartphone game, Worlds of Tomorrow. (The game appears to have some RPG elements and original Futurama staffers' jokes, but I refuse to install it after the money-grubbing abomination that was Simpsons: Tapped Out.)