Comedy Central has confirmed that it has ordered up a new batch of Futurama episodes to air on the cable channel beginning in 2010. Twenty-six episodes have been ordered, and Billy West and John DiMaggio have both signed to return to the long running on again off again animated series.
“It’s sweet, and basically everybody who has worked on the show wants to come back,” Matt Groening said. “I choose to believe it’s more than the economic situation. People had a good time working on this show.”
While Comedy Central may look to be sitting in the cat-bird seat, 20th Century Fox does have the option of turning the first broadcast rights to the new episodes to a broadcast network (i.e. Fox) if the series takes off, or becomes financially viable again. Seems like a crappy deal for Comedy Central, but in this case, its the fans that win as we’re able to get more Bender/Fry action real soon.
