Futurama TV series coming back in 2010

From IGN:

June 9, 2009 - You just can't stop Futurama. A day after news broke that the show looked to be coming back, Comedy Central has made it official, announcing they have picked up the series for an impressive 26 new episodes – thirteen more than originally expected.

As Comedy Central notes, this will mark the first true new episodes of the show in six years – though the four recent, straight-to-DVD Futurama movies were re-cut into 22 minute episodes.

Comedy Central will begin showing the new installments beginning mid-2010. An interesting note in the press release states, "Twentieth Century Fox Television retains the option to license the original runs of the new episodes to a broadcast network," seemingly implying there is a chance a network (though come on, it would be FOX, right?) could potentially air the new episodes first, before Comedy Central.

Says co-creator Matt Groening, "We're thrilled Futurama is coming back. We now have only 25,766 episodes to make before we catch up with Bender and Fry in the year 3000." Added his fellow Futurama creator, David X. Cohen, "We're excited and amazed that the show is coming back, perhaps due to some sort of mysterious time loop. We look forward to working with Comedy Central and 20th Television to make this the best iteration of the loop yet!"

Futurama mirrors another 20th Century Fox production, Family Guy, by its impressive resurrection, years after cancellation. Says 20th Century Fox TV Chairmen Gary Newman and Dana Walden, "When we brought back Family Guy several years ago, everyone said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing - that canceled series stay canceled and cannot be revived. But Futurama was another series that fans simply demanded we bring back, and we couldn't have been happier when Matt and David agreed that there were many more stories yet to tell."