Comedy Central announced today that beginning in 2008, the cable channel air it's first of 13 brand spankin new Futurama episodes. Like Family Guy before it, Futurama's return to television can be attributed to the highly succesful sales of the show's DVDs, not to mention the consistantly high (if not top) spot of the show during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim animated block.

The show has lived on through creator Matt Groening's comic book series of the same name and there several straight to DVD movies expected next year, but the return to television was a big surprise to fans, including yours truly. It only enjoyed five seasons on Fox during prime time and was canceled for low ratings. Could it be that tv producers are beginning to see that low ratings don't necessarily mean low-quality? Who knows.

Voice performers Billy West (Fry, Prof. Farnsworth, et al), Katey Segal (Lela) and John DiMaggio (Bender) have already been signed to reprise their roles for the series, but nothing yet on whether writer David X Cohen will pen more scripts. Here's hopin.