Futurama fans of the world have five reasons to celebrate. Variety is reporting that the show’s original stars — John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche and Tress MacNeille – reached an agreement with 20th Century Fox TV late Friday to return to the show. This compromise comes on the heels of 20th putting out a casting call in July to find replacement voice actors for the show.

“We are thrilled to have our incredible cast back,” creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen said in a statement. “The call has already gone out to the animators to put the mouths back on the characters.”

The studio announced in June that it would revive the long-canceled Futurama, and Comedy Central was on board to begin airing the new episodes in mid-2010. Part of the announcement included stars West, Sagal and DiMaggio returning to the series; however the actors had not finalized a deal and salary discussions soon escalated.

It’s believed that the Futurama cast initially asked for around $75,000 per episode (a number disputed by at least one actor), but that number was reportedly brought down to $40,000. The final number wound up below that, but above what 20th was offering.

Despite 20th’s move to start recasting Futurama, it was widely assumed that both sides would eventually figure out a way to stay in business together. In what many considered a positive sign, some of the Futurama cast attended the recent San Diego Comic-Con, although they were not a part of the show’s official panel discussion.

New Futurama episodes will begin airing on Comedy Central in 2010.

Things are really starting to heat up on the San Diego Comic-Con front this week with more and more studios and networks announcing their schedules and what talent they will be bringing to the show. This time around we’ve got the word from a network with some of our favorite shows on it including 24 and Dollhouse. I’m talking, of course, about Fox.

The kind PR folks at the network sent us over their Comic-Con schedule so we could share it with you. Also remember that The Flickcast will be at Comic-Con in force so be sure to check back right here for all our coverage of the show. Also, for the complete Comic-Con schedule, go to the official Con site.

Now, without further to do, here’s all the info from the official Fox Press Release:

Non-Stop Action, Thrills, Laughs And Excitement Are Coming To Comic-Con From Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

Eliza Dushku, Joss Whedon, Danny DeVito, Matt Groening And Many More On Hand In San Diego To Showcase An Awesome
Line-Up Of Blu-ray And DVD Releases

Get A First Look At The Hottest New Titles Including “Dollhouse” Season One,
“It’s A Very Sunny Christmas,” “Futurama” The Complete Collection And More

Unveiling of “Wolverine” Wax Figure By Madame Tussauds Hollywood

WHO: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment brings the thrills, the action, the mystery and the laughs to San Diego Comic-Con International as they showcase an assortment of some of the most highly anticipated Blu-ray and DVD titles of 2009.

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It’s official: Comedy Central has picked up the rights to renew 20th Century Fox Television’s Futurama for 26 new episodes, six years after getting initially cancelled by the Fox network. In a recent EW interview with a 20th Century Fox spokesman, they say the DVD sales and reruns have had a “blockbuster” performance:

“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,” 20th Century Fox TV Co-Chairman Gary Newman and Dana Walden said in a joint statement. “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.”

Both creators David X Cohen and Matt Groening were of course ecstatic about the news. Said 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.”

Between this mistake and the mistake of canceling Family Guy, maybe this means Fox TV will think twice about axing an animated series, or even a live action series (Could we see the resurrection of Greg the Bunny?). You can currently catch reruns of Futurama on Comedy Central throughout the week and you can even pre-order the complete box set inside of a limited Bender head from Amazon today!