Sad news, everyone.  Comedy Central has opted not to renew Futurama for an eighth season, effectively cancelling the animated series that found new life on the cable network.  The series initially ran for four seasons on Fox before being cancelled due to low ratings, but its popularity soared with reruns on Adult Swim, and Comedy Central subsequently revived the show for four feature-length films (which, divided into half-hour episodes, make up the fifth season) and eventually a sixth and seventh season.

The final batch of 13 episodes, which represent the second half of season seven, will begin airing on June 19th (watch the trailer here), with the series finale set for September 4th.  Executive producer David X. Cohen and creator Matt Groening weren’t exactly surprised by the news of Comedy Central’s decision not to renew, but they feel like these are their best episodes yet and may indeed look for yet another home for Futurama.  Hit the jump to see what they had to say.

Good news, everyone!  New episodes of Futurama will be coming our way this summer, and Comedy Central has now released a 3-minute trailer to tease what’s in store for the second half of season seven.  The first half of the trailer is a quick montage of some unsurprisingly great sight gags and jokes, while the second half shows us a couple of scenes from the new episodes.  The Zoidberg-centric clip is a highlight, naturally.  Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  Season 7 Part 2 will likely begin sometime in June.

Some changes are being made over at South Park.  Creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker recently revealed that, instead of splitting each season into two halves of 7 episodes that air in the spring and fall, the upcoming 17th season will air as one batch of 10 episodes.  Though the change reduces the episode number from 14 per season to 10, the creators said that this allows them more time to devote to other things rather than having to work on South Park for two grueling, separate batches of 7 weeks out of the year.  Hit the jump for more from Stone and Parker regarding the future of South Park and how it fits in with the current television landscape.

Though the back half of the fourth season of Daniel Tosh’s Comedy Central series Tosh.0 doesn’t debut until later this fall, the network has already renewed the show for a fifth season.  THR reports that Comedy Central has ordered a 30-episode fifth season of the web-centered series.  The show is a ratings hit for the network, especially in the coveted 18-34 demo where it netted a 4.1 rating during its season four premiere.  Tosh was humorously unenthused about the season five order, responding “It’s hard for me to get excited about anything when the Miami Dolphins look so terrible.”

The second half of Tosh.0‘s fourth season will begin on Tuesday, September 25th, while season five will begin sometime in January 2013.  Tosh is also behind an animated series called Brickleberry that will debut on Comedy Central on September 25th.

Currently the hilarious workplace comedy Workaholics on Comedy Central is in the middle of their third season, and this season’s guest stars have been pretty interesting with Rumer Willis and the band The Black Keys showing up (not to mention what might be the cameo of the year from All That cast member Lori Beth Denberg). Now another familiar face to TV is heading to the series as EW reports Tim Heidecker, fresh off Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, has landed a guest spot. So who will he play?

The role sounds about as outrageous as you would expect with Heidecker playing the leader of a group called The Lord’s Force, which series creator, writer and star Adam DeVine describes as “a religious group of weight lifters that use the power of the Lord to break baseball bats over their knees.” Apparently Adam, Ders and Blake welcome some of these guys into their casa and that’s when the fun begins. The episode airs July 10th, so don’t miss it.  For news on Ray Romano snagging a few episodes of the fourth season of Parenthood, hit the jump.

With Comic-Con 2012 just around the corner, word is starting to leak out about what movies and TV shows will/won’t be making an appearance.  We have a good idea of the film panel slate in Hall H, and now official word regarding TV panels is trickling down.  As a quick reference guide, we’ve rounded up the TV panels that have been confirmed thus far in one easy article.  Briefly:

• Thursday – MAD, Nikita
• Friday – The Big Bang Theory, Arrow, Bones, Childrens Hospital, Cult, 666 Park Avenue, Brickleberry, Bob’s Burgers, The Venture Bros, NTSF:SD:SUV, Robot Chicken, Black Dynamite
• Saturday – Glee, The Vampire Diaries, Revolution, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Person of Interest, Futurama, The Following
• Sunday – Fringe, Sons of Anarchy, Supernatural, DC Nation, The Cleveland Show

Hit the jump for more details, including which actors will be in attendance and where the panels will take place.  Comic-Con 2012 will run from July 11 – July 15.

As he did with the press for Borat and Bruno, Sacha Baron Cohen is currently doing the publicity rounds for The Dictator completely in character.  Yesterday we shared his appearance on Saturday Night Live, and last night he took part in an interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show as Admiral General Aladeen.  It’s a pretty fun watch, and Stewart does a fine job of playing along with the bit as best he can, but when the interview inevitably takes a turn towards dick jokes it’s understandably tough for Stewart to keep a straight face.

Hit the jump to watch the clip.  The Dictator opens on May 16th.

Comedy Central just sent over their premiere dates for the 2011-2012 midseason, and while most of their series don’t usually show up around this time, South Park will be making its triumphant return for a sixteenth season on March 14th while Tosh.0 will come back with fresh meat from the internet on January 31st, marking its fourth season. However, the real exciting news is that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report will come back right after the New Year on January 3rd to really start digging into their Indecision 2012 coverage in this election year.

Cable’s longest running animated series will last even longer as Comedy Central just announced that South Park has been renewed for three more seasons, which will take the series into their milestone 20th season. And as if it needs to be pointed out, series creators, writers, directors and stars Trey Parker and Matt Stone will continue to be at the helm of every single episode. The duo contributed a quick quote of standard publicity fluff saying, “Comedy Central has been our home for 15 years and we love working there. South Park is a blast and we can’t wait to make more.” The show continues to be topical, irreverent and smart in its comedy, and it’s good to hear that we’ve secured another few years with Cartman, Stan, Kyle and Kenny. Hit the jump to check out the press release.

Comedy Central announced today a pre-emptive order for yet another season of Workaholics, the hilarious new comedy series currently in the middle of its second season. A surprisingly funny, and outrageous comedy series, this is one of my favorite new series that seems to be gaining a lot of ground with viewers. Complete with 90′s pop culture references, reckless behavior, ridiculous mishaps and a fantastic trio of main characters composed of Blake Anderson, Adam Devine, Anders Holm, Workaholics is easily one of the best original series Comedy Central has had in awhile. Kent Alterman, head of original programming and production at Comedy Central says, “We feel like the show is one, big public service announcement, teaching the youth of America how to engage with the workplace.” Offices would be much more interesting with this trio around, and a third season is just want the doctor ordered.

It’s no secret that a lot of work goes into an episode of an animated series, but when it comes to Comedy Central’s long-running series South Park, you might be shocked to learn that each episodes is completed in just under one week. This explains how the series from longtime collaborator Trey Parker and Matt Stone remains so topical and relevant every single week, but it also means that when South Park is in production, the pressure is on to deliver, just like an episode of Saturday Night Live. Perhaps that explains why someone like SNL cast member Bill Hader is on the writing staff and makes several appearances in this promising new documentary 6 Days to Air which will premiere on Comedy Central on October 9th.

Despite the obvious stress of putting together a half-hour animated comedy in just a week, Parker and Stone seem to be enjoying themselves immensely and always make time to joke around. Other highlights include a professional sounding conversation about characters shitting into each other’s mouths and someone farting into the PA system at the South Park offices. The new season of South Park premieres October 5th at 10/9c, but see the trailer for what looks to be an eye-opening look behind-the-scenes of the series after the jump.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are riding pretty high these days with their insanely successful Broadway show The Book Of Mormon piling up profits and Tonys. As a result, Comedy Central is keen to remind everyone that the comedy geniuses still have an animated series on their network and are planning to air a big retrospective documentary about the making of South Park this fall. Given the fact that the guys run an entire studio dedicated to South Park on the opposite end of the country, it should be pretty interesting. Hit the jump for more details on the upcoming doc.

With his hilarious video-mocking comedy series Tosh.0 being a smashing success, it’s no surprise that Comedy Central wants to stay in business with Daniel Tosh. As a matter of fact, the cable network has just announced a new collaboration with the comedian after greenlighting 10 episodes of a new animated series called Brickleberry which Tosh is executive producing with Waco O’Guin and Roger Black, the creators and writers of the new series. Tosh will also voice a character in the series which follows a group of dysfunctional forest rangers at a national park that is facing closure until a new ranger comes in to whip everyone into shape and save the park. The series will premiere sometime in early 2012, so we’ll have to wait a little while to see if it can shake a stick at South Park, or the more recent animated success of Ugly Americans. Of course, with Tosh involved, there will likely be plenty of people paying attention.

The animated horror-comedy Ugly Americans – set in a New York City filled with every beast, creature and freak – follows Mark Lilly (voiced by Matt Oberg), a social worker at the Department of Integration, as he helps new citizens, both human and “other,” adapt to hectic life in the Big Apple. Between his stressful job – which includes weaning vampires off of blood and housebreaking werewolves – a zombie roommate and a demon girlfriend, Mark’s lucky if he can sneak in a few minutes of sleep.

During a recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, show creator Devin Clark and executive producer Daniel Powell talked about bringing this wacky and weird world to life, the challenge of keeping the issues relatable, developing the look of the animation, what they learned from Season 1, the themes they’re exploring in Season 2, how the talented and very funny voice actors influence the characters and story, their great guest voices, and trying not to have too much fun, at the expense of the show. They also talked about the recently developed downloadable video game, Apocalypsegeddon, that is an extension of the series. Check out what they had to say after the jump:

Lest you thought that the bleak finale of the first half of season 15 this past May meant the end of South Park, the show has been renewed for two more seasons keeping the series on Comedy Central through 2013. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone ended the first half of this season with a bit of a downer episode focusing on Stan’s cynicism ruining his friendships while his parents complained about the repetitiveness of their marriage in what some saw as a not-so-thinly-veiled metaphor for the Parker and Stone’s exhaustion with the series.

However, the two quickly put rumors of the show’s end to rest as they reassured audiences that they wanted to continue with the series while appearing on The Daily Show, and now EW confirms that the Parker and Stone are signed on through 2013. The new order will bring the total number of seasons up to 17, with the second half of season 15 kicking off on October 5th with seven new episodes.