One of the best comedies currently on television has just been renewed.  FX announced today that the hilarious animated series Archer has been picked up for a 13-episode fifth season.  Season four is currently in the midst of airing on the network, and ratings have continued to climb.  Compared to season two, this season has posted ratings gains of +44% in the adults 18-34 demo and +36% in the adults 18-49 demo.  Moreover, the show continues to shine creatively as the exploits of the titular character (voiced H. Jon Benjamin) are as entertaining as ever under the direction of creator/showrunner Adam Reed and executive producer Matt Thompson.

Hit the jump to read the full press release, and click here to read Dave’s report from last month’s Archer Live! event.  7 episodes remain in the current fourth season, with the two-part season finale set to air on April 4th and April 11th.

We have three new clips and five character posters to share from Cal Brunker’s animated sci-fi family film, Escape from Planet Earth.  Brendan Fraser and Rob Corddry voice two alien brothers who get into all sorts of hijinks when a mission leads them to the notoriously dangerous title planet.

Also featuring the voices of Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, George Lopez, Sofia Vergara, Steve Zahn, Chris Parnell, Jonath Morgan Heit, James Corden, Jessica Alba, Sarah Jessica Parker and William Shatner, Escape from Planet Earth opens February 15th.  Hit the jump to check out the clips and posters.

We received a fantastic entry into the spy genre in 2012 with the release of the James Bond film Skyfall, but damn it’s going to be good to have Archer back in our lives this month.  The fantastic FX spy comedy series returns for its fourth season later next week, and a new poster has been released online (bearing the headline “Quantum of Mediocrity”) along with a few amusing character interviews.  Said interviews play out like the characters sat down with journalists at a junket, but in true Archer fashion they don’t exactly play out as expected.

Hit the jump to check out the new poster and interviews, and click here to read our recap of the recent Archer Live event and Q&A.  Archer returns for season four on Thursday, January 17th on FX.

Believe it or not, the only time the voice cast of FX’s animated spy series Archer gets together is during events like Comic-Con or the TCA press tour.  So it’s a special treat for them to participate in Archer Live!, an in-person event that not only lets the cast members get out of the recording booth and riff on each other in person, but lets them interact with their rabid fanbase in a variety of ways.  Outstanding vocal talent H. Jon Benjamin, Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell, Amber Nash and Lucky Yates were on hand along with executive producer Matt Thompson to hold a fan Q&A, reenact some favorite scenes, preview episodes of the upcoming fourth season and take us all into the danger zone.

Season three of Archer will be available on DVD and Blu-ray starting January 8th.  The season four premiere of Archer debuts on FX at 10PM ET/PT on Thursday, January 17th.  Hit the jump for a recap of Archer Live! and a preview of season four.

Archer fans love the show for its immoral characters, quick fire pop cultural references and ridiculous plot lines.  The end of Season 3 featured the ISIS crew in outer space, and creator Adam Reed said that he is strongly considering a two-episode finale in Season 4 that would be set underwater.

The talented voice cast who help make Archer so memorable returned to Comic-Con in anticipation of the show’s fourth season.  Show creator Adam Reed, along with voice actors Aisha Tyler, Amber Nash and Chris Parnell, sat down with members of the press to offer their insights regarding the show’s popularity and what motivates their characters.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

Earlier this year, we brought you the news that Tom Hanks would be bringing an original creation to Yahoo! in the form of the company’s first ever scripted series, Electric City.  The first teaser trailer for the project is now available.  The animated sci-fi project, produced through Reliance Entertainment and Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s Playtone, will also feature Hanks in the voice cast.  Yahoo! looks to start airing the approximately 20, four-minute-long episodes starting July 17th.  Hit the jump to check out the teaser trailer and read up on the details of Electric City in the press release.

Adult Swim created a new language for cartoons. From the style of animation (which combined old school cell animation with new digital technology) to the nonsense plots that would often run for fifteen minutes or less, it’s a formula that has become something of a standard – until then, animated shows often went The Simpsons route. Archer, the FX adult cartoon show, is a mixture of both, but with a lot of that Adult Swim style. It’s no surprise that creator Adam Reed also worked on Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Sealab 2021.

The show stars H. Jon Benjamin as Archer, the would-be Bond spy for ISIS, a spy organization run by his mother (Jessica Walter). There he works with fellow spy Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), desk girls Cheryl Tunt (Judy Greer) and Pam Poovey (Amber Nash), and with Lana’s former lover Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell). The show mixes spywork with the clash of office mates, most of whom are functionally insane. Our review of the second season of Archer on Blu-ray follows after the jump.

I know I’m not the only Collider writer to feel that if you’re missing out on FX’s Archer, you’re missing one of the most consistently funny shows on Television.  If biting satire, political commentary, and cartoon nudity are things you enjoy, chances are high you already do enjoy FX’s brilliant Archer.   The cast hit Comic-Con to promote the upcoming third season, and I got to sit down with stars H. Jon Benjamin (Voice of Sterling Archer), Amber Nash (Voice of HR Director Pam Poovey), Aisha Tyler (Voice of Agent Lana Kane), and Chris Parnell (Voice of Cyril Figgis).  If the cast is to be believed, Season 3 will feature:

• “Operational fieldwork”
• “Midgets”
• “Terrible things”

Check all three video interviews after the jump.

When the the midseason kicks off in January, FX is bringing an all-new series and one returning series to the flickering box. Joining a line of successful dramas like Rescue Me, Justified and Sons of Anarchy, the cable network is sending the boxing drama Lights Out into the ring on Tuesday, January 11th at 10/9c. The series will see Holy McCallany (CSI: Miami) as Patrick ‘Lights’ Leary, an aging former heavyweight boxing champion who struggles to find his identity and support his wife and three daughters after retiring from the ring.  The financial downturn coupled with a series of failed investments leave him at a perilous crossroads – battling the urge to return to boxing or reluctantly accepting a job as a brutal and intimidating debt collector. If you’re not convinced that this is yet another drama to check out in January, make sure you watch the trailer right here.

For details on the return of the comedy series Archer, hit the jump.

We just heard that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are developing a new comedy series for HBO with Lizzy Caplan, but on August 17th yet another comedy series from the Anchorman collaborators will debut on Comedy Central with back-to-back episodes. Big Lake is a new half-hour sitcom about a big city banker, played by Chris Gethard (The Other Guys). He loses his job, his father’s nest egg, and retirement fund, then moves home to his parents’ couch in Big Lake, Pennsylvania, where Saturday Night Live alums Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz are already waiting for him.  Hit the jump for more details on the new series including an extended trailer for your viewing pleasure.

One of the most underrated new shows of last season in my humble opinion was FX’s animated spy comedy Archer.  The best way to describe the show (to borrow a phrase from series creator Adam Reed) is “James Bond meets Arrested Development”.  Given my adoration for the show, I jumped at the opportunity to meet and talk with Reed and cast members Judy Greer and Chris Parnell earlier today.  Hit the jump for the interview highlights.

A weekly sitcom produced by Will Ferrell (Anchorman) and starring Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) and Chris Parnell (the funniest parts of SNL) sounds like an idea that’s too good to be true, right?  Production was set to begin next month, but EW is reporting that Jon Heder has decided to part ways from the as-yet-unnamed Comedy Central series over “creative differences” about the character.  Keep in mind that Heder willingly played a helmet-wearing, booger-eating, mentally handicapped paperboy alongside Rob Schneider in The Benchwarmers.  Hopefully, Heder’s departure isn’t a sign of the show’s quality but combined with Comedy Central’s checkered past of original series, I’m a little wary.

The series is reportedly about a man who is forced to move back in with his parents.  As we reported a couple weeks ago, Horatio Sanz, who co-starred with Parnell and Ferrell on SNL, is also attached to the project.  And though I would personally like to see them play the parents, this seems unlikely at best.

Two former Saturday Night Live stars will join with Napoleon Dynamite in a new Comedy Central sitcom. Chris Parnell and Horatio Sanz have been cast along with Jon Heder in an untitled sitcom being produced by Gary Sanchez Productions (the Will Ferrell/Adam McKay company). Shooting starts March 31 in New York and the show will premiere in the third quarter.

“Anyone in the comedy world knows that Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell are two of the funniest guys around,” Adam McKay told Variety. Both of them were strong presences on SNL for several years, crafting original characters as well as playing key supporting roles. More recently, they’ve been relegated to those supporting roles in both TV and film. However, any connection to SNL gives an actor a much higher comedy IQ so it’s a safe bet that this show will be funny enough to warrant a DVR’d episode or two.

Hit the jump to read the official plot description of the show.

Arguably one of the most popular sketches in the past decade of Saturday Night Live, the digital short, “Lazy Sunday”, helped launch the viral video era, as well as the career of the then relatively unknown, Andy Samberg.   It’s a surprise that five years have passed and no one has ever requested a live performance of Andy Samberg’s and Chris Parnell’s comedy fueled hip-hop song.

Well, tonight Jimmy Fallon put an end to that.  With Parnell as his guest on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and an “impromptu” visit from Samberg, the first ever live performance of “Lazy Sunday” took place.  And with the always impressive house band, The Roots, providing a medley of classic hip-hop beats for the duo to perform over, this is not a live performance you should miss. Hit the jump to check it out in its entirety. Here’s to hoping a live performance of “Dick in a Box” is in our near future.