Score big with Bender

He's not Devin Hester (that's for sure), but his return is a touchdown for long-suffering Futurama fans.

Futurama is back with the equivalent of four all-new episodes in stores today on DVD titled Bender's Big Score. Taking the same tack Family Guy used to thank its fans for helping bring back the show to network television two years ago (in the home video release of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story), Twentieth Television is releasing new episodes of the series on home video and those same episodes will run on Comedy Central next year.

Comedy Central also acquired the rights to 72 existing episodes of the Sci-fi animated comedy that are currently running on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The program's successful ratings there, as well as healthy DVD sales, has helped keep the show in the geek spotlight.

It's also possible that a off-network syndicated run may be in the cards, since local stations are struggling with the lack of sitcoms coming into the marketplace (hey, one can hope...)

Futurama ran on Fox from 1999 to 2003, and was pushed around the schedule a lot, often landing opposite 60 Minutes on Sunday Nights. The program was created by Matt Groening - the same person who created another animated series yours truly can't think of right now... D'oh!