UPDATE #2: I was able to hear back from Fox again, and was told that Billy West and John DiMaggio did indeed sign on along with everyone else. Futurama is back, folks!

UPDATE: The trades are reporting that all of the cast members, including West and DiMaggio, have signed new deals. As I said earlier, someone from Fox told me directly that only the three actors were confirmed so far, and I haven’t heard anything since then, but the big boys seem to have heard differently, so it all seems legit. Rejoice!

Earlier today, the news that we had all been waiting for was announced: the original voice cast had been signed for the upcoming new 26-episode run of Futurama. The news was initially reported by The Star, but has since changed up a bit: I contacted someone at Fox who confirms that Katey Sagal (Leela Turanga), Maurice LaMarche (Kif Kroker/Hedonismbot/Morbo/Donbot/Clamps), and Tress MacNeille (Mom) had all officially signed on. This of course means that the biggest name of them all, Billy West (Philip J. Fry/Dr. John Zoidberg/Prof. Hubert Farnsworth/Zapp Brannigan), and John DiMaggio (Bender Bending Rodriguez) — who admitted that he was confident all cast would return at Comic Con — had not yet signed on, but it is hoped that an agreement will be reached with the rest of the cast soon.

The news comes after the shocking report recently that the original voice actors with stuck in a financial dispute, and that a casting call had gone out to find new voice actors to take on all of the show’s roles.

It seems like sometimes you find yourself at some weird panels when you’re waiting around for other ones you really want to go to, which is how I ended up in the panel for Batman: The Brave & the Bold, the animated series running on Cartoon Network.

Boy, am I glad I ended up there, because I was able to see a premiere episode that knocked my socks off, and that I think you’ll enjoy too. The episode is titled “Mayhem of the Music Meister” and features Neil Patrick Harris as the Music Meister, an evil musician who takes control of the heroes and villains and makes them sing. The music in the episode was genius, and the end of the episode was greeted by a standing ovation from the audience. When this episode airs, you too can see Aquaman dancing with Gorilla Grodd! Trust me, I fell in love with this show based on this episode. If you love musicals, if you love Batman, you will really get a kick out of this episode.

Aside from seeing this premiere, the audience was treated to a fun discussion by the creators and voice actors. It was awesome to see Deidrich Bader (Batman), John Dimaggio (Aquaman), and James Arnold Taylor (Green Arrow) act out the voices. One young audience member addressed Bader as Batman, at which point Bader responded in full Batman voice.

Word making its way out of San Diego Comic Con ’09 is that the Futurama panel was a major downer and that none of the cast members who were expected to appear were present. Naturally, this all stems from the current salary dispute between the majorly-talented voice actors and 20th Century Fox, who recently put out a casting call for new voice actors in case no agreement is reached (Read: FOX Hates Your Guts With Every Single Inch Of Their Being; Possibly Looking To Re-Cast “˜Futurama’). It’s being reported by Topless Robot that the only thing that came out of the Comic Con panel, was that show creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen basically just asked that we all cross our fingers and hope for the best, which we’ve all been doing for years now anyway.

Surprisingly, this isn’t all that came out of the Con, though. IGN actually found Bender Bending Rodriguez himself, John DiMaggio, at Comic Con and was able to ask him where things stood. DiMaggio, in his typical outgoing and happy style offered his own personal view of what was going on and what he thought would happen. He even opened with a little song by a man named Elvis.