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.

I’m not feeling great this week, so when the floodgates opened up today with a frenzy of backlash in regard to the news that 20th Century Fox is looking to re-cast all of the voice actors for the revival of Futurama…well, my little illness tripled over on me. That’s right, after making the giant announcement that the show would return (Read: Never Underestimate The Power Of Hypnotoad: “˜Futurama’ Is Officially Back!), they now are looking to replace brilliant talents like Billy West (Philip J. Fry, Professor Hubert Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, Leo Wong, Zapp Brannigan), John Di Maggio (Bender), Katey Sagal (Turanga Leela), Phil LaMarr (Hermes Conrad), Maurice LaMarche (Kif, Donbot, Morbo, Calculon), and others.

At first, many believed it was just some sort of marketing ploy and that the plan was to throw everyone into a panic and then throw some big surprise party with the cast showing up and all being well in the world. Though this scenario would be accepted and laughed about later, I believe it would still infuriate fans to hear they purposely did this. However, it appears that word first broke out when multiple cast members mentioned it on their Facebook, which takes away a Comic Con surprise. Then there is Forces of Geek, who brought the news to us with a giant official-looking casting call with all the characters that they want to re-cast as well as clips on Hulu to use as reference.

As it stands now, the situation looks like a good ol’ executive blackmailing attempt. Fox doesn’t like the salaries that the actors want to be paid for their work, so they tell everyone to screw and put out a casting call for other voice actors in hopes that the original cast will lower their fee. A truly dirty and despicable play by the studio. As any fan of the show will tell you, no other show’s voice talent is as important as the cast of Futurama. That core of talents is so good, it just doesn’t matter who they found or how accurate they sounded, you know it just wouldn’t be the same and we would all be able to tell the difference. These guys deserve every single dollar that they’re looking for, and it’s very unlikely that they’re demanding more than is fair.

Click over to the other side to get a look at the call for submissions the studio has put out.

A couple of days ago, Collider got the scoop from an inside source that Comedy Central had ordered 13 new episodes of the ultra-popular sci-fi cartoon, Futurama. This was huge news that everyone had been anxiously waiting to hear about after we found out that Fox was pondering what to do with the show after a successful four-movie direct-to-DVD run. While I too was buzzing with excitement, I must admit, I was also incredibly skeptical due to the fact that this was the exact same order that Comedy Central made in 2006 before the four movies came out, and because when we last heard news, Futurama was waiting on Fox, not Comedy Central. Who was I to know they could tag team.

As it turns out, Collider’s insider was on the scent, and we can all now rejoice: Futurama is OFFICIALLY coming back to the air on Comedy Central, who have ordered not 13 episodes, but 26 new episodes!

20th Century Fox has put out a press release stating that due to the success of the four movies and the popularity of the show’s reruns on Comedy Central, they have made an initial order of 26 half-hour episodes that will also air on Comedy Central. Fox also retains the rights to air these episodes on a broadcast network, if they so choose.