Fox Renews "The Simpsons", "King of the Hill"

The Guinness Book for World Records already credits The Simpsons with being the longest running TV cartoon, the longest running comedy, and as having the most guest stars in a TV series. To more firmly entrench themselves in pop culture and television history, The Simpsons are coming back for two more seasons.

Fox has agreed to keep both The Simpsons and King of the Hill on their air through till 2008. It means that The Simpsons will see their 400th episode on the air, on News Corp.'s Fox Network. All of the regular cast, including Dan Castellaneta (voice of Homer Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Grandpa Simpson and Mayor "Diamond" Joe Quimby), Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson, Nelson Muntz and Ralph Wiggum), Julie Kavner (voice of Marge Simpson, and Patty and Selma), Yeardley Smith (voice of Lisa Simpson), Hank Azaria (voice of Police Chief Clancy Wiggum, Moe Szylack and Apu Nahasapeemapetilon), Harry Shearer (voice of C. Montgomery Burns, Principal Seymour Skinner and Ned Flanders) and creator Matt Groening are on board to keep the successful show running. As the BBC reports, Groening said "I don't see any end in sight. I want to get to 366 [shows] so we have one for every day of the year, including leap year".

E Online reports that "a big-screen Simpsons is definitely in the works and will likely debut at the end of the series' run...whenever that happens to be." The report, coupled with the re-signing of The Simpsons to the contract extension, dispel the rumors of a strike by the cast from the show that has produced more than $1 billion for Fox and it's parent company, News Corp.

As well as The Simpsons being extended, King of the Hill is going to get another two seasons as well. This news comes after most of the staff had begun pursuing other jobs, as they believed this was the last year for King of the Hill. The staff has been on hiatus for a year, but there was no need for more episodes to finish out the season because of the pre-emptions for Fox's coverage of NFL football. Creator Mike Judge locked down the return to Fox after Fox managed to get executive producers John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky back to the show. However, lengthy production times means the show won't come back to the air until at least January 2007.

In a related story, voice actor Billy West has posted on his website that "they're doing 26 new episodes of ''Futurama'' for TV and we're hammering out the deal now. The original plan was to have the DVD's first but that's no longer the case. I'm totaly jammed dude." Fox has not confirmed if this is the case, but Fox has resurrected old animated shows, with Family Guy coming back to the Fox Network after its cancellation.

[Additional Sources: BBC, E Online, Billywest.com]