LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- Three comedies got some good news yesterday as the Seth MacFarlane-produced "Family Guy" and "American Dad" as well as NBC's "The Office" all received orders for additional episodes.

The latter series, from NBC Universal Television and Reveille, saw its second season officially extended to 13 episodes. "The Office" apparently began its sophomore season with a modest six-episode order with the option to shoot seven additional backup scripts.

The Tuesday comedy saw its retention rate of lead-in "My Name Is Earl" improve to 68.57% in households and 73.47% in adults 18-49 in its second week (compared with 62.37% in households and 67.19% in adults 18-49 on 9/20/05) according to preliminary Nielsen data.

Greg Daniels, Ben Silverman, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Howard Klein are the executive producers of "The Office."

As for FOX's "American Dad" and "Family Guy," the network has greenlighted nine additional installments of the former, bringing its series total to 41 episodes. "Dad," like most freshman series, began with a 13-episode order. FOX went on to order six additional episodes prior to its debut (read the story) with 13 more getting picked up this past June (read the story).

Overall, "Dad" will have enough installments to last through the 2006-07 season, although it's not clear how many will actually comprise each season.

As for "Family Guy," the show's producer 20th Century Fox Television has quietly begun production on 22 additional episodes of the series. Said order would bring the show's "revival" to at least 57 episodes. The network itself however has yet to officially pick up the additional installments. Nevertheless, industry insiders say it's a formality at this point considering the show's ratings success.

The news means that "Family Guy" will most likely be around through at least the early part of the 2007-08 season.

Seth MacFarlane is behind both "Guy" and "Dad" with David A. Goodman and Chris Sheridan also serving as executive producers on the former and Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman also serving as executive producers on the latter.