Thousands of people produce podcasts every day and rarely do any make a cent for their efforts. However, every one in awhile, there’s a real success story and somebody makes it big. That’s what happened in this case — of course, it didn’t hurt that the podcast creator happened to be Ricky Gervais.

HBO has decided to order a third season of Gervais’ animated series, The Ricky Gervais Show, that’s based on his incredibly popular podcasts. There’s no word on when season three will air but the past two seasons have kicked off in January and February. The season two finale is set to air this Friday, April 15th.

Here’s the press release from HBO:

HBO RENEWS ANIMATED COMEDY SERIES “THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW” FOR THIRD SEASON
Series Is Based On Record-Setting Podcast

NEW YORK, April 8, 2011 – HBO has renewed the animated comedy series THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW, based on the record-breaking podcast, for a third season. The voices on the show are recorded by Ricky Gervais, his longtime collaborator, Stephen Merchant, and Gervais’ colleague and friend, Karl Pilkington, whose offbeat musings inspire many of the storylines.

Currently presenting new episodes Friday nights (9:00-9:30 p.m. ET/PT), with the second-season finale scheduled to debut April 15, THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW has inspired critical praise, with the New York Times saying the series is “proof that big laughs can come in small doses,” while the New York Post described the show as “crazy fun,” and the Houston Chronicle observed that the show’s “pointless conversations will keep you in stitches.”

On March 19, the podcast on which THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW is based reportedly passed the 300 million download mark. The podcast held the record for most downloaded podcast in the 2005 edition of the “Guinness Book Of Records,” when the total per episode was in the hundreds of thousands, and holds the record for most-downloaded podcast or audiobook today.

Season two credits: THE RICKY GERVAIS SHOW is produced for HBO Entertainment by Media Rights Capital in association with Wildbrain Entertainment; executive producers, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Karl Pilkington, Glyn Hughes, Bob Higgins, Lisa Ullmann and Steve Patrick; supervising producer, Margaret M. Dean; producer, Michelle Wilson; director Dan Fraga.

What do you think? Do you watch this animated series? Glad to hear it’s been renewed?

Image courtesy HBO.