End O' Week at "King O' Hill"...

As I've said before, "King of the Hill" is back at its old location near Chandler Boulevard in North Hollywood, up on the second floor of a cinder-block building that has a "chemical contamination" sign at the front entrance. (Reassuring.) I zipped in and out of there a few days back... Crew spirits are good, but the crew has a different configuration than it did during the original hundred-episode run that ended last December. Everyone was laid off for four months before FOX decided (as it decided with "Family Guy") that DVDs were a wonderful, lucrative money-spigot, so more episodes were in order. By the time that decision was made, various personnel had picked up gigs elsewhere, and so there are now new faces working alongside the old. One large change: the layout department is no more. In its stead, storyboards are now worked on in some detail by character and layout people, but Fox/IDT Entertainment has eliminated the big bullpen on the second floor that was filled with layout artists. Now, when layouts are done, they're done within the smaller squares of the production boards. The show is doing 20 new episodes, which should last into the Spring of next year. After that? It depends, we suppose, on how ratings and DVD sales go for Hank, Peggy, Bobby and the rest.