End-of-Week Studio Walkathon

I dropped in at a couple of studios on Thursday and Friday. Rough Draft Animation in Glendale and Cartoon Network Studios in Burbank... The basement of Rough Draft's Brand Boulevard facility continues to fill up with layout artists for "The Simpsons" feature. (Still a few empty cubicles, but less and less all the time.) As at IDT Entertainment over by the Bob Hope Airport, overtime here is kicking in for some "Simpson" feature employees. I'll make a two-dollar bet on the prospect of there being lots more o.t. before The Simpson Family's feature debut gets projected on screens at your local multiplex. Friday I made the mistake of walking four blocks to the Glen Oaks Boulevard skyscraper where several Cartoon Network units are housed, and almost melted in the heat. CN has multiple floors leased in the building, but a lot of the space is empty at the moment as old shows shut down and new shows await pickup. And it was even more empty because everyone was bugging out a couple hours early for the three-day holiday weekend. (One employee said he didn't think "Camp Lazlo" was going to get picked up for a fith season; I said a "Lazlo" director expressed confidence it WOULD be picked up. And there you are.) Within a month to six weeks, we should know what product CN's Atlanta headquarters will green-light and which they won't.