No Studio Scuttlebutt?

As I traipse through studios week after week, year after year, I find that momentous happenings -- and accompanying gossip -- ebbs and flows.

Right now it's kind of ebbed. At least for me...

At Disney Toons they're done with Mermaid III and reworking Tinker Bell (the eternal dvd feature), and still doing design work on the Fairies projects that follow Tink. At Disney TV Animation, the same series are still in their pre-production cycles. WDFA is developing its previously-announced features (Frog Princess, American Dog, Rapunzel with nothing huge (just yet) in the production pipeline...

DreamWorks is ready to launch Shrek the Third and the tub-thumping has begun. The Bee Movie and Kung Fu Panda are humping along at full production tilt.

Starz Media/Film Roman still has a full plate with Over the Hill, The Simpsons and The Simpsons Feature (which has caused some of the yellow family's half-hour episodes to be put on hold.) New owner Starz also has a few other projects percolating along:

Starz Media has unveiled its slate for MIPTV, headlined by the hit Nick Jr. animated pre-school property Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!, among other diverse offerings such as the anthologies Masters of Science Fiction and Masters of Horror 2.

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! features the daily adventures of Wubbzy and his friends Widget and Walden. The series is generating more than 40 million game plays on Nickelodeon’s website.

Two 70-minute animated features under the Stan Lee Presents banner will also be offered: Stan Lee Presents: The Condor, with Wilmer Valderamma (That ‘70s Show), and Stan Lee: Presents: Mosaic, featuring Anna Paquin (X-Men). The animated series Eloise, which airs in the U.S. on Starz Kids & Family, and Garfield & Friends, which is based on Jim Davis’ hit comic strip, will also be highlighted.

Warner Bros. Animation is underway with a new Scooby DVD feature and four series (thirteen episodes each), after or during which they are slated to move back to Burbank. Universal has got the same as before: Curious George and Land Before Time.

As for The Animation Guild, we're working at organizing a few non-signator studios, hassling with a couple of signator studios over grievances, and I'm chatting people up as I make my daily rounds. As previously stated, things are relatively quiet (which isn't to say that there aren't gripes or individual crises playing out. But I ain't going into those here.)

Enjoy this sun-washed weekend.