Not the cast members, but the artists doing the show.
The late morning found me wandering around Film Roman, mainly with the The Goode Family and King of the Hill units ...
Goode Family is moving briskly along. One of the supervisors told me that there's a few more months on the schedule, then the first batch of episodes for ABC will be done. "We're not going to know if there is a pickup until after the show goes on the air, so everybody is looking at a long hiatus. Who's hiring?" Note how this "who's hiring?" question keeps coming up. Gives you an idea how truly crappy the teevee animation employment picture has been of late. Speaking of which, the King of the Hill artists were talking about the prospects of KOTH being picked up by ABC, now that it's been canceled by Fox. Nobody had any solid answers, since upper and middle management isn't talking. But I think I have a clue about King's prospects for survival: Cartoon Network's mature animation bloc Adult Swim began its illustrious career by cannibalizing cast-offs from other networks, most notably Fox. And it really hit its ratings stride once it netted aborted Fox shows like Family Guy and Futurama. So it's sticking with the streak by syndicating Mike Judge's recently canceled Fox lifer King of the Hill, which just wrapped up its 12th season, and expanding its programming to seven nights a week. The new schedule starts in January 2009, at which point Adult Swim will broadcast its envelope-pushing cartoons at 10 p.m. every night. If Adult Swim in an indicator ... and I think it is ... then the artists on the Mike Judge show will, sometime, somehow, be working on new episodes. After Adult Swim and sizable DVD sales, Hill will emerge from its present corpse-like condition and get a new lease on life. At least, that's my prediction. (Feel free to comment on what a starry-eyed Pollyanna I am.)
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I sure hope so. 'King of the Hill' is one of my favorite TV shows, their archive in San Marcos is outstanding, and I'm always impressed by how they've stayed in character for over a decade. I hope it gets a visit from the TV necromancer.
Tis true. Episode 13 out of 13 begins production next week, and some people are already getting their final notices. Initial storyboards will begin wrapping up either next week or the following. Board revisions should continue into January, assuming we don't have another epic script that keeps revisions going and going. We've had a couple of those already.
I've heard there's an option for 4 or 6 more scripts that are already being written. So far I've heard good feedback from ABC, but this IS Hollywood after all. Say one thing, do another.
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