The Studio Rounds

Today I ambled through Bento Box in Burbank and Walt Disney Television Animation in sunny Glendale.

At BB, storyboard crew is coming to the end of Bob's Burgers, set to launch on Fox in January. As one artist said to me: "I'm done in October, then we get to see if the show gets picked up. If it does, we should be back ..."

The Mouse's Glendale property, back when it was a mere airport ...

At Disney TVA in Glendale, Jake and the Neverland Pirates is wrapping its first episodic order with some artists swinging over the Mickey's Clubhouse later in the year.

Kick Buttowski continues in work along with Inspector Oso. (The Disney TVA shows remaining inside the Frank Wells Building are slated to shift to Glendale next year, but that no doubt depends how fast Disney Toons -- now headquartered in the top half of the Sonora Building -- can move to the facility next door.)

It's not surprising that Disney TVA is moving most of its units to Glendale. As it was explained to me, Diz Co. charges its divisions rent for the buildings they use, and the Glendale structures are cheaper than being on the lot. Simple.

In the meantime, the Glendale City Fathers (and Mothers) are looking to make the east Valley burg into a newer and shinier entertainment hub:

Glendale wants to take on Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles and lure more media and arts firms to its industrial area by cutting red tape.

The City Council last year directed city officials to research the possibility of designating a media and design district within the San Fernando Road corridor, which already is a designated redevelopment area, to encourage economic growth. ...

They are probably on their way to presiding over the New Hollywood, since Disney is putting up lot of big new buildings on its share of the old Central Airport property, and DreamWorks Animation has rapidly increased the square footage of structures on its campus down on the cement banks of the scenic L.A. river.