At Bento Box

Friday was Bento Box day. (Not the Japanese lunch plate, the studio.) Crew is working on multiple episodes of new series Allen Gregory, and waiting for new installments of Bob's Burgers to get out of the writers' room and onto various Cintiqs ...

The studio, located on Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, is developing various new projects and looking to expand. A staffer mentioned:

"We don't have enough room to handle two series, so one of them will be moving to new offices on Lankershim Boulevard. Bento will be working out of two locations." ...

BB is typical of the medium-sized animation shops sprinkled across the east San Fernando Valley and elsewhere. They flourish (or don't) at the whim and will of our fine, entertainment conglomerates.

Happily, cartoons continue to be a big part of cable and Fox broadcasting. Fox, in fact, looks to be breaking cartoons out of their longtime Sunday-night box canyon and into different days and time slots, expanding the realm. And if the newer product is successful, other networks could attempt to match the network's broadcast strategy, and we could be looking at more cartoon production.

But of course, a lot depends on how the new crop of animated hilarity performs at the t.v. marketplace. If it sinks, various animation crews will sink with it. And the reverse.