The studio's been abuzz with holiday shenanigans, even as we raced the clock to deliver another animatic and worked right up till the last moment. World Leaders hosted not one but three festive events in the past week, employing the crew's talents for such varied disciplines as karaoke, secret gift-giving, and heavy drinking. Things got rolling last week with a genuine Chili Cook-off, which I am proud to say my girlfriend and I took second place in. Blow-by-blow, on-the-day details can be found onanimatic/Animo editor Tom Bayne's rambling blog.Speaking of blogs, Storyboard Czar Stephen DeStefano has a lovely one, and has seen fit to festoon it with a handful of his wonderfully expressive revision panels from one of our upcoming episodes. Check it out.Our overseas studio has already sent back three episodes, and here are some randomly-selected, out-of-context screengrabs from those self-same episodes, just to prove to you we're actually making a show in between all the heavy drinking and chili cooking, and that it actually looks pretty good:One sour note from the past month (aside from my car getting hit yet again) is that Mr. Stephen Colbert has decided not to reprise his role as Professor Impossible this season, for reasons which probably have something to do with him being all super-famous, super-busy, and no longer in need of a few hundred bucks here and there. We figured this would happen eventually, considering his monumental success in the years since our first season, but we held out hope that the WGA strike would leave him with enough bored free time on his hands that he'd have a go at it. But after getting shuffled around from his assistant to his assistant's assistant to his agent to his manager, one of them finally shot us an email saying: "Stephen has neither the time nor the interest in participating in your project."Was the "nor the interest" really necessary? I would have bought the "time" part without question, but man...you gotta kick a guy when he's down like that? Well maybe I'm not interested in your ice cream, mister! Or your book. Unless someone buys it for me for Christmas.I've been neglecting to show off any of the work of our talented character design team, so allow me to rectify that with lovely cast photo below, which depicts just some of the many characters who will appear in the first 2/3 of Season 3. As usual, I won't give away who anybody is, or how much screen time they get, and leave you to wonder (and probably imagine far better adventures than we ever use them in). Designs are by Matt Jenkins Kano , and the pinch hitter Chris George . Character colors by Carly Monardo . Background painting by Chris Fisher ...SURPRISE CHRISTMAS CONTEST!!!Okay, now that you've looked at the bewildering "cast photo" above, be the first to comment back with the correct answer to either of the two following questions, and win a fantastic prize. Two questions, two winners. Here we go:1. Which of these characters, if any, does this room actually belong to?2. There are three famous, non-fictional people in the picture. Name all three.Our lucky winners will receive an ultra-limited edition, not-for-sale-anywhereAmerican Apparel track jacket! These were produced exclusively for the cast and crew of the show and are available nowhere but my office. They're gray, the front is emblazoned with a white silhouette of the boys in "Go Team Venture" pose, tastefully small across the left breast, and on the back is the Venture Industries logo in full color, as tastelessly large as I could fit it.Good luck, and Happy Holidays!We Love You,JP