The official word from director John Lesseter and Disney Animation is that the long-delayed “Toy Story 3” will be coming to theaters in 2009. There is one catch — Lasseter will not be directing the effort.

Now that Lasseter is Disney Animation’s CCO (chief creative officer), he has little time left on his schedule for the gruelling task of day to day hands on picture making. And after the PIXAR venture, he is up to his elbows in organizational work. Rumor has it Lasseter may tap Chris Williams for the helming task. Williams is currently directing Disney’s “American Dog” which is due out in 2008.

In other Disney news, the company that the Mouse built is ridding itself for good of the Touchstone Television lapel pin and will change its name to “ABC Television Studio.” This change takes place immediately according to a network spokesperson.

Touchstone, Disney’s TV production arm at the alphabet network, has seen great past success with shows like the Emmy winning “Lost,” Golden Globe winner “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives” and most recently, “Ugly Betty.”

A few years ago, Disney regrouped and changed its TV brand from Disney Television by adopting one of its film names “Touchstone” and became “Touchstone Television,” the Disney voice at ABC. Now in a new effort to streamline its growing operations (Disney owns ABC & ESPN) it has decided to have an inclusive banner that simply reads ‘ABC Television Studio.’

A spokesperson for ABC put it this way in regards to Disney’s effort to reflect its ultimate streamlining/cost-cutting goals, “…the studio’s critical role in building a brand that viewers identify with quality television on any platform.” To that effort Disney has been relatively successful having three highly watched shows among adults in that key 18-49 demographic.