PBS has announced that it is developing an animated sitcom based on the popular NPR radio program Car Talk. The yet-untitled series is slated to launch in the summer of 2008 with ten 30-minute episodes that follow the adventures of brothers Click and Clack (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) and their crew of mechanics and co-workers. Fans of the radio program will be invited soon to submit suggestions for a title for the TV show, PBS’ first primetime animated series for a general audience.
Based largely in a fictional Cambridge, Massachusetts garage, the show will focus on the off-air escapades of the Magliozzi brothers (known to their listeners as Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers) as they try to fix cars, fend off disgruntled customers and seek out ways to do less and less work. Other characters will include Fidel, a mechanic who insists on wearing Armani suits while working on cars; Crusty, a former Harvard professor who was tossed out of the nearby academic institution and now turns a wrench while thinking deep thoughts; Sal (short for Sally), a receptionist who handles insiders and outsiders with the same lack of etiquette; and Beth, a young, eager radio producer who desperately wants to make the show more professional to please the network higher-ups.
Tom Sito (Skrek, The Lion King) will serve as director of animation for the series, and animation will be produced by Karen Johnson, founder and CEO of Aha! Studios. Exec producer of animation is Bill Kroyer, an Academy Award-nominated animation director who helmed the feature film Ferngully: The Last Rainforest and animated the light-cycle sequence in Disney’s Tron.
The Magliozzis, who will lend their own iconic voices to the series, comment, ‘We want to apologize in advance to Jim Lehrer, Bill Moyers and the folks at Frontline, Nova and American Experience for the damage we are about to do to your network’s reputation. Oh, and Big Bird, too. Sorry, pal.’
‘Tom and Ray are larger than life characters, and the only way to keep them larger than life, and not diminish them on TV, is through animation,’ says creator and exec producer Howard K. Grossman. ‘We’ve brought on a world-class animation team, and I’m confident the series will rank among the best anywhere.’
In conjunction with the series, The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), whose membership includes all state motor vehicle agencies (DMVs) in the U.S. and Canada, will run a public safety campaign featuring the cartoon versions of Tom and Ray Magliozzi dispensing safe driving tips and other useful information.
