Netflix is bringing back the children’s series Magic School Bus with all new episodes.
Magic School Bus was a show based on a Scholastic book series of the same name. The show focused on science, emphasizing that learning about how the world around us works can be lots fun. The new version of the show will include some modern-day updates, according to The New York Times:
Netflix is acquiring for worldwide streaming 26 half-hour episodes of the new program, “The Magic School Bus 360°,” which will use computer-generated animation. The show will start appearing in 2016, the companies plans to announce on Wednesday. […]
First broadcast on PBS in 1994, and most recently seen in reruns as part of the children’s programming on Qubo, “The Magic School Bus” was the longest-running children’s science program, Scholastic said, and was shown in approximately 39 countries. While the television show left Qubo in 2012, the company continues to publish books under the brand. […]
The show will essentially be the same, except with the kind of fancy schmancy digital upgrades you expect from remakes these days. You’ll get a computer-animated Ms. Fizzle (no word yet on whether or not Lily Tomlin will reprise the role as her voice) and a modernized bus. Netflix also acquired Clifford the Big Red Dog and Goosebumps in the deal with Scholastic, but there’s no word yet if those shows will get an modernized update as well.
With Levar Burton’s Reading Rainbow being brought back, it seems as though your classic childhood shows are having quite a moment, no? Think about it while you enjoy this vintage episode as well as the theme song, which I think we need to play around here a lot more often.