Clifford will be getting a new TV series next month.
Clifford is well-known to generations of readers from the picture book series by Norman Bridwell, and to youngish Milennials, from the PBS TV series Clifford the Big Red Dog, which aired from 2000 to 2003.
But now Clifford is getting rebooted, and very soon, too.
Dog O’Day learned of this news through People Magazine.
The new Clifford the Big Red Dog will air first on Amazon Prime Video on Friday, December 6, then start airing on PBS as part of the PBS Kids lineup on Saturday, December 7.
While the show does have an IMDb page, there are not any details other than writing credits on it yet, so information about the new series remains sparse.
Clifford will be able to speak to humans in this version, which, like the previous version, is designed to promote literacy.
It will also be set on the East Coast’s Birdwell Island, which is based on Bridwell’s home of Martha’s Vineyard, according to the Boston Globe.
From the clip in the People story, the animation style seems much flatter, almost like Richard Scarry videos.
The first book (of around eighty), simply titled Clifford the Big Red Dog, was published in 1963, and the final books were published in 2015.
The original series featured John Ritter (8 Simple Rules) as the voice of the eponymous title character, a very red dog of indeterminate breed who’s roughly the size of a two-story house. It also featured Cree Summer (Inspector Gadget, Atlantis) as Cleo, a brash tomboyish Poodle, and Kel Mitchell (All That, Good Burger) as T-Bone, an overweight, cautious and good-natured Bulldog.
Grey DeLisle (Bolt, Star Wars Rebels) voiced his owner Emily Elizabeth Howard, a normal soccer-playing girl who’s somewhere around eight or ten.
I (Wesley) thought the original was a decent show, but never could wholeheartedly endorse it because it aired in the slot previously occupied by Wishbone reruns, which was a million times better show. (As Peanuts’ Linus once ended a letter to the Great Pumpkin, “If I sound bitter, it’s because I am.”)
Hopefully viewers will enjoy the new version, which we will likely sample.