Buffy Gets Animated
April 2 -- Fox Kids Network announced last week that it is developing Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Animated Series with Joss Whedon, creator of the live-action version of the supernatural WB hit show.
The Buffy cartoon could be on the air as early as February 2002, Maureen Smith, president of Fox Family Channel and Fox Kids, told Variety.
Whedon told the New York Daily News that the action would find Buffy back in high school, although she and her friends graduated from Sunnydale High two seasons ago on the original series.
"The animated series is an opportunity to take our characters back to the beginning of their adulthood and tell the stories we never got to tell about Buffy and her friends," said Whedon. "It's a chance to recapture those years of heartache and confusion and do the stories we never could afford to do in live action."
The frequently violence- and sex-filled original show opens with a disclaimer that it is intended for "adult and teen audiences," but the new Saturday-morning cartoon will be aimed at a younger demographic, according to Smith.
Coincidentally, Buffy herself (Sarah Michelle Gellar, that is) is getting cartoony by bringing Scooby-Doo's mystery-solving Daphne alive in the live-action Warner Bros. film version of the popular show. It was not announced whether Gellar would voice her animated alter ego for the new Fox show.
The original Buffy's current network, the WB, and producer 20th Century Fox are currently locked in a contract renegotiation dispute about which network will be home to the live-action Buffy next season. If the WB does not offer to pay more per episode, the live-action series could end up on Fox.
