In his first venture into childrens animation (he working within that world on 2006’s A Scanner Darkly), Robert Downey Jr. is lending his vocal talents to Peabody and Sherman for DreamWorks Animation.
The Iron Man star will provide the voice of Mr. Peabody, a genius, talking dog who appeared in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s US television animated series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Peabody (alongside his pet boy, Sherman) appeared in the Peabody’s Improbable History segments of the show, where the duo would travel through time in the WABAC (pronounced “wayback”) machine constructed by Peabody to discover improbable things about history’s greatest figures.
As reported by Entertainment Weekly, this new version (planned for 2014) includes a create team already well-versed in animation, in the form of director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King) and scriptwriters Jeffrey Ventimilia and Joshua Sternin. The duo are TV comedy veterans, having written for both The Simpsons and That ’70s Show, and their latest work for the big screen was writing the new computer-generated 3D version of Yogi Bear.
Peabody and Sherman will also be made in that format, although DreamWorks initially toyed with using a mix of animation and live-action.
