"Car Talk" Ready for Prime Time: Popular Public Radio Duo Going to TV

Tom and Ray Magliozzi's popular "Car Talk" radio advice show will become an animated situation comedy on PBS television. The public TV network says the show will start out with ten 30-minute episodes that will run starting next summer. The show will "take off where the radio series ends," PBS says.

"Car Talk" Executive Producer Howard K. Grossman calls the brothers "larger-than-life characters" and says the TV show will build on their personalities to focus on their lives and adventures as auto mechanics. The show does not yet have a title, and PBS says viewers will be invited to suggest names for the series.

The animated comedy will be set in Car Talk Plaza, the made-up headquarters of the "Car Talk" radio show in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in the Magliozzis' well-known — and real — Harvard Square garage. There will be colorful fictional characters such as a former Harvard professor turned mechanic, named "Crusty," in addition to the boisterous Magliozzis.

It won't all be fun and games, though, since PBS announced the program will partner with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators for a public safety campaign to run in state motor vehicle agencies and online that features the cartoon Tom and Ray giving safe-driving tips.