Herbie the Love Bug looks set for a return to the screen, with TV Line reporting that Disney XD is currently in development on a new series featuring the iconic anthropomorphic Volkswagen Beetle, which has Travis Braun (Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders) writing and executive producer alongside Tom Burkhard and Matt Dearborn (Even Stevens).
The series will see Herbie joined by Lili or Landon Reed (it’s yet to be decided whether to go for a male or female lead), who is described as “part scientist, part entrepreneur, part daredevil, who realizes, when her/his parents go missing, that they’ve secretly been working on a government project: a talking car named Herbie. Herbie is key to helping the kid reunite with her/his parents, but a gang of criminals also wants to get its paws on the state-of-the-art vehicle.”
Herbie made his first appearance in 1968’s The Love Bug, which was followed by the sequels Herbie Rides Again (1974), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977), Herbie Goes Bananas (1980) and Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), along with the made for TV movie reboot The Love Bug (1997) and a shortlived TV series Herbie, the Love Bug which ran on CBS in 1982.
