'Car Talk' Goes Cartoon

"Car Talk" stars Tom and Ray Magliozzi have fielded their share of television offers over the years, but what warmed the brothers to producer Howard Grossman's pitch for "Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns" was the idea that they could appear in a half-hour comedy without actually appearing in it.

So those fits of laughter that make National Public Radio's popular "Car Talk" sound more like a stand-up comedy routine than a car repair call-in show would be coming out of the two-dimensional bodies of cartoon characters.

Grossman's take on a series using animation "got their attention by seeing the brothers as they see themselves, which are these characters bigger than life and who don't take themselves all that seriously," said "Car Talk" producer Doug Berman.

"As the Wrench Turns" is an animated series for grown-ups, a humorous take on the lives one might imagine the brothers living after the radio show goes black.

In each episode, the brothers confront issues that play out with the help of supporting characters such as a nattily dressed mechanic, a former Harvard professor named Crusty who works at the garage and a producer named Beth Totenbag.

Fans of "Car Talk" need not worry about a bumpy ride to animation. Tom and Ray's signature self-deprecating shtick is still present, as is their quest to get something done with as little effort as possible while laughing like a pair of hyenas at their own jokes.

As a bonus, "Wrench" offers edgy story lines touching on issues such as global warming, globalization and outsourcing. An episode about the environment has the brothers building the first ever pasta-powered vehicle.

In another episode, the brothers jointly run for president in the hopes of earning federal matching funds to keep their show on the air after pledges for the program come up on the low side.

Much the way the Magliozzis take potshots at NPR on the radio show, they now take jabs at PBS.

"They're truth-tellers," said Berman, a political enthusiast who also produces NPR's "Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!"

"If there's anything newsworthy or political, yeah, that's my push," Berman said. "But telling it like it is is part of their personalities."

Grossman said he brought the idea to Berman about seven years ago. He shopped the concept to a number of networks before settling on PBS.