‘Harriet the Spy’ Animated Series, Voiced by Beanie Feldstein, Ordered at Apple TV+

Continuing the trend of ’90s TV revivals that have been happening lately, Apple TV+ has ordered a Harriet the Spy animated series. Actress Beanie Feldstein (Booksmart) will voice the young sleuth, per TV Line, with Glee alum Jane Lynch joining her as Harriet’s “larger-than-life no-nonsense nanny.”

The show will be set in 1960s New York and follow Harriet on all-new adventures and mysteries. Additionally, Lacy Chabert (Mean Girls) has also been cast in the series and will voice Marion Hawthorne, the leader of a group of conceited popular girls at Harriet’s school. The new show is being written and executive produced by Will McRobb (The Adventures of Pete & Pete). The Jim Henson Company’s Lisa Henson and Halle Stanford will also executive produce.

It seems the new show will likely be based on the 1960s Harriet the Spy novel series, rather than the 1996 Nickelodeon film of the same name. The movie was a hit with young audiences everywhere and featured a modern version of the adolescent investigator played by Michelle Trachtenberg. Rosie O’Donnell played Harriet’s nanny, Catherine “Ole Golly.” The film was directed by Bronwen Hughes, who would later go on to direct the Sandra Bullock/Ben Affleck rom-com Forces of Nature.

Hughes later spoke about his approach to the adaptation, saying, “Certain things about the ’60s story, especially the relationship between kids and their parents, had to be adjusted to make sense because you don’t have that same kind of formality that you had in the book in the ’60s between parents and kids. So those things needed to be made more natural for the 1990s kids audience. But it was very important to me that the things that really affected Harriet in the book would be the things that really affected Harriet in the movie.”

In 2010, Harriet the Spy was brought back to the screen, in Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars. The film aired on the Disney Channel in the United States, and the main role was played by Jennifer Stone, who was also on Wizards of Waverly Place. Notably, Stone also appeared in 2011s Mean Girls 2, the TV movie sequel to Chabert’s hit film.