Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA has acquired London-based HoHo Entertainment’s preschool series Toad and Friends, which is based on Kenneth Grahame’s kidlit classic The Wind in the Willows.

The CG animated series (52 x 11 minutes) spins new riverside adventures for book characters Mole, Ratty and Toad, focusing on the value of community, friendship and respect. It’s set to launch in 2023 in Warner Bros. Discovery’s Cartoonito block across the EMEA region, as well as on HBO Max’s European service.

Toad and Friends is animated by Scotland’s Wild Child Animation and directed by Tim Searle (Danger Mouse). Creative Scotland and the European Union’s MEDIA program also participated in the show’s development.

More than 85 million copies of The Wind in the Willows have sold in 29 languages since the book was first published in 1908. It has already been adapted several times, most recently in 2006 as a live-action film co-pro between the BBC and CBC in Canada that also aired on PBS’s Masterpiece in the US and on ABC TV in Australia.