Live-Action ‘Powerpuff Girls’ Series Casts ‘Scrubs’ Star Donald Faison as Professor Utonium

Powerpuff cast

The CW’s live-action TV series based on the beloved animated show The Powerpuff Girls has found its Professor Utonium.

Donald Faison, best known for playing the lovable goofball Turk on the sitcom Scrubs, has been cast in Powerpuff, the new title of the live-action series that picks up years after the animated show and details what happens when former kid heroes Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have become “disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime fighting. Will they agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever?”

Variety reports that Donald Faison (Clueless, Remember the Titans) has joined the Powerpuff cast as Professor Drake Utonium – although that’s probably a mistake on Variety’s part, because *pushes up glasses* technically Professor Utonium’s first name was never revealed in the original Powerpuff Girls series. Professor Drake Utonium appeared in an anime called Powerpuff Girls Z, but he’s not the same character. (And just think: my social studies teacher said I’d never amount to anything!)

In any case, this version of the character is described as “quirky, debonair, and a pinch narcissistic. He is a scientific genius who is immensely proud of the three extraordinary girls he created in his lab. Staring down a midlife crisis, he is determined to repair his relationships with his now-adult daughters.”

Oscar winner Diablo Cody (Juno) is writing and executive producing the series alongside Heather Regnier (Veronica Mars, Sleepy Hollow, Falling Skies), and Greg Berlanti, the architect of The CW’s expansive Arrowverse as well as shows like Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, is also on board as an executive producer.

The original series, created by Craig McCracken, aired on Cartoon Network from 1998 until 2005, releasing 78 episodes over six seasons. The show followed three kindergarten-aged girls who live with their father, the aforementioned Professor Utonium. He had attempted to engineer the ideal little girl with a mixture of “sugar, spice, and everything nice,” but as the introduction of the show reveals, Utonium accidentally included a dose of something called Chemical X, which imbued the girls with superhuman abilities like flight, super strength, and more.

It sounds like in this version, the Powerpuff women may resent their father for creating them and encouraging their crime-fighting ways, so Faison might actually have a bit of pathos and drama to play here rather than leaning solely on the comedic skills that made him so memorable to Scrubs fans.

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