Yesterday saw Netflix launch its latest salvo in the ongoing war to snare the minds of children, adapting the beloved—and lucrative, what with all those little figures and games to buy—Skylanders series into a TV series. Now, the streaming service has revealed that it’s luring kids into the thrall of a force even darker than the grim workings of the capitalist machine: heavy metal music.
Loudwire is reporting that Metallica co-founder James Hetfield is one of several performers lined up for Skylanders Academy, which is set to star Justin Long, Ashley Tisdale, Jonathan Banks, and Norm MacDonald as a bunch of toys that you’ll inevitably end up stepping on when you’re half-asleep and desperately in need of coffee. Netflix hasn’t revealed what character Hetfield will be playing, so we’ll just go ahead and make one up, extrapolating from this list of Skylanders character names. Give us a second to look them over…
Jesus, there’s a lot of these things.
Okay! So, given that this is a franchise that features an ambulatory eyeball named Eye-Brawl and a talking power tool called Drill Sergeant, we’re not going to strain our brains too hard coming up with something clever. So let’s say Hetfield will be playing the villainous Hat-Filled, some sort of oh, let’s say… lizard? Yeah, that works, a growly voiced lizard who’s constantly pulling derbies and bowler hats out of his mouth.
Skylanders Academy is set to debut on Netflix in the fall.