A 'Green Eggs & Ham' Animated Series Is Coming To Netflix & It Sounds SO Good

It may have taken years to actually happen, but the Dr. Seuss classic Green Eggs and Ham is coming to Netflix in the fall in the form of an animated 13-episode series, according to The AV Club, and the premise sounds super intriguing. That's because executive producer Ellen DeGeneres and creator Jared Stern (the screenwriter behind The Lego Batman Movie) have deep-dived into the delightful children's book to flesh out over a dozen adventure-filled episodes, featuring a variety of new characters voiced by celebrities including Tracy Morgan, Diane Keaton, and Michael Douglas.

Netflix shared a brief teaser trailer on YouTube Tuesday, though it didn't actually offer up much in the way of details. According to the Netflix synopsis though, the series will have a much more complicated plot than original story, which essentially just involved a very persistent Sam-I-Am attempting to convince the unnamed protagonist to just try the green eggs and ham already.

For one, that protagonist actually has a name in the Netflix version — he's Guy Am I, according to The AV Club, and he'll be voiced by Michael Douglas. In the series, Guy is a failed inventor down on his luck, who "packs up his invention in a briefcase and resigns to give up on his dreams and become a paint watcher," before a chance meeting with Sam, voiced by actor Adam Devine, changes everything.

The trouble ultimately occurs when Sam and Guy unknowingly switch briefcases — a very concerning problem, given that Sam had previously "[rescued] the rare Chickeraffe from the Glurfsburg Zoo" and hidden it in his briefcase in an attempt to return it to its original island home via "cold air balloon."

Making things even more complicated? As the duo presumably attempt to sort out the mishap, Sam and Guy meet Michellee, who sparks a love connection with Guy, and her daughter, EB, who desperately wants to keep the Chickeraffe as a pet. They also have to contend with "a bounty hunter goat, two bad guys, and a villain," all of whom also appear to want to lay claim to the exotic animal.

On Tuesday's episode of her show, DeGeneres spoke about the upcoming series with Keaton, who provides the voice for Michellee, according to IMDB, and the two discussed the long road to making the Netflix show actually happen. The streaming giant first picked up the show in 2015, according to Deadline, and at the time it was estimated to be the "most expensive animated program ever produced for television."

But addition to a lengthy, three-year production schedule, DeGeneres explained that it was a struggle just to get the rights to create the series. In the end though, it sounds like it'll all be worth it: DeGeneres said on her show, "we've been working on this for four years. It's an animation that no one has done before, it's very, very cool."

Though the creation of the show itself already seemed to take longer than expected — according to Deadline, the series was originally anticipated to premiere in May 2018 — it makes sense that the team behind Green Eggs and Ham would want to take its time.

Though there have already been a number of great Dr. Seuss adaptations in recent years, like The Lorax, and the various incarnations of The Grinch, fans on social media seemed a bit hesitant about the notion of bringing Green Eggs and Ham to the small screen as a series — especially as it's a big departure from the original story:

In any case, we'll still have to wait a little while before we actually have the chance to judge for ourselves. But given that the Dr. Seuss classic still stands as a hit among parents and children alike all these years later? It seems that, at the very least, the Netflix show can count on some seriously nostalgia — not to mention a hefty dose of public curiosity. And hopefully it will live up to the hype.