Eddie Murphy just can’t get enough of those goofy animated characters – he’s just signed on to star in alive action/animated remake of Hanna Barbera’s Hong Kong Phooey.

The Shrek and Mulan star will voice Penry, the incompetent kung fu-chopping dog who foils criminals through a mixture of good luck and timely intervention by his sidekick Spot the cat.

However, in the original show Penry was a janitor at the local police station – the fact that he was a dog was apparently neither here nor there to his human colleagues. Needless to say, this will no longer wash – Penry is now being reinvented as an ordinary, mild-mannered dog who “stumbles into a mystic ceremony and is accidentally granted mystic powers, including the ability to walk, talk, and do kung fu”. Just as long as he still changes in that filing cabinet…

Take a look at the tasty early-70s intro, and weep for the future.

Another crappy career move from Murphy? Or might this actually be alright? Let us know below!