Your morning bowl of Froot Loops is about to taste even sweeter: Amy Poehler is coming to Nickelodeon's Saturday morning cartoon lineup. Now instead of waiting until 11:35 p.m. for your weekly dose of Poehler, you can have a colorful, animated version of Amy, bright and early, beginning this weekend.

Poehler’s new gig is the voice of Bessie Higgenbottom, a lovably annoying 9-and-¾-year-old with a substantial lisp and an overactive imagination, in The Mighty B!

Your basic run-of-the-mill hyperactive youngster, Bessie is a devout and loyal member of the Honey Bee Scouts (think Brownies or Girl Scouts) with an obsession for earning Bee badges. She has a can-do (albeit extreme) optimism that will hopefully rub off on the young girls who watch the show, teaching them that girls can do anything.

When I was a young tot, female cartoon leading ladies were few and far between. Sure, we had some 'toons to look up to: The ever cheerful Rainbow Brite immediately comes to mind, and I would be remiss if I did not mention the "truly outrageous" Jem, but they were such, well … do-gooders that it made them kind of stale. We never had a Dennis the Menace or a Bart Simpson; we had Wilma, Betty and Thelma, and let’s face it: They never got the roles or the dialogue they deserved, so I cannot in good consciousness credit them with knocking down any barriers for the women's cartoon movement. I think it’s long overdue that an animated character like this one has come around. Bessie is the feisty and funny cartoon we have been aching to see. … continue reading