A NEW TV series will update Enid Blyton's Famous Five for the 21st Century.

A new Disney series will feature the offspring of the original ginger beer-loving adventurers and their dog.

But the Famous Five's children are now multicultural, their enemies include a fake environmentalist, and they are armed with modern gadgets.

The TV series, Famous Five: On the Case, features 12-year-old Anglo-Indian Jo, whose name is short for Jyoti, a Hindu world meaning light.

Countryside-dwelling Jo is the team leader and like her mother George in the original Famous Five, is a tomboy.

Other characters include Allie, a 12-year-old Californian shopaholic who enjoys going out and getting glammed up but is packed off to the British countryside to her cousins.

Her mother was Anne in the Famous Five, the reluctant adventurer who has now become a successful art dealer.

The Famous Five was first published in 1942 and is a children's classic.

The new animated series was given the seal of approval by Blyton's oldest daughter, Gillian Baverstock, before she died at the age of 76 last year.

The other characters are adventure junkie Max, who is Julian's 13-year-old son, Dylan, the 11-year-old son of Dick, and dog Timmy.

Producers say the characters embark on a series of adventures similar to those experienced by their parents and that the series is faithful to the original Famous Five books but with a contemporary twist.

The children, who wear iPods and use mobile phones, also discover subliminal messages in DVDs to brainwash children into buying Fudgie Fries sweets.

The series launches on May 5 on the Disney Channel.