Buffett to tutor kids in finance in Web series

Warren Buffett, whose market acumen spurred countless Americans to take their first steps as investors, is taking his insights to the online playground.

The billionaire will tutor tots about finance in an Internet cartoon series scheduled to start this year or early next year, producers A Squared Entertainment and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL said in a statement.

Martha Stewart, model Gisele Bundchen and the late astronomer Carl Sagan will also appear in their own series.

Buffett’s character will host “The Secret Millionaire’s Club,” where kids have adventures in business and learn financial lessons, the companies said. The chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. came up with the idea and title himself, said A Squared Co-President Andy Heyward, who produced movies for Buffett’s annual meetings.

“These are A-plus players,” Heyward said in an interview. “If you’re going to teach somebody, a kid, about financial literacy, who could be better than Warren Buffett?”

The three-to five-minute episodes will be introduced on AOL sites and then carried elsewhere, according to Los Angeles-based A Squared. The new children’s entertainment company is in talks with additional celebrities, Heyward said.

In “Little Martha,” a working title, a 10-year-old Stewart runs an event-planning company from her tricked-out treehouse.

In “Gigi & the Green Team,” Bundchen is a supermodel by day, superhero protector of the environment by night. Sagan’s series “Kosmos” is based on his “Cosmos” television series.

Heyward and his wife, Amy Moynihan, formed A Squared this year. Heyward was CEO of DIC Entertainment Holdings, which created series including Super Mario Brothers, Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears.

Both have worked with Hasbro and McDonald’s, where Moynihan was global head of marketing.