Then they probably need to leave Eddie Murphy behind for a more laid-back Danny Glover-style voice artist. I just wonder when the Grape Ape movie is coming out.
It NEEDS to be Garret Morris. He needs a raspier voice more on par with Scatman Crothers, as well as having a cool, calm, yet overly egotistical nature. Not to mention that everyone else is just as oblivious as he is, thinking he's the greatest super hero crime fighter ever. There's quite a bit of 1970's in Phooey, character and show. They need to get that to translate. The one thing that desperately needs to change is the "Ping Pong Fing Fong" type language of his Kung Phooey moves. Other than that, there isn't any room for improvement on the original concept. And Spot needs to be CGI hybrid too. That's where Inspector Gadget failed. They couldn't get Brain to do Brain stuff, and that's roughly half the humor in the show right there. Spot is Phooey's long suffering sidekick that solves the cases that Phooey doesn't by sheer dumb luck alone.
Maybe it's just me, but it does need a touch of Shaft parody to it.
As for Grape Ape... eh... yeah, let's NOT make that a movie. In fact, let's forget that completely.