The popular American television channel Comedy Central announced the release Wednesday of an animated satirical show portraying President George W. Bush and his inner circle as a band of mischievous kids.

Lil' Bush relates the fictitious adventures of the current U.S. president, featuring him as a schoolboy, but is set in the real political context of today, except that in the movie, the nation's incumbent Chief Executive is his father, George Bush Sr.

The title character, Lil' George Bush, resides in the White House with his mom and dad and makes mischief with school buddies Lil' Condi, Lil' Cheney, and Lil' Rummy - characters inspired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

To the cartoon's creator, Donick Cary, the White House under George W. Bush resembles a class of rowdy ten-year-olds.

"The politics of Washington are so childish on a basic level that it almost seems like a schoolyard," he told the Channel Guide magazine.

A writer-producer of The Simpsons and Late Show with David Letterman, Cary first created his cartoon about Bush for cell phones.

Lil' Bush has been the most-viewed video on the mobile network since debuting last fall, and Cary looks forward to the cell-to-TV crossover bringing it to a still wider audience.

In an interview with the newspaper San Francisco Chronicle, he argued that Bush's thinking is often simplistic and that although he holds the key to the U.S. "nuclear briefcase," the nation's commander-in-chief experiences emotions more natural for a small child than a mature adult.

"Somehow, this president that we have lends himself to thinking in a simplistic, cartoony fashion," he said. "He's got nuclear weapons and little-kid emotions!"

This point is graphically illustrated in a scene where Lil' George, left unsupervised in the Oval Office, launches nukes at schoolmates Lil' Hillary (Clinton) and Lil' John Kerry.

Comedy Central, which boasts some 91 million subscribers nationwide, said it would be running the show as a series of 12-minute episodes. The first one, to go on air at 10:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, tells about Lil' George's trip to Iraq, where he hopes to find some good news about the war that could cheer up his dad for Father's Day.