Cowboys & Aliens…and kids?

Ummm…what the f*ck?

OK, let me explain. While the above looks like a “Muppet Babies” inspired Saturday Morning TV show based off COWBOYS & ALIENS, that’s only partly true. (Well, it’s true in that that’s what it looks like, but not so true in that that’s not what it is.)

It’s actually a screenshot from an upcoming iPad storybook app for kids called “Cowboys & Aliens: The Kids” that follows “a cowboy kid named Luke, an Indian kid named T.C. and an extraterrestrial kid, Tymm.” They all team up to help stop the alien bad guys from the movie.

The storybook doesn’t have all that much to do with the movie universe (though it is loosely based on some of those ideas) but more of a spinoff of the original graphic novel. Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, who created the original comic series, co-wrote the kids novel and was active in its development.

The app costs $4.99/piece but through a partnership with Starlight Children’s Foundation, $.25 of each sale will go directly to charity.

Whether the app helps bring more kids to the movie theater to watch COWBOYS & ALIENS (which skewed to a much older crowd at theaters this weekend) remains to be seen.