Maria Bartiromo, Money Honey -- now for kids?

My children, it must be admitted, love television. As I'm a financial type who works from home, they're often subjected to my TV choices; so they know Maria Bartiromo and Rachael Ray well, much like faraway telegenic aunts.

If a recent trademark filing is any indication, they soon may get to know Maria even better, not as a CNBC reporter (nor as the center of a scandal involving special treatment by Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) bigwig Todd Thomson) but as the cartoon "Money Honey."

No, really! TVNewser was tipped off on the filing, in the name of Bartiromo, Maria for Money Honey to be used for "Entertainment services, namely, an ongoing children's television series; motion picture films; theatrical programs; fan club services; online entertainment services, namely information, interactive games ..." and, of course, more. It's just been filed, on January 16th. I've filed many a trademark application, and in my opinion, this looks as if it was done up in 30 minutes. I'm sure the attorneys at Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz billed a whole hour for it though... No word on whether the resulting show might be live-action or animated.

While I love the concept (it's far prettier than Warren Buffett's animated series, though a little less fun), the timing leaves something to wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder... did Maria file in anticipation of a brou-ha-ha resulting in calls for CNBC to fire her? Had she just discovered that her biggest fan's Sundance deal was going to fall through, and this was the next-best thing? Is it just a complete coincidence?

Like they say on Psych, there's no such thing as coincidence.