Comedy Headlines for 10/23/12

What’s happening in the comedy world now…

  • FOX ordered up additional episodes of New Girl and Raising Hope. Those two sitcoms, plus The Mindy Project, now will have 24-episode seasons for 2012-2013.
  • President Barack Obama will visit The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Wednesday (Oct. 24). It’ll be Obama’s fifth appearance on Leno’s show; third since becoming president.
  • Cue the Kurt Cobain rolling in his grave references, because CBS has given a put-pilot commitment to a multi-cam called Smells Like Teen Spirit. Dave Geotsch (The Big Bang Theory) is writer/EP on the project, based on a teen who turns down the Ivy League to launch a billion-dollar company at home instead.
  • Jane Fonda is in business with ABC on the project Now What?, from Abby Gewanter, in which Fonda plays a mom who moves in with her daughter that blogs about her. If you think you’ve seen this sitcom before in the very very recent past, it’s because you have.
  • Vali Chandrasekaran left 30 Rock this year to focus on development, and already has sold two pitches…The Marathon Times, for ABC, is about a small-town guy who hits it big and takes over the family business. An untitled single-cam, for FOX, follows a lawyer in the 1990s who quits his job for a woman. Chandrasekaran is repped by UTA and Management 360.
  • Steve Dildarian (The Life & Times of Tim) has a project set up with a script order at FOX — The Commuters — not to be confused with the recent ABC sitcom offering, The Carpoolers. Why are you already confused? Dildarian is repped by WME.
  • ABC may tap Mark Consuelos for a half-hour about a blue-collar guy and his son who find themselves in a rich, white-collar world. It’s not Suburgatory, because it’s in the city, and it’s a son and not a daughter. Consuelos is repped by CAA.
  • Jake Johnson from New Girl is part of another project at FOX, co-writing The B Team, a single-cam about a group of people without superpowers who decide to become superheroes anyhow. So today’s development deals prove all new ideas are merely old ideas made new, huh? Johnson is repped by UTA and 3 Arts Entertainment.
  • Bret Harrison and Dan Levy are writing a multi-cam for ABC, with Harrison starring in Married With Roommates. Concept is in the title. Harrison is repped by UTA and Management 360; Levy is with UTA and New Wave.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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