by What’s happening in the comedy world now…
- FOX shut down production on Ben & Kate over the weekend. The network earlier last week announced it had pulled the rookie sitcom from the primetime schedule. Thirteen episodes aired.
- HBO has renewed Lena Dunham’s Girls for a third season, as previously reported by Dunham herself.
- Baba Booey! Gary Dell’abate gets his own VH1 show. For what it’s worth, he’ll be hosting VH1 Classic’s For What It’s Worth, debuting on Feb. 21 with fellow host Jon Hein. They’ll appraise pop-culture items.
- CBS continues liking celebrity prank shows. From LMNO Productions, who have made hidden-camera celebrity pranking shows for CBS such as I Get That A Lot, comes Metta World Pranks from the NBA player currently calling himself Metta World Peace. We’ve previously written about Ron Artest becoming a comedian when he’s not a professional basketball player.
- Si Entertainment has bought rights to Majumder Manor, the eight-episode reality series that follows comedian Shaun Majumder back to his native Newfoundland and Labrador to build an eco-friendly place.
- Upload with Shaquille O’Neal will debut Thursday, Feb. 21, on TruTV. Shaq and co-hosts Gary Owen and Godfrey both talk about online videos and make their own. Take that, Tosh.
- ABC liked Mat Damon’s takeover of Jimmy Kimmel Live so much last week, the network will rebroadcast it again, in primetime Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern/Pacific.
- QED International has acquired international distribution rights to Toy’s House, directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts and premiered at Sundance. CBS Films bought domestic rights. The film follows three teenage boys as they head into the wilderness with a plan to build a house and live off the land. The film marks Vogt-Roberts’s directorial debut, and stars Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moises Arias, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Alison Brie, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Erin Moriarty, Marc Evan Jackson, Thomas Middleditch and Tony Hale.
- Also at Sundance, Lake Bell picked up the film festival’s screenwriting award for her film, In A World, while Jill Soloway won directing honors for Afternoon Delight.
Pilot orders:
- ABC: Spy, a single-cam adapted by Simeon Goulden from his Sky1 series in the U.K., is about a guy who goes to unusual lengths to prove he is a great father. And an untitled single-cam may star James Caan as father of a divorced single mother who moves back in and coaches her son’s Little League.
- NBC: Untitled single-cam from Jeff Daniels starring Craig Robinson as a musician who becomes a middle-school music teacher; a semi-autobiographical multi-cam from John Mulaney and produced by Lorne Michaels; Undateable, a multi-cam from Bill Lawrence based on the book Undateable: 311 Things Guys Do That Guarantee They Won’t Be Dating Or Having Sex, by Ellen Rakieten & Anne Coyle; and single-cam Welcome To The Family, from Mike Sikowitz, on two families (one white, one Latino) who bond when their kids have a kid.
- FOX: Enlisted, a single-cam about three brothers on a Florida Army base, based on Cougar Town co-creator Kevin Biegel’s own life and siblings, with Mike Royce attached; Two Wrongs, about star-crossed lovers, from Michelle Morgan.
- HBO: Togetherness, from Mark and Jay Duplass, on two couples living together who struggle to keep their relationships alive while pursuing their individual dreams.
- FX: Untitled half-hour from Andrew Gurland about a married man allowed to have a mistress for the sake of the marriage?
- CBS: Half-hour single-cam adaptation of the movie Bad Teacher, from Hilary Winston and the screenwriters Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.
